Contributors of Berkshire Fine Arts
Zeren Earls, a travel writer, is a native of Turkey, who came to the United States in the late 50s for her college education. She studied psychology at Duke University, where she met her late husband, composer/media artist Paul Earls. Her immersion in the art world through her husband while a fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, led to her involvement in First Night in 1976. She was among the initial organizers of the Boston event and became its director in 1980. Pursuant to the event's major growth under her direction, she moved on to found First Night International in 1994. After assisting many communities in the US and abroad in initiating the First Night Celebration, she retired in 2002. Since then she has turned to adventure traveling and writing. Each year she travels to a country that is culturally new to her, China, Egypt, India, Morocco and Vietnam to name a few. In addition to her travels she has been writing her life story.
Mark Favermann, architecture, design, film and theatre critic/ associate editor, is an urban designer and public artist who over the past two decades has written extensively on art and design. A former Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, he was the first leader of the Boston Visual Artists Union (BVAU), the 1970's Boston activist artists organization, served as the former Director of Visual and Environmental Arts for the City of Boston and has been an adjunct professor at several universities. He was a columnist and/or editor for a large number of prominent publications. His own design work has included creating the award-winning marquee for the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, designing the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, creating the look for the 2000 NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis and the 1999 Ryder Cup as well as the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. For the past eight seasons, he has been a design consultant to the Boston Red Sox. His 2005 public art commission, The Birds of Audubon Circle, was nominated by the Boston Art Commission as one of the best pieces of public art in America. In the Fall of 2007, his Recognition Gateway sculpture was installed in South Brookline.
Charles Giuliano, publisher/ editor. Was the director of exhibitions for the New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University where he taught art history and the humanities. He taughtModern Art and the Avant-garde for Metropolitan College of Boston University. After many years as a contributor, collumnist and editor for a range of print publications from Art New England, Art News, the Boston Phoenix, the Boston Herald Traveler and Patriot Ledger, to mention a few, he went on line with Maverick Arts which evolved into a website and also contributes to the website Big Red and Shiny.
Astrid Hiemer, a cultural critic and writer, grew up after WW II in Hamburg, Germany, and emigrated to the United States in the 1960s. She was formerly the assistant director (Administrative Officer) of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT under Otto Piene, with whom she has worked in the past several years editing, translating, and shaping a book of essays about his life and career. While at the Center she knew and worked with many multi media artists. In addition to professional work as an editor and translator she also is a diarist, poet, and writer of fiction.
Shawn Hill has been writing about art in the Boston
area since 1990. Currently he is an instructor in Art
History at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA.
His focus is on 20th century art and the history of
photography.
Michael Miller, who writes on classical music and the fine arts, is an art historian with a particular interest in Old Master drawings, his specialty when, at an earlier time, he worked for the Cleveland Museum of Art. Although he has a life long passion for classical music it was only during the summer of 2006 that he began to publish as a music critic.
Larry Murray says he is retired. But we threatened him with exile to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede Dinner and Show in Branson, Missouri (considered the Bentonville of the entertainment business) in order to get a few thousand words from him. He settled in North Adams in 2002 after years of being active in the Boston arts scene. One of the founders of ARTS/Boston and Bostix, inventor of ARTS/Mail, he was its executive director in the 80's. He worked with Boston's Mayor Ray Flynn to save old theaters and create a Midtown Cultural District. He also broke attendance records when he did marketing for the Boston Ballet and Boston Symphony, and has raised immense amounts of funds for other arts organizations. Unfortunately, he says, this money often quickly disappeared, especially when he worked with Sarah Caldwell and Peter Gelb. His one moment in the sun he claims is when he was named "Entertainer of the Year" in 1989 by New England Entertainment Digest, a tribute that has puzzled him ever since. He now serves as an associate editor of Berkshirefinearts.
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Szabolcs Mosonyi joins us as a contributor from the heart of Central Europe. Obsessed with travel, languages and an insatiable wanderlust it has taken him to more than seventy countries on four continents. He is still happy to call Budapest, Hungary home. When not on the road, Szabolcs writes, translates and teaches business English. He is working on a graduate degree to qualify as a Simultaneous Interpreter at European Union conferences.A passion for travel is shared by his fianc�e Andrea who is a competitive ballroom dancer.
Dr. Yuri Tuvim, word/ travel contributor, was born in Russia in 1930. He came to the US in 1976, and worked 25 years for Waters Corp. (Liquid Chromatography company) as Principal Engineer. During the Cold War he was a radio talk show host, commentator (WEEI & WTTP), lecturer (The Heritage Foundation & The Productivity Communication Center) and writer (USA today). He is retired and lives in Annisquam, Mass. with his wife and daughter the second of two children.