for February 25th 6-7:30 PM virtual opening and artist talk
Layered Time David LLoyd Brown
Reply
Days Without Art/ National Black HIV Awareness Day Workshops!
Zoom link for open mic 
Watch our February 7th stream here on Youtube
Medicine Wheel Productions/SPOKE presents Days Without Art, bringing together more than 30 artists from across Greater Boston to raise community consciousness of the connections between health and racial justice for Blacks and other people of color.
Days Without Art began with a virtual, multidisciplinary exhibition Sunday, Feb. 7, National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and continues with online public programs through February, African American History Month. Join us Wednesday February 24th from 6:00 pm -7:00 pm on Zoom. for an open mic with Durane West
Medicine Wheel will present work from Black Bostonians from across cultural, health care, and other sectors every Wednesday evening through February and beyond. Musicians, poets, dancers, painters and designers will create and repurpose work that speaks to issues such as health, wellness, equity, inclusion, awareness, resilience, and/or artistic expression.
Leading this innovative project is Amanda Shea, a spoken word poet, social activist, and teaching artist. Participating artists include Edward “D Ruff” Bryant, Sublimeluv, Dell Hamilton, Cedric “Vice1” Douglas, & Letta Neely.
Support for Days Without Art is partially underwritten with a generous sponsorship from The Fenway Institute. Medicine Wheel has also formed partnerships on this project with health service, arts, and advocacy organizations, including Codman Square Health Center, the Multicultural AIDS Coalition, and AIDS Action’s Bayard Rustin Community Breakfast among others.
Medicine Wheel was moved to create Days Without Art to deepen understanding of the inextricable links between health and race that the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare. Building on nearly three decades working at the intersection of art and healing, Medicine Wheel expands its annual World AIDS Day “Day Without Art” by opening up a wider, multimedia, virtual conversation with the Greater Boston community.
To access stream form February 7th here.
Artistic offering by
Stacey S. Hamilton
Days Without Art Partners:
Medicine Wheel Productions is very proud to partner with the following organizations for this event.
The mission of Fenway Health is to enhance the well-being of the LGBTQIA+ community and all people in our neighborhoods and beyond through access to the highest quality health care, education, research and advocacy. Since 1971, Fenway Health has been working to make life healthier for the people in our neighborhood, the LGBTQIA+ community, people living with HIV/AIDS and the broader population. Fenway was founded in 1971 as part of the free clinic movement by students who believed that “health care should be a right, not a privilege.”
Multicultural AIDS Coalition (MAC)
The Multicultural AIDS Coalition’s (MAC) mission is to mobilize communities of color to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Since 1989, the agency has worked to ensure high quality, accessible prevention and care services for people living with HIV or at high risk of acquiring the disease. MAC supports broader efforts to eradicate conditions that fuel the epidemic, including substance abuse, health disparities and lack of health care access, homelessness, and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and gender expression. HIV/STI Testing is available at two locations Monday – Friday, 11am-5pm at one of two locations. Call 617-442-1622.
La Maison de la Culture pour les Diversités Humaines is a non for profit organization based in Côte d’Ivoire, that aims to strengthen youth community leadership, sexual health diversity awareness and human dignity through Arts and Culture.
Codman Square Health Center is a community-based, outpatient health care and multi-service center in the heart of Dorchester. We offer comprehensive care for the whole family, including primary, eye, dental, urgent, and behavioral health care, as well as many medical specialties. In addition, we are a community organization that provides financial and wellness programming.
AIDS Action’s Bayard Rustin Community Breakfast
Our mission is to work together across the state to improve the health, mental wellbeing, and provide personal as well as professional development to the LatinX Community. We do this by sharing information, coordinating peer-to-peer technical assistance, collaborating across state lines, strengthening partnerships with community organizations as well as government agencies by raising awareness, and conducting advocacy work. Our approach is to enhance culturally response services and best practices amongst our partnerships to address the needs of the LGBTQIAPK+
Medicine Wheel hires Greg Liakos as new Interim Executive Director
Veteran Arts & Cultural Leader Joins Artistic Director Michael Dowling to Lead New Strategic Plan & Vision for Boston Arts Organization
Medicine Wheel Productions is pleased to announce that it has hired Gregory Liakos as the organization’s Interim Executive Director. He joins Medicine Wheel Founder and Artistic Director Michael Dowling and a talented and dedicated team of Board and staff to strengthen the organization and create a new strategic plan and vision.
“We’re delighted to welcome Greg to Medicine Wheel,” said Dr. Rohit Chandra, Chair, Board of Trustees. “Building on nearly three decades under Michael’s inspired artistic leadership, Medicine Wheel is poised to grow and expand its mission to activate the transformative power of art to heal individuals and communities. To succeed we need a strong organizational foundation, and Greg’s arrival is a key step on that path.”
A generous capacity-building grant from the Devonshire Foundation allowed Medicine Wheel to create the position of Interim Executive Director. The Board selected Liakos after interviewing several exceptional arts and cultural leaders as finalists for the position.
“I’m truly honored and grateful,” said Liakos. “I’ve been a proud supporter of Medicine Wheel for many years, and its mission of healing, recovery, and hope through art is more vital and resonant today than ever. We urgently need art, story, music and dance to make meaning of this unique moment and work our way through it to a more beautiful Boston, a greater Commonwealth, and a more hopeful nation. I am eager to get to work to advance that mission through new initiatives and partnerships through 2021 and beyond.”
With this new leadership team Medicine Wheel Productions redoubles its mission to activate the power of the arts to heal individuals and communities, and deepen understanding through creative expression, dialogue, and social action.
Liakos brings to Medicine Wheel more than two decades of experience leading campaigns to support artists, cultural institutions, and the creative economy. As Director of Communications and External Affairs for the Mass Cultural Council, he served as senior leader for New England’s leading public arts funder. He crafted and led strategic communications campaigns that substantially expanded the influence and impact of the agency and its work. Highlights include doubled annual state cultural funding, centered on a groundbreaking Power of Culture branding platform. Liakos led communications and advocacy for the Mass Cultural Facilities Fund, a national model capital program for nonprofit cultural institutions. He worked closely with MASSCreative and supporters in the Massachusetts Legislature to ensure arts and culture had a place in key policy initiatives on Beacon Hill. In 2019 he co-authored the agency’s first plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion following months of public engagement. He also served on the Board of the Mass Humanities, and as liaison to the Mass Arts Funders Network of public and private cultural philanthropies. In 2019 the Mass Artists Leaders Coalition awarded him a“Champion of Artists” Award for his advocacy. Prior to coming to Mass Cultural Council he led public relations for the expansion and transformation of the Peabody Essex Museum, one of the nation’s most venerated cultural institutions. PEM completed a complex, $125 million project that generated strong support from a range of audiences, redefining PEM for a global, 21st-century public. A strong civic and public education advocate, Mr. Liakos is also a member of the Wakefield School Committee, and serves on the Board of Directors of Arts/Learning, an arts education advocacy network.
ABOUT MEDICINE WHEEL/SPOKE
Medicine Wheel Productions activates the transcendent power of art to heal individuals and communities. For nearly three decades Medicine Wheel has supported and partnered with artists of all disciplines to put creative expression at the center of social action and change in Boston and beyond. We forge a common path of equity, civic engagement, and social justice through visual art, dance, poetry and spoken-word performance. Our award-winning public programs empower artists to triage critical community needs, from addiction and alcoholism to racial justice, HIV/AIDS, environmental stewardship and climate change. And Medicine Wheel’s work in creative youth development helps teens and young adults find their voice through art and poetry to deepen self-understanding and make a difference in their schools and communities.
In loving memory of a Margaret Casey
In loving Memory of Margaret Casey
Click here to donate in Margaret‘s Memory
Margaret defined unconditional love and carried with her humor and strength to get her through the many challenges that she has faced through the years, even during the last few weeks of her life. She will be missed by so many, but will live in the hearts of all of us that loved her so very much.
FUNERAL MASS
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
10 AM
St. Francis Xavier Church
234 Pleasant Street
South Weymouth, MA 02190
Jack Casey Memorial Fund
Please honor Jack’s Memory with a donation to the Jack Casey Memorial Fund
On December 1, 2020 we lost one of the best, Jack Casey. I met Jack in February of 1992 almost 29 years ago. Jack had a way of seeing people for who they truly are. His capacity to listen deeply endeared him to the many communities he dedicated his life to serving. His work spanned and touched many communities including; Student, LGBTQ , HIV/AIDS and, Recovery.
He is one of the men who taught me to be who I say I am and has held me up during my own 29 years of recovery and my work in the LGBTQ community, HIV/AIDS and with the young men and women we are privileged to serve at Medicine Wheel/SPOKE
What a gift it has been to have him by my side all these years, most recently as a board member of Medicine Wheel. I spoke with him last night, November 30, as we were preparing for the 29th annual World AIDS Day Vigil. In his usual manner he said: “What can I do to help?, how can I be of service. “ That was Jack, that was my friend.
love
Michael