Amelia Mason

Cambridge

Senior Arts & Culture Reporter at WBUR-FM (Boston, MA)

arts/culture reporter/critic @WBUR, shop steward @wemakewbur. I love pasta.

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Articles

What is the point of public art?

1 week ago | wbur.org | Amelia Mason

What is the point of public art? As evening draws in, Mr. Pink hovers over pedestrians on Winter St. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)Editor's Note: This story is an excerpt from WBUR's weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here. Happy birthday to WBUR! The WBUR Festival kicks off today in honor of the station’s 75th anniversary. Really, it’s just an excuse to have a big party — and hopefully this isn’t the first you’re hearing of it.
Our favorite local music from May

1 week ago | wbur.org | Amelia Mason |Lukas Harnisch |Victoria Wasylak |Noah Schaffer

Left: Cover art for DeevoDaGenius, Kil The Artist and BLUEHILLBILL's "Bleu Magic" (Courtesy Jackson Hallaws and Chop The Head). Center from top: Album art for Kim Perlak and Francisco Mela's "Spaces" (courtesy); Art for Pile's single "Born at Night" (Courtesy Mark Lapriore); and single art for Tuxis Giant's "Last Laugh" (courtesy). Right: Album art for Suriel's "Pressure" (courtesy).
A new Triennial wants to make Boston a public art city

2 weeks ago | wbur.org | Amelia Mason

On a bustling weekday afternoon at the main branch of the Boston Public Library, passersby stopped to snap pictures of a ramshackle house that had recently materialized in the middle of Deferrari Hall. Caledonia Curry, also known as the street artist Swoon, was putting finishing touches on the whimsical installation, which stood 16 feet tall and was decorated with junkyard scraps: tin cans, old keys, a hubcap. Life-sized wooden puppets peeked out from inside the house.
From the newsroom: Lupe Fiasco makes music out of sculpture

3 weeks ago | wbur.org | Darryl Murphy |Amelia Mason

From the newsroom: Lupe Fiasco makes music out of sculpturePlay05:39Download AudioEmbed on your websiteClose×Copy the code below to embed the WBUR audio player on your site<iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://player.wbur.org/the-common/2025/05/15/from-the-newsroom-lupe-fiasco-makes-music-out-of-sculpture"></iframe>Copy embed codeRapper Lupe Fiasco stands by Antony Gormley's steel sculpture Chord at MIT in Cambridge, Mass.
Vote for your favorite local NPR Tiny Desk Contest entry

3 weeks ago | wbur.org | Amelia Mason

Amelia Mason Senior Arts & Culture ReporterAmelia Mason is an arts and culture reporter and critic for WBUR. More…Vote for your favorite local NPR Tiny Desk Contest entry(Arielle Gray/WBUR)As always, NPR’s search for the next great unsigned artist — also known as the Tiny Desk Contest — drew entries from hundreds of Massachusetts musicians. And as always, WBUR is on the hunt for our Local Favorite.
Lupe Fiasco's latest hip-hop collaborator? MIT

3 weeks ago | wbur.org | Amelia Mason

In the summer of 2022, the rapper Lupe Fiasco sat on the grass near a sculpture on MIT’s campus and, on the spot, wrote and recorded a song about it. The Big Sail by the American sculptor Alexander Calder, is spider-like and imposing, a 25-foot-tall abstraction made of spiky black steel. As he sat facing the sculpture, swatting at bugs, Fiasco conjured a dizzying litany of metaphors to describe it.
Gloucester gallery opens to cement Jon Sarkin's artistic legacy

1 month ago | wbur.org | Amelia Mason

“You're going to get a WBUR exclusive back room tour here.”Mark Henderson squeezed through a dusty passageway at the back of the gallery that he manages in Gloucester. The corridor opened into a dark store room filled to the brim with art: rolled up canvases, a bin of works on cardboard, and stacks upon stacks of drawings. Henderson estimated there were around 20,000 pieces, each a strange, distinctive missive from the mind of the late artist Jon Sarkin.
Artist Jon Sarkin and the question of 'good' art

1 month ago | wbur.org | Amelia Mason

Editor's Note: This story is an excerpt from WBUR's weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here. On Friday, WBUR will publish my story about efforts to preserve the legacy of the late Jon Sarkin. The artist died at his Gloucester studio last summer at the age of 71. When he was 35, he suffered a stroke during surgery to repair tinnitus; doctors ended up removing part of the left side of his brain.
Our favorite local music from April

1 month ago | wbur.org | Amelia Mason |Victoria Wasylak |Noah Schaffer |Solon Kelleher |Lukas Harnisch

Clockwise from top left: The cover art for Ali McGuirk's "Where Does All The $ Come From?" (Courtesy); cover art for Daniel Voltaire and HAAWWS' "Stuck in My Ways Remix" (Courtesy Mellow Z Vier); cover art for Bowling Shoes' "FACTORY POP" (Courtesy of Jeremiah Bermel, Jake Lutter and Dimitri Christo); and cover art for Flying Vipers' "Off World" (courtesy). Maybe it’s the bright green foliage outside my window, but this month’s music roundup feels especially fresh.
Greater Boston joins the cultural land trust movement

2 months ago | wbur.org | Amelia Mason

Editor's Note: This story is an excerpt from WBUR's weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here. Back in 2021, WBUR's arts desk published an article by Jenn Stanley titled "In Somerville, affordable studio space for artists is rapidly disappearing." Key to the story was the plight of artists working out of studios at 57 Central St. in Somerville.