Email us!
Lowell Area Bloggers/Forums
Lowell Politics
Mass Bloggers
- - Leftyblogs MA Blogroll - Almost all of my favorite lefty blogs in Massachusetts can be found here. Linking here keeps my own blogroll short but still up to date! Below are some other MA blogs which are not listed at LB.
- H2Otown (Watertown, MA)
- MargeBLOG (Williamstown)
- Michael Forbes Wilcox (Western MA)
- The Gazebo (Worcester area)
Media in Lowell
- Community Connections The online archive of many of WUML's radio shows.
- LTC :: Our community cable access channel (8 & 10). Excellent people, I've worked with them before.
- Open Source :: Chris Lydon's new show, broadcast on WUML and WGBH locally.
- The Lowell Sun :: Love it or hate it, it's the big newspaper in town.
- WCAP radio :: Talk radio in Lowell - still locally owned, and in transition.
- WUML :: The student- and community-run radio station of UMass-Lowell. Lynne hosts a radio show, Thinking Out Loud, 10am on Fridays.
Media in MA
Other Daily Reads
Politics Online
- City Council Agenda Past City Council agendas, posted in a mostly timely manner
- Lowellma.gov Official city website
Progressive Local Orgs
Snark and politics
The Arts in Lowell
- 119 Gallery - Art gallery with exhibitions of many local artists, interesting events, and living, breathing culture.
- Arts League of Lowell (ALL) - Artist community group, a recent but welcome addition to the arts scene in Lowell.
- Brush Art Gallery - Come and meet working artists in their natural habitats!
- Cultural Organization of Lowell (COOL) - Great local calendar of events.
- Lowell Opera Company - Community opera.
- Lowell Philharmonic Orchestra - Local community orchestra.
- Lowell Poetry Network
- Lowell Rocks - List of live music events
- Merrimack Repertory Theatre - A local theatre "presenting an exciting mix of contemporary and new plays in historic downtown Lowell."
- OUtlET - Paper and online 'zine making a splash locally with events in art, poetry, music, and everything in between!
- Revolving Museum Contemporary, local, public art space with a plethora of children's programs and art by and for the community.
- The Fine Print - Socially aware, themed, arts and issues periodic publication available throughout Lowell.
- The Image Theater - Theatre company which puts on all original works by local playwrights.
- Whistler House Museum - A great collection of contemporaries of Whistler at his historic birthplace.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Wish they would post how grants that were given out met the criteria:
There are five major areas considered by council members in evaluating each grant application: 1) quality of project, 2) community benefit, 3) budget and funding, 4) planning, and 5) leadership
A description would be helpful with each grant. Is this the only site with info. for the public about the grants?
http://www.mass-culture.org/lcc_public_about.asp?coun_enum=151#grants
I am not judging the quality of the art, but it would be nice to know why some of the artists work (that are not from Lowell) have a community benefit.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Does this mean that the grant process in Lowell is a crony exercise? I wouldn’t be applying for these grants anyway (I’m not good enough yet, I think) but now I’m not sure I’d bother. I mean, I wouldn’t want to do all that work and have it come down to the fact that I’m not friends with the right people or that I am friends with the wrong ones.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Truth be told, for me, my focus has not been on this area of government fund disbursement
It should be noted that many of the “players” in this community have a great deal of education, surprisingly in the areas of Planning, Marketing, etc..
This area does deserve disussion, particularly when it comes to the expenditure of public funds, as we do focus on many aspects of public spening (or at least, try to). We all want to know how public funds are spent and assure that they that they are spent wisely. With guidelines and benchmarks (like every other entity that is receipt of public funds) it shouldn’t be a problem to come up with the numbers to support the dollars spent.
kpem, I wonder if some of those in receipt of funds who are not from Lowell, if they do teach art classes to Lowell kids? ( I don’t know..).But then my next question is, are the funds disbursed regionally?
Truth be told, while the funds are allocated to “Lowell”. Lowell serves as the service region? I would like to know the answer to that? (for my own FYI).
Don’t get me wrong, I support the artists in the reality that they are an economic source and also as a consumer of their product.
Was over at WAS last weekend (purchased a few xmas items and plan on being back at the end of the month.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:01 am
To k-r-s it’s great that you are a supporter of the arts and a purchaser of art but WAS is not the only game in town of Lowell and when you look at what seems to be the disproportionate amout of grants that are given to the artist at WAS, the organization at WAS and the owner and or his business partners well it seriously begs the question… what’s going on here? I have been told twice now by other artists who have been here in town longer than I : don’t waste your time if your not a friend of, as the sun has quoted, “you know who” and or of “you know who’s” friends on the board. I don’t know her yet nor am I her friend or enemy but why should I have to be. Is it naive, my inexperience in the art of politics to think that this be a transparent process fairly carried out?
September 12th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I’ll be honest: I think this process is going to be in good hands going forward.
No, it’s not too much to ask to have a process of giving out government grants be a transparent process. Also, that it be a process that thinks about more than “what’s good for the artists” or “what’s good for this or that group of artists” but “what will advance the cultural agenda of the city” and “what will yield the best economic results for both artists but also for Lowell’s revitalization plans?”. The latter actually being the important one.
Like, for instance, an application by a local gallery might include trying to have a show with a renowned outside artist. Someone who would attract people from outside the city to come to Lowell. This has both the immediate economic affect (people coming in and buying, both art and other things such as meals) but it also has a larger, harder to measure effect of putting Lowell on the New England art map. That has a cumulative effect on Lowell’s ability to draw in tourists - for such events, AND for events featuring local artists! But we’ll never get there if we think small.
With a set of guidelines that says the economic best interest of the city is one of the largest determinations of the receipt of grant money, this sort of grant would be very appropriate. But if the guidelines are only determined by local artists, I fear such a focus would be impossible. I mean if I were a local artist looking to sell work (I’m not, I don’t really do much art), I’d consider that something of a threat (at least, if I were not thinking big). Even though in the long run it might benefit me, I might want to kibosh that concept because I think it’ll hurt my own sales.
Well, we shouldn’t let oil companies dictate our energy policy (Bush administration notwithstanding). We shouldn’t want our pharmaceutical companies dictating the rules at the FDA (again, Bush as example). So why would you solely want to rely on the population which is receiving the government’s largess in the arts to tell you what is and is not a good place for the city to invest its cultural grant money?