for the ARTS record

NCH Medical Surgical Nurse Manager to Sing National Anthem at Pops Concert

Macy Smith, Nantucket Cottage Hospital's Medical Surgical Nurse Manager, will sing the National Anthem at the Boston Pops on Nantucket concert, Saturday, August 11 at Jetties Beach, to benefit NCH. Typically a guest performer is invited to sing the Anthem, and this is the first time in 11 years of concerts that a member of the Hospital staff will launch the show. Smith auditioned before a panel of local judges with varied musical backgrounds, including Gerry Mack, former Executive Director of the Nantucket Community Music Center.

Smith, a pediatric nurse who trained at St. Elizabeth's Nursing School in Boston and worked at Children's Hospital in Boston and Duke Medical Center in North Carolina, originally came to the island from Cape Cod in 1991 for a nanny position. In 2002, she began working in Nantucket Cottage Hospital's Visiting Nurses department before taking a position with the Hospital's med/surg nursing staff. Smith earned the status of Medical Surgical Nurse Manager this year and is responsible for supervising the med/surg nursing staff.

Smith, who has always enjoyed singing and comes from a family of music professionals, has trained since high school, most recently with Laura Gallagher Byrne on Nantucket. She is frequently invited to sing at weddings, funerals and graduations. Smith notes, "It's exciting to have this unique opportunity."

"Macy is a wonderful example of someone who is giving back to the community, in addition to her professional role of administering excellent medical attention," said Karen Palmer, Chairman of the Pops on Nantucket event.

The 11th Annual Boston Pops on Nantucket concert, sponsored by Nantucket Island Resorts/Jill and Stephen Karp as a benefit for Nantucket Cottage Hospital, features Keith Lockhart, conducting the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, with a special performance by Natalie Cole and guest appearance by Synergy Brass Quintet. Tim Russert, Managing Editor and Moderator of Meet the Press and political analyst for NBC Nightly News and the Today Program, will again host the event. The Pops on Nantucket concert raises funds for the island's only hospital.

General admission tickets, as well as special reserved seating and sponsorship opportunities, are currently available on the hospital's website, www.nantuckethospital. org. Tickets and Pops on Nantucket merchandise are also available for sale at the Hospital Living Room and in-town at Aunt Leah's Fudge, Country Village Real Estate, Murray's Toggery Shop and Visitors Services. For more information about the concert, please call 825-8181, email crdcontact@ackhosp.org, or visit the Hospital's website, www.nantuckethospital. org. Individuals interested in volunteering, should call 228-2949.

Copley Fine Art Auction features pieces of island interest

Copley Fine Art Auctions of Boston hosts its second annual Sporting Sale this Thursday in Plymouth, and will feature several notable works of island interest, including a nest of seven Nantucket lightship baskets, c. 1870-1880, woven in a style similar to Captain James Wyer and estimated at $30,000 to $40,000 as well as a relief-carved merganser plaque, c.1898 and estimated at $25,000 to $35,000, by Nantucket carver James Walter Folger (1851-1918). The sale will focus on sporting art, antique waterfowl and shorebird decoys, fishing collectibles, rare books, and folk art. On Wednesday, July 25, there will be a Dealer Exhibition from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and an Auction Preview Cocktail Reception from 5 to 7 p.m. On Thursday, July 26, the Dealer Exhibition is 8:30 a.m. - 11 a.m., with an Auction Preview from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. The Auction begins at 11 a.m.

Actress, animal activist and artist Loretta Swit on island

Hot Lips Houlihan has hot fingers, too. As an artist, Loretta Swit will be on island, showing her paintings at the Seven Seas Gallery (46 Centre St., 228- 8011) to benefit Farm Sanctuary, a prominent farm animal protection organization that has worked, since 1986, to expose and abate "the cruel practices of the 'food animal'industry through research and investigations, legal and legislative actions, public awareness projects, youth education, and direct rescue and refuge efforts." The organization also owns shelters for rescued farm animals. Swit's contemporary watercolors will be on display from Friday, July 27, through Sunday, July 29; and the actress-cum-artist and animal activist will attend a special reception on Friday, July 27, 6 - 8 p.m. For more on Farm Sanctuary, go to www.farmsanctuary.rg or call (607) 583-2225.

Architecture critic to speak

Architecture Critic for The New Yorker and Pulitzer Prize recipient, Paul Goldberger will be the keynote speaker at the Nantucket Preservation Trust's 10th Annual Meeting, on Friday, July 27, at 11a.m. at the 'Sconset Union Chapel on New Street. (The program is free and open to the public.)

Mr. Goldberger's presentation, "Place & Prosperity: The Struggle for an Authentic Nantucket in the 21st Century," highlights the challenges Nantucket faces in sustaining a true sense of place and authenticity.

"Projecting the impact of technology, which often results in a 'sameness' among communities everywhere, and the further impact of affluence, which particularly in desirable places like Nantucket compounds planning and development pressures, Goldberger determines that merely preserving the old is not enough," according to an NPT press release. "His remarks consider the island's rigid design restrictions and their effect on new structures, questioning the role of new architecture in an historic community."

Holding the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City, Goldberger's resume is a work of art in itself. Formerly Dean of Parsons School of design, he began his career at The New York Times, where in 1984 his architecture criticism was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism. He's also taught at both the Yale School of Architecture and the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Elected to Literary Lionhood by the New York Public Library in 1993, Goldberg is the author of several books, most recently his chronicle of the process of rebuilding Ground Zero, entitled UP FROM ZERO: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, which was published by Random House in the fall of 2004, and brought out in a new, updated paperback edition in 2005. UP FROM ZERO was named one of The New York Times Notable Books for 2004. Paul Goldberger has also written "The City Observed: New York," "The Skyscraper," "On the Rise: Architecture and Design in a Post-Modern Age," "Above New York," and "The World Trade Center Remembered."

Immediately following the lecture, Goldberger will attend a luncheon The Chanticleer at noon. The noon lunch is by reservation only and is $75 per person. Call 228-1387 for reservations.

"The Lost Fleet" meets ACK

Marc Songini's newly released "The Lost Fleet" (St. Martin's Press) is the true story of a whaler from New England who struggles against the Confederate Navy and two Arctic disasters in the 1800s.

"Much of the book takes place on Nantucket, and there are several major whaling captains who were from Nantucket featured in it," said Songini, who added that the book will appeal to readers of Nantucket history. I