The Art Colony

Amy Kandall and The Truro Clay Works

Robert Motherwell in Provincetown with Lise Motherwell

The Artist and The Sail Loft with Elspeth Slayter

This week, we welcome artist Steven Wells, who grew up in Truro and describes the privilege and “magic” of Provincetown, its community, light, and energy. He discusses a supportive, tool-filled upbringing influenced by his father’s blacksmithing and biochar work, his siblings’ creative paths, and his own wide-ranging practice (woodworking, leatherworking, ceramics, metalwork) that feeds into painting. He recounts studying through 4Cs and PAAM programs, early street-art influences, and learning how to be an artist through mentors and framing work, leading to Pilgrim Framing (founded 2012). Wells explains running a working studio in the MacMillan Pier trap sheds, balancing art-making with constant tourist interaction, and developing his bright, vibrating Provincetown landscapes and night scenes. He also covers teaching oil-painting workshops at PAAM, traveling to Ireland with artists for Beltane-related festivals, and shares where to find his work and contact info (Instagram “Subjective Steve,” studioprovincetown.com).

This week, we interviewed playwright Joe Paprzycki about Eugene O’Neill’s life and formative Provincetown years. Paprzycki describes his own work and the Truro Playwright Collective’s free winter play readings at the Truro Public Library, then traces O’Neill from his 1888 birth, theater-filled childhood, Catholic schooling, and expulsion from Princeton to his seafaring years and arrival in Provincetown in 1916. With the Provincetown Players (Susan Glaspell, Jig Cook, Mary Heaton Vorse and others), O’Neill’s “Bound East for Cardiff” premiered at the Lewis Wharf fish house theater, gaining acclaim. O’Neill wrote prolifically, lived above the A-House, later had a Peaked Hill lifesaving-station home that fell to erosion, and left for California after marrying Carlotta in 1929. The conversation covers O’Neill’s sea influence, “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” family tragedies, the rediscovered “Exorcism,” and Paprzycki's play “Players on the Harbor.”

This week, we interviewed costume designer and performer Eric Auger, who describes growing up in rural Burrillville, Rhode Island in an artistic family, early homemade Halloween costumes, and formative painting lessons that fueled his imagination. After earning a BFA in photography/graphic design and working in visual merchandising, he was inspired by street performers in Montreal and began performing as living statues at Providence’s WaterFire, launching 1031 Productions (“We make pretend”), which provides living art and themed entertainment worldwide. Now a Provincetown resident, Auger performs on Commercial Street in elaborate characters (including Count Orlok, Beetlejuice, Count von Count, Borg, Penguin, White Walker, Krampus) and played Jacob Marley at the Provincetown Theater. He also DJs on WOMR with “The Reminiscence Bump,” discusses costume fabrication materials and process, and previews possible Halloween street performances.

This week, we interviewed artist Paul Rizzo, a year-round resident and “process painter” known for a distinctive personal style and unmistakable work. Rizzo recounts growing up in Marshfield, studying painting at MassArt, formative childhood art classes, a semester in Pont-Aven, France during his father’s sudden death, and moving to Provincetown (first summer 2011, year-round 2012). He describes early jobs (houseboy at the Gallery Inn, selling paintings on the street), a two-year move to New Orleans (museum job, then Rawhide), and returning around 2016. He discusses working/showing at Patty DeLuca Gallery and 411 Gallery (annual shows, now living above it), his sketchbooks as public-facing art, recurring themes (self-portraits, dream houses, Muppets, text, rainbows, vintage gay porn references, fabric), and upcoming Queer Zine Fair in NYC on Oct. 3 at the LGBTQ Center.

The amazingly talented Qya Cristál joins us this week on The Art Colony podcast! Qya describes early musical roots singing Whitney Houston at age three, performing in an adult church choir, growing up in Missouri with a musician father, and being inspired by her polished, powerful grandmother. She discusses a strict Southern Baptist upbringing, coming out, evolving identity exploration, and rebuilding family ties. Qya explains starting drag while working at Hershey Park, creating the name Qya, and launching in Boston through a live-singing performance of “I’m Every Woman.” She details mentorship and drag family with Sapphira Cristál and Lakeia Mondale, sobriety, Provincetown’s housing challenges, and her career there, including the live-singing trio show DIVA, solo gigs, and seasonal work in Puerto Vallarta.

This week, we welcome Provincetown artist Midge Battelle to The Art Colony after buying her painting at her solo show at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (on view until Oct. 25). Battelle, a working-class Worcester native who first came to Provincetown in 1966, describes her path from cooking and gallery work (with Hilda Neely and at the Schoolhouse complex) to earning a BFA in Photography at MassArt and later becoming a painter. She discusses documenting the 1990s Dyke Drag Brunch during Women’s Week, her long friendship with artist Pasquale Natal, and her pale, grid-based paintings shaped by color theory, including “Lady Slipper” and “Rivotorto,” inspired by St. Francis. Battelle explains cyanotypes—especially wet cyanotypes—her sun-based process, and future plans for new small grid paintings and Sunday studio visits via email.

This week, we welcome poet Jeffrey Berg to The Art Colony podcast to  discuss Provincetown’s poetry community. He shares his background (born 1980, raised in South Carolina and Virginia, studied at VCU, earned an NYU MFA, lived in New York since 2004, and has spent summers in Provincetown since 2023 with his husband Colin) and describes his poetry as rooted in memory, popular culture, film, music, and time shifts, with Provincetown drawing him more toward the natural world. He reads poems including “Peace Train,” “The Almighty,” and “Pool Party,” and discusses his book Reanimator, persona poems, and balancing nostalgia with cynicism, including reexamining sheltered childhood and the AIDS crisis. They talk about approaching poetry, reading aloud, local writing groups and FAWC, Jeffery's WAMR disco/dance show Mirrorball, his publishing job and film criticism, and end with a light speed round and poet recommendations.