"I am not working on the outer landscape anymore, I am working on the inner landscape," says artist, Janet Pierce, referring to her appealing abstract manifestations of her inner spiritual quest.  An Irish painter, Pierce cites Helen Frankenthaler as a major influence along with her experience as a disciple of Guru,  Sri Vasudeva . For the past ten years, Pierce has dedicated herself to making art and exhibiting in Ireland and in India and so it was most fitting that her exhibition, on view at the Hamilton Gallery, Sligo, Ireland, was launched by Ambassador of India to Ireland, Mrs. Radhika Lal Lokesh.   Through August 9.  www.janetpierce.com

Drew Hemenger reports that he has been hard at work on a new opera:  Marife . Based on the novella by Marianna Villanueva, ( Marife’s  librettist), which recounts the true story of a Filipina mail-order bride who married Oklahoma City-bomber Terry Nichols. Symphony New Hampshire has commissioned Hemenger to write an all-orchestral suite based on the in-progress opera. Conducted by Jonathan McPhee, Symphony New Hampshire will give the  Marife Suite  its World Premiere on March 14, 2015.  You can learn more about the premiere   here . Hemenger’s "Her Final Show” will be performed Friday, June 27th at the Church of Saint Luke in the Fields as part of  Rise, My Love , presented by the Cheah Chan Duo (Philip Chean, voice and Trudy Chan, piano), a celebratory evening of songs and music by nearly two dozen LGBT composers that will kick off the 2014 Pride Weekend in New York City.  " Her Final Show " ...

Susan Schwalb has a busy summer ahead with work at the Drawing Biennale in Eislingen, Germany, the summer print show at the International Print Center, New York, NY (IPCNY), which travels to Christie’s, “Large and Small, Selections from the Kentler Flat Files,” the Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY, an artist book show at Center for Book Arts, New York, NY and the opening of The Art Store’s new gallery in downtown Charleston, WV. Schwalb uses the classical Renaissance technique of silverpoint and metalpoint drawing on wood and paper to create her elegant, abstract meditations on line, grid, and subtle gradation of tone. The end effect is sometimes a surprise to Swalbe as the metals she works with tarnish in different ways.  www.susanschwalb.com/

VCCA Fellow and International Fellow at Schloss Wiepersdorf, J.C. Todd, has been named a 2014 Fellow in Poetry by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage. With clarity and eloquence, Todd’s  poems explore the theme of war and its fallout. Her manuscript-in-process,  War Zone , explores outbursts of resistance, “with sonnets that complicate and contemporize the tradition of war poems.”  J.C. Todd - People & Organizations - The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

Jane Waggoner Deschner draws from her collection of 50,000 vernacular photographs, primarily snapshots and studio portraits, which she then painstakingly hand-embroiders. She traces her fascination with everyday photographs to her own ambivalence about notions of “happy family” and fulfillment. The work is time-consuming and meditative and produces a kind of intimacy between her and these anonymous individuals captured by the photographer’s lens. Deschner’s work is featured in The Embroidered Image at the Robert Mann Gallery, New York, NY. Through August 15.  www.janedeschner.com/ Following up on the needlework theme, master printmaker Carol E. S. MacDonald’s prints take a magnified look at the “interwoven world of knitting.” Her work is bold and visually arresting; MacDonald takes the soft supple, medium of knitting imbues it with a strength and power. Stitch by Stitch will be on view at Etui Fiber Arts, Larchmont, NY through June 28. www.carolmacdonald.com/ Imbric...

Selected as a Book Pick of the Week from  Publishers Weekly,  VCCA Fellow, James Magruder’s new book,  Let Me See It,  a linked story collection, has been published by TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press. Called “witty” and “elegiac,” Magruder’s stories follow two gay cousins growing up in the Midwest. The collection spans the years 1971 to 1992, and takes the reader to such diverse settings as Madison, Wisconsin and Paris, as it covers a significant period in gay history.  Magruder has had VCCA Fellowships in 2010 and 2011.   www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8101-5244-1

Brittani Sonnenberg’s debut novel,  Home Leave  is off and running with flying colors, chosen by the  New Yorker  online as a June " book to watch out for " , and by  Real Simple  as one of their " best summer books ." (Spoiler alert!) With the focus on a peripatetic family following the pater familias’ career around the globe, the book is rich in adventure, excitement and also great anguish as the family faces “unimaginable loss.” 2013 VCCA Fellow, Sonnenberg will be conducting readings in Atlanta, New York City, and L.A. in the coming week. www.brittanisonnenberg.com .