Submitted by Kiirja Paananen, on behalf of the Umbrella Community Arts Center
When Sing Hanson retired from working at the Boston Children’s Museum 14 years ago, she was cruising around the area near her Bedford home and found the building that houses the Umbrella. Curious, she went in to find out what was within the old school that had been turned into a center for the visual arts. She walked the halls and happened upon the studio occupied by Jeannie Kershaw.
“Jeannie said ‘Come in!’” Sing remembers, “She was a spirit. She had an inner charge.”
The two struck up a conversation and hit it off right away. She found out that one of the studios was available as a sublet.
“Jeannie said to me ‘You come here, this will be good for you. Stick with me kid! I’ll take care of you.'”
Sing sublet that studio and several others until her number came up and she got her own digs. She is still here, in a different studio that she shares companionably with Max Payne, a mixed media artist.
“I feel artistically safe here, it’s a congenial and supportive environment.” Signe’s comfort extends to her visitors as she gives a warm welcome to the studio.
Though her given name is Signe, everyone has always called her “Sing”. She grew up in the Midwest, spending her summers at various art day camps. When they moved east, her father brought her to classes at Rhode Island School of Design, where she had the opportunity to experience many different types of art. She found herself drawn to photography and was given a small Brownie camera and restricted to no more than five expensive rolls of film a week plus processing at the drugstore. She was hooked.
A chance meeting in the summer of 1954 at Camp Winnemont on Lake Ossipee, NH, changed the possibilities of photography for her, and not many years later, millions of people.
“A fellow camper there was Jennifer Land, Edwin Land’s daughter. One day he came to visit. He said ‘Would you like to see something?’ and he brought out a camera. He let me take two pictures and keep them. I called home and told my mother about it. My mother, incredulous, said ‘Are you sure this happened right away?’ It was a wonderful moment. Here was this magic device that provided the kind of instant gratification that’s now provided in the digital world.”
As a teen Sing loved working in the darkroom, sharing a common darkroom in her Saturday art classes. “It was exciting and magical. You didn’t know exactly what you were going to get until you drew the paper out of the bath.”
When the digital photography revolution replaced the darkroom with computer processing of files, Sing moved with it, and took computer courses. “Though I miss the anticipation and surprise of working in a darkroom now, I don’t miss working with the dangerous chemicals.”
Much of Signe’s professional life was spent working at the Boston Children’s Museum, a place where she was encouraged to grow as a professional, while developing new approaches to teaching children.
“When I finished art school, I went to the Director of the Exhibitions Shop at the Museum of Fine Arts, Duncan Smith, and asked for a job. He said no, but he sent me to see his neighbor who turned out to be Michael Spock, the Director of the Boston Children’s Museum and the son of Benjamin Spock the noted baby doctor. Mike said he would be happy to talk to me and to bring my portfolio. I went to the interview on the subway, but because I was so nervous, I forgot my portfolio on the subway. Mike was very kind and hired me anyway. I never did find my portfolio.”
“Mike is an outstanding person, and he was dyslexic, at a time when no one really understood what that was. So he was very interested in studying the various ways people learn, not just what they learn but how and why.”
Because of Michael’s unique background, they researched the many different ways in which children learn, how we can use all the senses to learn.
“It became clear,” Sing says, “that art is critical to everyone’s life, because you can learn so many other things through experiencing it, either as a maker, an enthusiast or a supporter.”
She spent many years at the Boston Children’s Museum, starting in 1967 as a Graphic Designer, then as an Exhibit Designer and eventually as Director of Exhibitions, a post that afforded her the opportunity to travel the world, including Egypt, Japan, Korea and Mexico. She also worked a consultant to other museums, and spent two family sabbaticals living in Norway. When she retired in 2001 and began to make her own work, she started looking for a studio she could call her own.
At the Umbrella, Signe works with staff and other residents to plan and hang exhibits in the building. She loves exchanging ideas with the other artists in the Varsity Hangers group.
“It’s a good place to ask other people to think about things with you,” she says. Her own work reflects her background in painting and mixed media. One series of works shows pools of abstract colors, which at first appear to be splashes and dabs of paint, but upon closer examination are in fact macro (close up) shots of distressed metals that have revealed their tempered colors, produced through oxidation or the high heat of fires. Another series of photos, assembled into a handmade accordion book, are still lives of a sort: found objects and plant materials assembled in an open container or bowl and photographed from directly above, inviting the eye to explore line, form and texture.
One of Sing’s current projects is a program that connects artists to local farms. Her assigned farm, First Root Farm, (https://www.firstrootfarm.com/) sits on 4.5 acres of historic farmland in Minute Man National Historical Park where several young people in their twenties are connecting people to the joys of working the earth, while bringing organic produce to the local market. She has started a series of photos of the farm’s staff working around the farm, fixing the tractor, picking and carrying the produce, and she is working on another series that features the farm’s products artistically arranged in favored containers. “We’ve got a shared understanding about this being a community. It’s something that is in the air here.”
For Sing, the Umbrella is an integral weave in the fabric of her life. Her welcoming smile and excitement about everything around her – “Let me show you this!” – draw you in and soon you are also part of a rare and rich environment.
“It’s been a good place for me. It is home. It’s a place where you can be yourself. People share expertise, experiences. They share families. It’s a very comfortable place to be.
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Kiirja Paananen, a writer and web content manager, grew up in Concord. She has a degree Comparative Literature from UMass, including work in Digital Culture and Contemporary Communications.
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About the Umbrella Community Arts Center in Concord
The Umbrella enriches lives and builds a vibrant community through the arts. As a community arts center, it inspires creativity, learning, and personal growth through education, performing and visual arts, cultural events, and community collaborations. Each year its programs engage, excite, and educate people of all ages – from toddlers to seniors – in the arts. The Umbrella’s performing arts and events draw thousands to its 344-seat theatre. Its Arts Gallery presents several exhibitions per year including curated, juried, and non-juried exhibitions and works by local, regional, and national artists. Its popular Musketaquid Arts and Environment program links discovery of art with passion for nature. Its community of 50 artists adds tremendous vitality and inspiration. For more information please visitwww.theumbrellaarts.org or call 978-371-0820. The Umbrella Community Arts Center is on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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