Installation view of the SEED-O-MATIC in Cotter Union.

SEED-O-MATIC is on view through May 8 at Colby College Museum of Art. SEED-O-MATIC is the brainchild of artists Emma Dorothy Conley and Halley Roberts in conjunction with the Center for Genomic Gastronomy (CGG), an organization dedicated to researching, prototyping, and inspiring a "more just, biodiverse, and beautiful food system" worldwide. As large agrochemical companies buy out seed suppliers and patent the genetic information of their seeds, agricultural biodiversity and food sovereignty are threatened. SEED-O-MATIC provides a window into this complex issue through a simple concept: A seed vending machine. Viewers can put 60 cents into the SEED-O-MATIC and receive a packet of seeds with growing instructions on the envelope. The seeds in each of the five packet varieties are organic, locally saved and/or open-source. SEED-O-MATIC makes understanding and supporting agricultural accessibility and equability as easy as planting a seed in the ground. Colby College Museum of Art is located at 5600 Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine, and is open Tuesday–Saturday 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. and Sunday 12:00–5:00 p.m. For more information, visit colby.edu/museum/seed-o-matic.

Isabel Beavers, Melas Chasms–Sunrise, 2019.

Currently on view at Brookline Arts Center through January 31 is Golden Spike, a three-person exhibition about environment and climate change. A "golden spike" is a signifier of this extreme change in the geologic record. Artists Isabel Beavers, Allison Gray and William Van Beckum united to explore the concept of "anthropocence," or the landscape as evidence of humanity's mark in time. This is done through models and other representations of landscapes from acros history. Beavers is a multi-media artist and educator who investigates ecology, environment and scientific storytelling in her artwork. Gray uses still-life oil painting to explore environment and climate change. Beckum uses landscape photography and social media as a lens to examine anthropocentrism. As Golden Spike's web page points out, "We simultaneously consume aesthetic beauty from landscapes, while treating them as sites of extraction and destruction." The exhibition aims to inspire mindfulness, respect, and care for nature in the viewer, in the hope that we can begin to repair the environmental damage that created the golden spike. There will be a reception for Golden Spike on Thursday, January 23 from 6:00–8:00 pm. Brookline Arts Center is located at 86 Monmouth Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, and is open Monday–Friday, 9:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m. For more information, please visit brooklineartscenter.com/golden-spike.

Jane Sherrill, Totem 2, 2017, acrylic on collaged Yupo, 18.5" x 21".

The galleries at Cambridge Art Association have two exhibitions on view through February 1 about imperfection. Kathryn Schultz Gallery is showing Soft Shoulder, curated by Cathleen Daley, co-founder and director of Room 83 Spring. Soft Shoulder is about the state of in-between, with artworks that defy the notion of being finished and fixed. Though unstructured and ambiguous, the pieces are still familiar, much like the proverbial soft shoulder of the road. In University Place Gallery is Broken Beauty, juried also by Cathleen Daley. This exhibit means to celebrate the imperfect, whether by commemorating it or endeavoring to repair it. The artworks examine questions of value, viability and perception, exploring what it means to be "imperfect" and celebrating that imperfection. Both Soft Shoulder and Broken Beauty aim to appreciate the strange or broken parts of the world around us, and in turn encourage us to look at the strange or broken parts of ourselves as things of beauty. There will be a reception for these exhibitions tonight from 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m. and a curatorial walkthrough for Soft Shoulder on Saturday, February 1, from 1:00–2:00 p.m. Kathryn Schultz Gallery is located at 25 Lowell Street and University Place Gallery is located at 124 Mount Auburn Street, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Kathryn Schultz Gallery is open Tuesday–Saturday 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., and University Place Gallery is open Monday–Friday 9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. and Saturday 9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. For more information, please visit cambridgeart.org/soft-shoulder and cambridgeart.org/broken-beauty.

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