Somerville Art Fair | September Studio Showcase at Bow Market

Discover art in Bow Market’s beautiful space where you can explore, ask questions, and connect with local artists. Starting in June, four one-night Studio Showcases will run at Upstairs at Bow Market, culminating in a December art fair featuring all participating artists. This September showcase is the third in this event series, featuring two new artists.

Learn more at sanidaddesign.com

The September Showcase will feature two artists:

| When I was small, the TV was my only real friend. I studied the screen for the secrets of life, love and motivation. The TV taught me to dream in narratives. Media is more than entertainment. The stories we consume shape us - our dreams, our fears and the limits of what we believe is possible for our lives. These narratives, with their ability to confine or empower, live within us. What happens when we decide to write our own story? In this project every frame is a deliberate act of self-reinvention. I step into carefully constructed scenes that are part memory, part future vision, and entirely a dialogue with myself. Each photograph is a way to nurture the parts of me that once found solace in the glow of a screen. I am writing my own TV show. I used to fall asleep to the repetition of my favorite shows, needing their background noise to feel safe in the dark. That solitary act of watching was my escape and my anchor. Now I am the storyteller. I am alone - but not isolated - with the power to channel my early longing into something fearless and transformative. By rewriting my narrative I am reshaping my identity, exploring the delicate interplay between the stories that surround us and the stories we tell ourselves. I am no longer an audience member. I am the director of my own unfolding story. Fearless, playful, and completely in charge of my narrative destiny.

| Christine E. Brown (United States b. 1981) is a Worcester MA-based visual artist who tells her story through textiles, illustration, and poetry. Christine credits her sewing skills to the local 4H club, where older community members opened their homes to her and where she was able to learn a skill she has enjoyed over her lifetime. That experience led to her commitment to teaching sewing to the next generation of artists through private lessons and public workshops. Her work expresses resilience despite hardship, Black Joy, and reverence for reusing materials, finding value in what was once discarded. Raised in multiple cultures, and by a multigenerational household, her work is able to extend to include influences from time and cultures overlooked. With fabric, she connects the little pieces in all of us that are better together. Quilts hold our intimate secrets and silent expectations. They keep us warm and comfort us. Utilitarian and functional, they are often overlooked as objects with little value. Yet, throughout time, they are ever present, ever faithful. She is inspired by the connection, and importance of textiles commonly referred to as ‘woman’s work’. Often considered the hobbies of idle hands, these pieces are historical documents as important and valid as treaties, statues, and maps. They hold our collective values as silent observers, and they are representational of the time period they were constructed in. By refocusing quilts as art, Christine hopes to illuminate, and elevate them to the visual technically intricate and important masterpieces that they are. Christine is a recipient of the 2022 Apprenticeship Grant from Mass Cultural Council to become versed in natural dyes and horticulture science. She is also a 2021 graduate of the Assets For Artists Capacity-Building Grant Program, and 2023 alum of the Studios at MASS MoCA artist residency. She now works for the program as an Artist Leader, Educator, and Mentor. Christine most recently became a 2024 - 2025 Fellow for Mass Creative, which aligns with her values to advance the advocacy learning, cross-sector alliances and organizing efforts necessary for a more equitable and inclusive arts, cultural and creative sector for all in Massachusetts. Christine studied art education at Fitchburg State University, and most recently her first solo show titled “Motherhood is Perennial” is currently on view at the Jamaica Plain Branch of the Boston Public Library. Her work has been exhibited at the Boston Public Library, the Lawrence Library Art Gallery, the Arts Worcester Gallery, Hunchback Gallery in Worcester Massachusetts, and the Speedwell Gallery in Portland Maine. Her textiles have been shipped all over the globe through an extension of her practice, her small business, Fawn, which began in 2012. Christine has been writing and performing spoken word poetry for over 20 years, and can be found at many colleges, Black History Month programs, poetry slams, weddings, clubs, and special events in New England and beyond. Community building and cultivating sincere and lasting connections are among Christine’s core values, so as a remedy to the devastating isolation the pandemic caused in 2020, for artists in particular, the small working group Night Class was founded. Now in its fifth year, Night Class is a strong cohort of women makers and artists who gather regularly to support one another in building a creative life.

Host or Publisher Sanidad Design | Somerville Art Fair