Rashomon or The Hound of the Baskervilles?

I've been thinking about truth, appearances, loyalty and standing up for your beliefs recently. The controversy is continuing about Montserrat College of Art, the program segment about encaustic on WGBH-TV, credit being given where credit is due and people being willing to take a stand. Trying to sort out all this stuff is taking up a lot of my time and attention, but I really hate injustice and I just have to do what's right.

So what I'm gonna do for all those of you who are seekers of truth is to post a few things here that have appeared in the past few days.  All you Judge Judies and Simon Cowells out there, have at it. And by the way, I'm just going to highlight a few pertinent points. I'm sure you won't mind.

And the Truth shall set you Free
If you're a regular reader, you know that I gave you the whole initial story the other day in my post "Where's Joanne?" Since that time there have been many comments and messages back and forth between readers, Montserrat College, WGBH, Joanne Mattera, me, etc., etc.


So the first question is: who is responsible for leaving Joanne Mattera's name out of WGBH's program?


First up, a message from Dean Laura Tonelli of Montserrat College of Art, apparently sent to all attendees of last year's encaustic conference:


Dear Friend of Encaustic, 
We are happy that so many of you have reported high satisfaction with this year’s Encaustic Conference. By now you may have heard or read some negative feedback about some publicity the college received post conference as a result of “The Greater Boston with Emily Rooney Show on WGBH-TV.” The following is a note from Dean Laura Tonelli regarding the filming.

On behalf of the College, I want to express our deep regret that Conference Founder Joanne Mattera’s name and enormous contributions to this annual event were omitted from the recent WGBH program. It was certainly not our intention to discredit or diminish Joanne Mattera’s key role. When originally contacted, the filming was scheduled during the conference and included Joanne Mattera as the featured speaker. However, WGBH moved the interviews twice, further and further away from the conference dates, to a time when both Joanne Mattera and I were out of the state. Not wanting to miss a rare opportunity for the College to promote both the conference and the institution, it was decided filming should move forward with the expertise of our professional gallery director and college president. Interviews were scheduled and two hours of film was shot in two locations on two separate days. Joanne Mattera’s expertise, leadership and “bible” were acknowledged by both the gallery director and the president a minimum of five times during the interviews; unfortunately, the editors at WGBH edited out those references. We wish to assure everyone associated with the conference that every effort was made to provide information that would pay respect to the conference founder, to the medium of encaustic and its practitioners.

Sincerely,
Laura Tonelli, Dean
ltonelli@montserrat.edu

Now I have nothing against Laura Tonelli. She has always been extremely pleasant to me and supportive of the conference and Joanne. However, I must point out that Laura does not know firsthand that Joanne's name, credentials, etc. were mentioned a minimum of five times. She was out of town - in Italy, in fact - during the shooting. What she says is hearsay.

Next Emily Rooney, host of the show that featured the segment on Encaustic at Montserrat (from the Where's Joanne? FaceBook page)

Emily Rooney: One more thing. You are all acting like there is some intentional slight here and that we "edited" out someone who is most deserving of recognition. That is not the case. Further, we did not shoot 2 hours of footage and there were not 5 mentions of Joanne's name. I don't want to make this worse because clearly people are upset, but Greater Boston has done all of you a greater good. You should take your beef elsewhere and leave us off the invitation list next year.Yesterday at 5:03pm · 

Emily is oh so sweetly directly refuting the claim that Laura made because Emily read the email that had been linked to the FB page.

NEXT:

Excerpts from An open letter from Shelley Gilchrist of Fused Chicago to Montserrat's President Steve Immerman. (You can read the whole letter by clicking on the link.)

"Copper Falls" by Shelly Gilchrist, 2010,
encaustic on panel, 43" x 16" x  1 1/4"

TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2010

Montserrat no longer an "epicenter"

Dear Dr. Immerman,

How surprising to see that you, the titular head of Montserrat College of Art, are unable even to acknowledge the individual who conceived of the Encaustic Conference, does the lion’s share of the work to produce it, and has made a growing hit in the art world for four years. What is it that prevents you from publicly speaking her name, or giving even the slightest credit to the conference founder and visionary? You had a chance to link Montserrat’s name indelibly with Joanne Mattera’s and ride on the success of the conference both nationally and internationally. You blew it....

It is ironic to see that Montserrat is still taking credit as being the “epicenter” on the College website. This strikes me as academically dishonest in a place where knowledge is everything. Usually students who do not cite their sources get flagged, whereas you and the college have a far greater responsibility. As an academic, you need to summon the reporters and publicly correct the record and broadcast this through your website and links. If you continue to ignore Joanne’s creations and contributions as theconference founder and leader, you will deserve whatever you get: flagging, flogging and a thoroughly unscholarly reputation. I have a responsibility to future artists to point this out whenever they are considering an education at Montserrat.

Yours truly,
Shelley Gilchrist
Juror’s Award recipient, 4th Annual Encaustic Conference

President Immerman's response to Shelley Gilchrist's letter, also posted on Fused Chicago

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 2010
Montserrat responds
A response from Montserrat's president came today:

We all feel very badly about how the interviews came out. Joanne was acknowledged many times. I began my responses talking about the central role that Joanne played in the conference. Unfortunately, WGBH chose not to use most of what was taped including all the references to Joanne and her leadership. In retrospect, given how many times the taping was rescheduled, we should have probably just scrapped the whole thing. In truth, we wanted to shine a light on the fantastic conference and the community that has developed around the art. Its a stark lesson and I assure you will not be repeated.
I have a hard time accepting the notion that we "blew it" when we did not have editorial control. If there was any mistake it was to have gone ahead in the absence of Joanne, a decision for which I take full responsibility and deeply regret.

-Steve

Stephen D. Immerman, President
Montserrat College of Art

And I might point out that Joanne M. has still not heard from President Immerman either apologizing or saying anything else about this fiasco.

Now Emily Rooney again (from FB Where's Joanne?)

Emily Rooney: Joanne, Nancy et al: I just reviewed Jared Bowen's piece on encaustic at Montserrat and must say I'm a little stunned at your egocentric point of view. I can assure you our viewers are curious about the art itself, not who organized the conference. Also Jared did try to interview Joanne Mattera several times, but she was unavailable. Jared is the most thorough and well researched reporter I have ever worked with and he knows how to make an esoteric subject accessible to the average viewer. I'm puzzled you don't see this for what it is - good publicity for an exhibit that few would know about and fewer would care had it not been for Greater Boston.Yesterday at 2:02pm · 

Emily doesn't get it that we don't believe that any publicity is good publicity. We want some real publicity that acknowledges that you can't talk about encaustic at Montserrat without talking about Joanne Mattera.

Next, we hear directly from Jared Bowen, Reporter at "Greater Boston With Emily Rooney" of WGBH-TV, Boston. This was a comment on Art in the Studio received today and also posted on the "Where's Joanne? FaceBook page (by Tonia Collins in Jared's name) .

 Jared Bowen said...

After reviewing the litany of on-line comments about my story on encaustic at Montserrat College I’d like to take a moment to weigh in.

My story was a brief and general look at encaustic. As most of our viewers were likely unfamiliar with the style, our intent was to offer a quick overview, illustrate the art through Montserrat’s two gallery shows and artist Julie Shaw Lutts’ work and to make mention of its increasing popularity. We never intended to profile the conference itself. 

Montserrat aggressively courted coverage. Only one date was ever booked for interviews. I did not reschedule any shoots. I have reviewed my transcripts and would like to correct some of what’s been posted. I conducted a roughly eight minute interview with Leonie Bradbury, a roughly six minute interview with Stephen Immerman and a 14 minute interview with Julie Shaw Lutts (although most of that time was spent having her explain her process). The rest of the shooting was of the art itself.

Over the course of my interviews there was only one mention of Joanne Mattera and that was by Stephen Immerman at the top of his interview. He said the following: “It all starts with the ambitions and the energy of our faculty and Joanne Mattera who is arguably one of the national experts on encaustic who had the idea, had the passion. But it fits with Montserrat and the reason why is there are several themes that the conference exhibits that Montserrat also has. Montserrat was founded as a college by artists for artists…”

I am (and was) well aware of Joanne Mattera’s contributions to encaustic and appreciate her role in its resurgence. I did endeavor to interview her but unfortunately my schedule did not coincide with her own. While we would have preferred to have an interview with her, in the end I concluded it was best to shed some light on encaustic than none at all.

I stand by my story. Despite the rancor it has generated, I continue to admire the community you artists have fostered around your passion for encaustic.

Jared BowenAugust 5, 2010 11:05 AM

Joanne Mattera

My excerpted response to Jared, posted as a comment today on Art in the Studio, Where's Joanne? (click the link to read the whole thing)

 Nancy Natale said...

Jared, thanks so much for your courteous and professional reply. I appreciate your response and your serious consideration of our criticism of your work. I'm also glad to see that you have noted Joanne Mattera’s prominent place in the encaustic "world", and the fact that she is an acknowledged authority in the field who deserves recognition for her important contributions.

...  If it is true that the only mention of Joanne's name was by President Immerman in a casual kind of introduction (and you do have the hard evidence of this), then I do understand why it was edited out as an unimportant detail. If President Immerman and the Montserrat Public Relations Department had really stressed that you can’t say “encaustic” without saying “Joanne Mattera,” I think you probably would have included at least a mention of her as the founder and director of the annual encaustic conference. 

That Joanne’s name was not even mentioned in your piece is what has us so steamed because we know that it’s not Montserrat College of Art that is encaustic’s “champion”, but Joanne Mattera. If you don’t mention Joanne, then Montserrat gets the credit for Joanne’s vision and hard work. This is not fair to her and to those of us who are so indebted to her for so much. We who were there (and have been for four conferences over four years) know that the reason that Montserrat had the two encaustic shows on display is that they were organized in conjunction with the encaustic conference. If there had been no conference, there would have been no encaustic shows.

And without Joanne Mattera, there would have been no encaustic conferences at Montserrat.

...What was really the problem is that your visit was scheduled while neither Joanne Mattera nor Dean Laura Tonelli was available at Montserrat. This meant that you were not going to get the real story about encaustic at Montserrat. Montserrat’s going forward with your visit in Joanne’s and Laura’s absence and Montserrat’s continuing promotion of your coverage of “Encaustic at Montserrat” without a disclaimer about the omission of Joanne Mattera is dishonest and shameful

I hope that there are no hard feelings and thank you again for taking the time to review your video and try to set the record straight.

August 5, 2010 6:11 PM

Whoops! I almost did a Montserrat on you! What about Joanne herself? you may ask. Doesn't she have anything to say about all this?  Indeed she does and you can catch the wave at her new encaustic conference blog.

But for one more comment that you can read here from Joanne herself, try this one on. It sums up her opinion of what went on and what should and will happen now.

Joanne says:

I also have tremendous respect for the dean and, frankly, I don't think this fiasco would have happened had she not been on a trip abroad with students.

However, after seeing how badly the college and the president looked in the video--in addition to seeing that I was nowhere to be seen--why would the college continue to promote the video on its website? AND send out emails with a URL urging its recipients to view it? (I saw it only because a Boston art professional emailed me with the link and said: "You have to view this video, NOW.")

Also, I have to ask: How desperate is *any* institution for publicity that it would go ahead with a video without the person who made the event possible? So to my mind there is no excuse for a) scheduling it without me, and b) promoting it when they saw that my name was not even mentioned. I could have provided more accurate information as well--i.e. encaustic is not a "style"; what we make is ART, not "encaustic art"; we are not do-it-yourselfers teaching each other but professionals who gather to share information, ideas and technical expertise.

(The president and gallery director said they mentioned me, and I believe them. But seeing the final product, someone at the college should have said, "It's missing a key component. We are not going to promote this in any way.")

Also, by the way, the president has not responded to me directly. I mean, what, the secret service won't allow it? He allowed the PR person to respond to my first email. I wrote: "I see that I am nowhere to be seen on the college's website regarding the video." The PR person's response, and I'm paraphrasing: Sorry, you were away when it took place.

The president also did not respond to my certified letter informing him and the dean of my termination of contract. Going through the dean, in a matter like this, is unacceptable. An "Im sorry. We blew it," would have gone a long way toward assuaging my displeasure.

Thea asks why I have said nothing on my blog. Thank you for asking that, Thea. There are a couple of reasons:
1. I am not a victim. I am the person who created the most fabulous encaustic conference ever. I don't particularly wish to be known as as the person who got omitted from a stupid video for a show I'd never heard of on the local public TV station.

2. Mindful of my contract, I want to tread carefully. The college is an institution with financial resources (and a healthy profit from the conference). I am an independent contractor who earned a modest sum for my work who would have to pay for legal representation out of my own pocket. I am about to speak with my attorney now at $200 a hour.

3. On the relocated conference blog, www.encausticconference.blogspot.com, I have been putting up information slowly. For instance, my letter to WGBG is there.

Thanks, everyone, for your public and personal words of support, encouragement, leads and ideas. Please stay in touch with me (joanne@joannemattera.com) or via the new conference blog.

I am trying to take August off, but I'm responding to the many offers that have come in. A couple of venues are quite promising. My criteria: must be institutional or organizational, with an established infrastructure, interest in encaustic, the financial resources to pay me sufficiently for the enormous amount of work I am about to sink into the project, and a healthy respect for the tremendous gift I (and WE) are about to give them.

Now more questions: would you take a stance if you believed in something? Do you have the courage of your convictions? Do you dare speak truth to power?

REFERENCES:

• The piece about encaustic produced and reported by Jared Bowen for "Greater Boston With Emily Rooney" on WGBH-TV. 
• The link to Montserrat's promotion of themselves as the "Epicenter of Encaustic Painting" according to WGBH-TV.
• The link to my initial blogpost on this, "Where's Joanne?"
• The link to my FaceBook page "Where's Joanne?"