The Work Center's 32nd annual auction last summer was a fun and lively evening, made all the livelier by a drenching summer storm that let loose just as the buffet line started. The event raised nearly $75,000 for the Fellowship program. Proceeds from the live auction part of the evening were the highest ever. The monoprint and one-of- a-kind artist's projects – made especially for the auction and making the auction a local favorite – brought on the most enthusiastic bidding. The project this year was a Lazy Susan. Among the monoprints, Salvatore Del Deo's took the highest bid, at $3,100. The highest bid for the Lazy Susans went for Selina Trieff's, at $4,000.

58 artists participated in the monoprint and artist's projects, more than in any previous year. Many of the artists participating were former FAWC Fellows. The auction is FAWC's most important annual fundraiser. We are most grateful to artists and buyers alike for their wonderful and generous support, and we also thank Skinner's, the Boston auction house that provides the auctioneer who helps it happen.

The featured artist was Salvatore Del Deo, a founder of the Fine Arts Work Center. His painting, "MacMillan & Baxter" (2002, oil on canvas), was on consignment and offered for sale at the auction in celebration of FAWC's 40th Anniversary. A very special thank you to Salvatore and to the Berta Walker Gallery for making this possible.

AT HOME ON THE CAPE

The Fine Arts Work Center celebrated its 40th Anniversary with a special exhibition at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis featuring the work of former Visual Arts Fellows who live on Cape Cod. The show was curated by CCMA Curator Michael Giaquinto and FAWC Visual Arts Coordinator Maryalice Johnston. The exhibition presented the work of 20 artists who arrived in Provincetown as Fellows and were inspired by the creative environment of Cape Cod to stay and become part of its artistic community. The artists were Bailey Bob Bailey, Richard Baker, Susan Baker, Ken Boswick, Paul Bowen, William Evaul, Jenny Humphreys, Maryalice Johnston, Irene Lipton, Susan Lyman, Peter Macara, Conrad Malicoat, Eleanor Meldahl, Joan Pereira, Jim Peters, Janice Redman, Douglas Ritter, Vicky Tomayko, Tabitha Vevers, and Bert Yarborough.

"At Home on the Cape" ran from September 6 to November 2, 2008 and was sponsored in part by Cape Cod 5 Cents Savings Bank Charitable Foundation Trust. The exhibition was hung in the Hope- McClennen Gallery at the museum, named for the family of Jamie McClennen, a FAWC Trustee.

The celebration also featured evenings of readings by former Writing Fellows who live on the Cape. Poets who read in the Hope-McClennen Gallery were Keith Althaus, a long-time resident of Truro, Nancy K. Pearson of Wellfleet, and Deborah Bernhardt, currently a 2nd Year Writing Fellow at the Work Center. Novelists were Salvatore Scibona, FAWC's Writing Coordinator, who read from his debut novel, The End, and Heidi Jon Schmidt, of Provincetown, who read from her upcoming novel, No Place Like You.

MARY OLIVER BENEFIT READING

MARY OLIVER, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and a Provincetown resident, presented a reading of her work at the Fine Arts Work Center in August. Mary was acknowledged by the New York Times Book Review in 2007 as "far and away, this country's best-selling poet." At Mary's request, the reading was a benefit for the Grace Paley Endowed Fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center. Grace Paley was a mentor and friend to Writing Fellows at the Work Center beginning in 1976, when she first came to FAWC as a Visiting Writer. For the next 30 years she was deeply involved at FAWC. The Grace Paley Endowed Fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center was established in 2003, in Grace's honor, by a committee that included Mary Oliver and Molly Malone Cook. The Fellowship contributes to the support of one Writing Fellow each winter as a tribute to Grace.