Tim O’Keefe

It’s time to get your grub on and watch some of the best local chefs work their magic at the 3rd Annual Worcester’s Best Chef Competition Jan. 31 at Union Station.

Foodies will be able to enjoy dishes created by more than 30 area chefs who will be competing both in the blind judges’ contest for Worcester’s Best Chef, and in the People’s Choice Contest, which is decided by the guests in attendance.

“What I’m looking forward to is a terrific amount of ‘quiet’ energy from the chefs that will very quickly develop into noticeable intensity,” says Domenic Mercurio, executive producer of the event. “As they wait for their results from the celebrity judges and the People’s Choice Award announcements, you can see the intensity on their faces – it’s absolutely entertaining.”

The event will welcome a number of celebrity judges, including Chef Michael Giletto, who has appeared on such shows as Iron Chef America and Chopped on the Food Network.

“I’m very excited to be one of the celebrity judges for the Best Chef competition in Worcester,” says Giletto. “Alina [Eisenhauer] from Sweet brought me up and gave me all the details and told me what was going on, and I fell in love with the opportunity. I’m a celebrity chef who’s been in competitions and has been judged, so I can take that and deliver it to other peers in the competition realm.”

The past two Best Chef competitions have drawn large crowds and boosted the winners’ visibility. The honor doesn’t exactly hurt business.

“As we’ve seen from year one, the two winners, Judges’ Choice Award winner Wilson Wang from Baba Sushi in Worcester, and People’s Choice Award winner Chris Rovezzi from Rovezzi’s Ristorante in Sturbridge, experienced a great influx of business and interest,” says Mercurio.

Gearing up for his third appearance in Worcester’s Best Chef Competition, Chef William Nemeroff, owner of the Cedar Street Restaurant in Sturbridge, says there’s always a spark of excitement as the event nears.

“It’s creeping up rather quickly, and as a chef you want to start preparing for it right now, but there’s not much we can do right now,” says Nemeroff. “We have to wait until right before the event. You try to get an idea of what you are going to serve and I’m sure that’s going to change a million times before then because you are tweaking some things out. But I’m like a spring, I’m ready to go.”

Growing up with a French heritage and a grandmother in the catering business, Nemeroff has always been a food lover.

“I started working restaurants as a dishwasher and moved my way up,” he says. “My mother pushed me to go to school. She didn’t think culinary school was a real school, so I actually went to college for geology education thinking that I was going to teach. I’d have weekends off to cook and summer off to cook. But after my first year there I dropped out and went to culinary school and decided to do it for a living.”

This year’s competition is sure to make stomachs rumble and mouths water, but for Nemeroff, it’s all in a day’s work.

“I think my yearbook quote when I was a senior said, ‘Everyone can come and eat in my restaurant for free,’” says Nemeroff. “And now I own a restaurant and am a chef and just living the dream.”

Worcester’s Best Chef Competition will be held Jan. 31 at Union Station from 4 to 8 p.m. For more information please visit www.worcesterbestchef.com.

8th annual Flora in Winter

Doreen Manning

For many folks with a passion for art, the natural world inspires. Combining the two – especially during the coldest months on the calendar – has resulted in the magical Flora in Winter event, which will be held this weekend at the Worcester Art Museum.

With more than 20 works of art at the museum being interpreted through flowers by garden club members and independent floral designers (as well as an adjoining exhibit at Tower Hill Botanical Gardens in Boylston), the creative juices are sprouting.

Beverly McClure of Floral Elegance in North Grafton will be interpreting Cristobal deVillalpando’s painting The Return of Tobias. As she explains, “The museum staff selects a couple of artworks from each gallery and we select our top five choices from that list. Because the first person to get their choices in is awarded their selection, it is a mad dash to e-mail our list to Nancy Jeppson [of WAM].”

For those artists who return year after year – which many do – the close examination of pieces brings a deeper connection to the museum. “The wonderful thing about participating in Flora is that each year you learn a little bit more about the wonderful collection at WAM,” McClure says.

Worcester florist Cathy Walsh of Sprout has been with Flora in Winter since the beginning (this is the eight annual show), back when professional florists were charged a fee to participate. With many of the pricing packages out of her league at the time, she chose the most inexpensive spot she could get her vase on – the restrooms.

“A friend pointed out if I did the bathrooms, not only would I have a captive audience, but I didn’t have to make them ordinary. I think folks were expecting a little centerpiece on the counter, but we showed them that didn’t have to be the case.” With the rules changed and fees no longer charged, Walsh still prefers the restrooms for an eye-catching spot. “Last year we did floral sushi, one year we did a tribute to Andy Warhol, another year it was all ice and snow. We love the restrooms,” Walsh says.

McClure put her finger on why the floral displays appear so exotic and exciting to viewers – it’s all in the design.

“Interpretive design is a very different type of floral design,” says McClure. “The usual rules found in the elements and principle of design are often bent or broken to achieve a desired interpretive effect. Each time we accept this challenge we put ourselves out there open to both criticism and praise.”

“I have been a florist all my life and to be able to interpret a piece of art in the Worcester Art Museum with flowers to me is priceless,” says Sally E. Jablonski, president of Herbert E. Berg Florist Inc.

 “It’s a one-of-a-kind experience that everyone can enjoy,” explains Sarah Ribeiro, Flora in Winter co-chair and a Worcester Garden Club member. “The freshness of the beautiful flowers, the colors, the textures, the smells, and most of all, happiness is all around you. This event makes you feel good and smile.”

Kathy Michie, Flora co-chair and member of the Worcester Garden Club, reminds visitors that all floral designers producing art for the exhibit are doing just that – creating art. “Some do this for a living and there are a whole lot who do not, but ALL do it for the love of it. It comes through in the floral creations. And they are installations – after Sunday they will be gone. So why would you want to miss that?”

Flora in Winter, Thursday, January 28 through Sunday, January 31, 2010. At the Worcester Art Museum. The event is free with Museum admission of $15NM. 17 and under free. Worcester Art Museum is located at 55 Salisbury St. Worcesterart.org.

Random Flora in Winter questions, as answered by Allison Berkeley, manager of marketing and public relations at WAM

How many visitors attended last year’s event? Roughly 6,000.

How many kids under 12? Estimated at 105.

How many individual flowers were used last year? Thousands.

An average amount of time a docent had to say “hands off” per hour? Every hour.

How many arrangements were knocked over by people smelling them? None, thankfully.

How many museum memberships were purchased during last year’s event? Around 300.

How many pieces of work have been “floralized” in the past? 155 in the galleries.

Largest floral arrangement on record? Kae Collins’ of the young nobleman in the European Gallery; Danielson Flowers in the Renaissance Court last year.

Smallest floral arrangement on record? The Museum Café tables by the Worcester Garden Club; Susan Dewey’s interpretation of “Portrait of Sarah and Ann Haden” by Joseph Wright of Derby.

Strangest item found in a floral arrangement? A toe ring in the interpretation of “Feet from Statue of Asklepios” by Ulrike Lies and Arlene Sjosten, Worcester Garden Club.

Tower Hill Botanic Garden also welcomes the 8th annual Flora in Winter extravaganza this weekend with the 2010 theme: Earth’s Gifts. At Tower Hill, enjoy stunning floral interpretations of geological and geographical wonders and other natural gifts. Designers will interpret waterfalls, ice, national parks, international destinations and more. This year’s theme will be interpreted by a record number of designers in a one-of-a-kind show. 11 French Dr., Boylston, Open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 508-869-6111, towerhill.org.

Doreen Manning

Pecha Kucha night first came to Worcester in June 2009, thanks to local art enthusiasts Cynthia Woehrle, Michele May and Scott Zoback. With a third installment planned for Jan. 24 at the Worcester Art Museum, this creative sharing of art and culture within the framework of 20 slides, has built inspiring momentum here in the city.

An international phenomenon, Pecha Kucha was birthed in 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Japan-based Klein Dytham architecture as a forum for young designers to meet, network, and show their work — and has grown to include more than 230 cities worldwide. Within Worcester, it has become the place for anyone to share their work, and highlight the truth that creativity can be found in just about anything that someone is passionate about. From architecture to skating, typefaces to food — passion lies at the foundation of all presenters, who show 20 slides and speak for 20 seconds about each slide.

For this installment, May, Woehrle and Zoback have brought together an even more diverse cross-section of eight presenters, including a travel photographer, abstract painter, architectural illustrator, product designer and a house music DJ.

“I wasn’t able to attend the first one, but I was happy to make the second Pecha Kucha, which was held at 55 Pearl,” says travel photographer Nicole Connolly. “The diversity in presentations was really wonderful. The chef who prepared the hors d’oeuvres was one of the presenters who gave us a glimpse behind the scenes into the creativity he put into the food preparations. The presentations that night went from funny to interesting to eye-opening.”

For archeologist Ellen Perry, her upcoming presentation, “Sixteen Objects That Speak To Me,” will deal with the work in which she’s involved. “I study ancient Greece and Rome. I’m going to show images of Greek and Roman — and a couple of modern — artifacts and talk about what we learn from those objects, [and] about the cultures that made and used them.”

Michael Born is an architectural illustrator “which basically means I draw pretty pictures of buildings,” he says.

“The soaring charcoal sketches and expressive watercolors of old have been replaced by uninspired, sterile, mass-produced images. I’ll be talking about the benefits of using new software to produce renderings and videos that tap into that style and excitement of artistic, hand-drawn illustrations.”

For Puerto Rican Painter Antonio Fonseca, Pecha Kucha night will offer a chance to connect with his new community in the city. “I see this opportunity in various facets. I am selling to the community a product — me. … This is my opportunity to tell the community ‘Hello I am here.’ Ultimately I have developed a successful career in Europe and Latin America but have not really established firm ground in the United States. Pecha Kucha might actually be the starting point for this.”

The benefits of a night of communal inspiration are many, he says.

“The more people understand the creative process, the more they will embrace the importance of arts and creativity in the development of a strong more mature community, one that is open to socio-political and cultural growth,” says Fonseca.

As co-producer of the event, Cynthia Woehrle shares Fonseca’s sentiment. “It’s really the most satisfying and surprising thing about Pecha Kucha Night,” she says. “[That] the passions of Worcester’s creative community shine through and are embraced through this forum for sharing ideas.”

Pecha Kucha Night 3, Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury St., Worcester. Doors open at 7:20 p.m.; presentations begin at 8:20 p.m. For more info visit pecha-kucha.org or pechakucha-worcester.blogspot.com.

Doreen Manning

Artist Lynn Simmons offers a body of work that attempts to draw parallels between the sifting of information that occurs in Assumption’s Emmanuel d’Alzon Library on a daily basis, and the artist’s own sifting — or simplifying — of priorities and needs.

She is presenting her vision in a show titled Sift being exhibited at the library through Feb. 26.

Teaching graphic design at Assumption College since 2008, Simmons is an artist by nature, graphic designer by profession, with a degree in fine art, a background in commercial work plus a love of video. With that combination underpinning her work, she creates with her audience in mind, and with a purposeful direction. Simmons wants you to not just look and absorb —she wants to make you think and feel.

“Part of my process when creating work is to write down words that evoke the feeling I hope to find, and then convey, in the piece,” explains Simmons. “The work for the Emmanuel d’Alzon Library show reflects that process in the naming of the pieces. Because most of my work is abstract and conceptual I use titles as one of the materials, or resources of information.”

With twelve pieces in the d’Alzon Library show, ten of which are new, wood is a primary element throughout the show. “During the last few years I have been working with video a lot and returned to wood for this new body of work as a sifting of my own visual and creative priorities,” she notes. Simmons says that returning to wood felt like a unified way to juxtapose an ancient medium with contemporary concepts.

She also found that the library’s existing wall structures, which were installed for 2D work, created a new way of working three dimensionally within her art, saying she has found “new possibilities” as a result.

In “Secrets of the Universe” you’ll find a pine box on the white concrete-block wall, filled with about 1,000 pieces of hand-torn paper, bundled and tied with cotton string. Struck right through the middle of the piece are several 9 ft. saplings bundled together and protruding from both the top and bottom. “In this piece is the connection to nature, the source of paper for books, and the possible wonders found in literature. In making this piece, I thought a lot about the emergence of digital books,” Simmons says.

For “Information” Simmons uses cloth, about 50 green laundry detergent cups and pine needles. She’s created a structure in the grid of the cups, but there’s also a random quality in their placement. The cups create depth and a shadowy nature, and the pine needles connect the viewer to a more natural aspect. “It reminds me of searching the Internet for information and coming up with a new way of looking at things. It could also be about ecology or simply composition,” says Simmons. “What is important to me is that it, and the other pieces in the show, have a voice and present at least a moment of reflection or thought.”

Simmons hopes viewers will see the basic concepts of 2D design translated to 3D through her wall sculptures, and use that information as a way to talk about the visual world around them.

“To me this is the greatest opportunity we have as artists today. It is also the greatest challenge given the ease of sharing and getting information: that is to hold people’s attention and to make a sustaining difference. It’s always a learning process,” says Simmons. “I hope my work in this show evokes reactions of the intellect, the heart, and the spirit.”

Lynn Simmons’ exhibit Sift is at Emmanuel d’Alzon Library, Assumption College, Worcester, through Feb. 26. Learn more at lynnsimmons.com or assumption.edu.

Doreen Manning

The newest ARTSWorcester show at the GArtH Gallery, Illusionary Surfaces, features the work of three local artists in one of the more unconventional galleries in the city — it’s essentially a hallway in a building. Yet believe it or not, it works.

Stop by the main entrance of the Hadley Building on Main Street, and you will discover the Gallery of Art at the Hadley, or GArtH as ARTSWorcester christened it last year. On display is a series of works from painter Katie Messina, mixed media artist Pat Bock, and photographer Gunter Mueller through June 4, 2010.

In this well lit, ramped foyer, the colors are what hit you first. Layers upon layers of texture pop from Messina’s deep coatings of bright hues, like a fun day at the beach but with the feel of sand in your suit thrown in for good measure. The abstracts hint at sun, surf and warmer climates (the chilly night air was doing some of the talking as well).

The thin layers and textures of Pat Bock’s work had a more strategic feel, with grid-like patterns and stiff borders overlined by a chaos that is worn and scratched to reveal many levels.

For Boch, the process of building layers shows what her work is about. As she explains, “My pieces are a metaphor for the evidence of the passage of time.” Bock’s pieces are in hues of blue, with layers of paint and tape scratched away giving them an almost antique look.

“The pieces in the Illusionary Surfaces show are from the Scratches Series, a group of down and dirty delicate paintings that saw me through long winter nights back in 2008,” Bock says. “Although none of them are titled, they are very dear to me and I believe their emotionality is easily seen.”

The work of Gunter Mueller, a photographer for the past 30 years, is typically more traditional, but his pieces in the Illusionary Surfaces are a departure for him. Here, he hones in on the details of random surfaces, such as a street, wall or mural. “For these pieces, I found items like graffiti and was drawn to the little details I could pick out,” he says.

Despite the fact the three artists had never met before the opening and were unaware of the other artists’ work, the show, loosely united in theme, is a fine representation of local talent.

Well lit, good flow and images that pop make for a fun way to dress up an entranceway, and perhaps catch the eye of someone not here for the art, but who will exit the building contemplating surfaces both illusionary and real, right before their eyes.

Illusionary Surfaces: Works by Pat Bock, Katie Messina, and Gunter Mueller on view at the GArtH - Gallery of Art at the Hadley, 657 Main St., Worcester through June 4, 2010. artsworcester.org.