Inspired

Arlington resident and photographer Maria Fonseca, was born in Dorchester, MA. Trained as an anthropologist, Fonseca’s curiosity about other cultures inspired her to travel widely in France, Africa, and the Caribbean. She always wanted to go to Cuba, as she’d never been to a communist country and, as an anthropologist, the country and its dance traditions fascinated her.

Fonseca’s adventurous spirit manifested early; in her college years, she was part of a group of undergraduates who worked with their hands helping to build houses and other structures in Ghana. Her undergraduate education was at Barnard College of Columbia University in NYC. She earned her Masters at University of California – Berkeley. As a single parent, her desire to live closer to her family prompted her to move back to the Boston area.

The unofficial photographer for her family, Fonseca wanted to take her skills farther as a professional photographer. To that end, she took classes at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University and the New England School of Photography, which are no longer in operation. In addition, Fonseca connected with photographers online and attended conferences and Meetup groups.

Her appreciation of beauty, whether in human or other forms, is deep. In California on one occasion, she was looking at seals and wildflowers from her window and was moved to tears by the loveliness of the scene. She says, “Beauty in any form can move me to tears.”

Not a dancer herself, she is nonetheless a dance aficionada. She enjoys varied types of dance, including modern, contemporary, and performances by the Boston Ballet. Dance, travel to explore new cultures, and the perspectives of anthropologist and photographer came together during three trips to Cuba. She was enchanted by the architecture and street life of an island that seems frozen in time, a place where decay, poverty and hardship are interwoven with restoration, vitality, and a vibrant arts scene. Although dance is her primary focus, she hopes to return to continue to photograph “the many mysteries and contradictions” she found in Cuban daily life.

She used both a Nikon D610 and a mirrorless Nikon Z6 camera to capture and convey the colors, drama, and flexible grace of the human form in Afro Cuban dancers. As well as the Afro Cuban dancers, on group trips, Fonseca photographed dancers in the modern, ballet, and flamenco traditions.

Fonseca is also a portrait photographer. She is currently working on a photography exhibition of women and their stories, titled “40 over 40.” She works to convey to her modest subjects the beauty that she sees in them.

Fonseca recently discovered the Black Joy Project—an Arlington initiative to build community among Black residents of the town -— during a group field trip to Ekua Holmes’ art studio in Allston for a workshop and conversation. Fonseca was impressed that this celebrated artist was down-to-earth and welcoming; she enjoyed a creative afternoon connecting with other participants and was inspired by Holmes’ prompts to experiment with collage.

You can see examples of Maria Fonseca’s work at www.mariafonseca.me and at www.mariafonsecaphotography.com

Born in Georgia and brought up in Wisconsin, Larry Terry is an Arlington musician and artist whose work will be on view from June 5 through August 28, 2023 at Roasted Granola in Arlington Heights.

Like many people, Larry began drawing as a child. But it wasn’t until he had young children and began making art with them that he started to draw as an adult. He says the inspiration for his art can be as simple as two lines, or a shape or color, nature or outer space or a vision of a microscopic world; really, “any ideas in my own imagination.”

Terry was drawn to create in oil pastels because of their versatility and the colors and textures they can create. “You can even use oil pastels wet,” Terry explains.

As a musician, Terry’s main instrument is the saxophone but he also plays percussion and sings. He notes that some of the most important events in his career were meeting some of his idols: the R&B and jazz legends Al Jarreau, Phil Collins, Miles Davis, and David Sanborn. Some of the major influences for his music are Prince, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Kenny Garrett, Grover Washington, and Stevie Wonder.

During the pandemic, Terry was no longer able to “play out”—perform live at clubs, functions and gatherings. Missing music, he drew almost every day, wanting a meditative art practice as a way to remain creative and express himself. Now that the world has opened back up, performing keeps him busy. He has enjoyed working collaboratively again and reconnecting with other players—including Dan Fox, founder of the Arlington Jazz Festival.

He played in school bands from the time he was about eight or nine years old, and took private lessons from Curt Hanrahan from the fifth grade through the twelfth grade. He attended the Berkeley School of Music in Boston from 1986 – 1991.

Afterwards, while living in Cambridge, he drove along Massachusetts Avenue and came upon Spy Pond and Menotomy Rocks Park. He realized that Arlington would be the perfect place to bring up his children -— where nature and greenspace are a part of daily life — and moved here.

Terry plays with color, texture, pattern, and rhythm in both his abstract art and his music. For him, art and music making share the same improvisational process -— only one is realized in the visual, the other in the audible. “What I’d play on the saxophone, I draw on paper,” he says.

TJ Reynolds is a true renaissance man: musician, artist, and writer. A product of the Indianapolis public school system, he realized early on that he wanted to teach, and has combined teaching and producing his own work with his interest in social and political activism.

As an educator, TJ has worked across the country teaching everything from Visual Art to Hip-Hop Poetry. As a musician, he’s performed and taught African drumming and recorded numerous Rap and Hip Hop compositions. As a visual artist and writer, some of his more recent projects explore the connections between the Black and Jewish communities. TJ is Black and his son’s mother Jewish; his interest in Jewish culture was inspired by his son’s experience with Hebrew school and Bar Mitzvah and has shaped much of his recent work.

While doing a Hip-Hop residency at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, rapping freestyle at the Jacob Lawrence exhibition in response to that artist’s work, someone suggested that he apply for a “Brighter Connected” grant; in 2020, he was selected as one of 8 artists to create installations in local storefront windows through this initiative funded by the Jewish Arts Collaborative and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. TJ chose to create an installation at Dorchester’s Freedom House, a community-based non-profit that inspires and encourages Black, Brown, and immigrant students to graduate high school and college. His “Brighter Connected” project addressed the theme of Chanukah and light with glowing portraits illuminated from behind and visible from the street.

For Brighter Connected, he created 3 translucent black-and-white portraits of people of African descent. But rather than depicting celebrities, he chose to draw people who were unsung heroes in the community. He also wanted to explore the intersection of blackness and Judaism, so he invited a group of Black and Jewish teens to help him to decide whom to portray. It struck him that they hadn’t had a chance to talk about their experience of being both black and Jewish. In the words of one teen:

One person chosen as a portrait subject was the late Boston sculptor Fern Cunningham-Terry, who created a sculpture of a mother holding her child and reaching back toward Freedom House. That piece was destroyed during the riots following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, and in the “Brighter Connected” exhibition the sculptor’s portrait looked down at the still bare podium. “Although her sculpture’s no longer there,” the artist says, “her spirit is.”

In spring of 2003 the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center presented TJ’s solo exhibition, “Black and Jewish: An Intersection of Identities.” Two portraits on display at Arlington Town Hall – his nephew Ansa and neice Serwaa – were created for this show. It consisted of interviews he conducted, portraits of the artists involved, and poems he wrote or commissioned from poets of color that were read at the opening. He discovered that there were many ways Black people found themselves in relationship with Judaism. One person found Judaism through college religion courses after gravitating to a faith that made intellectual and spiritual sense for them. Others were born into the community and participated in Judaism as part of growing up, sometimes experiencing being “othered” and at other times being welcomed. According to the artist, “The medium of poetry was an excellent way for each exhibition participant to search for their emotional truth.”

This summer TJ and his sister took a trip to Puerto Rico to visit his mother’s family. His next project is to create portraits of his extended family and local people and to explore new stylistic approaches to the work, using techniques different than the black-and-white style he adopted for the “Brighter Connected” project. TJ Reynolds is an artist who continues to explore and expand his creative vision.

For more information:
TJ’s artist website: TJReynolds.net
TJ’s video about the Brighter Connected project
Recordings of poetry and music from Black and Jewish: An Intersection of Identities – his 2023 solo exhibition at Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, including songs written to accompany the portraits of Serwaa and Ansa included in the Inspired exhibition at Arlington Town Hall: