On the Pier Looking Out at the Water with Liz Carney

From the Pitcher's Mound to the Sculptor's Workshop with Cole Cook

This week, we interview Cole Cook, a sculptor who was born in New York, raised in Los Angeles by actor parents, and spent summers on Cape Cod. Cook describes being shepherded into baseball, playing professionally across all minor-league levels, then becoming unhappy and eventually leaving the sport after an eye-opening trip around artists in New York. After studying improv at UCB, writing, and working as a pitching coach, he moved to Cape Cod during the pandemic with his cats and began making wood sculptures, drawn to trees, woodworking, and the “truthfulness” of carving. He discusses learning tools through observation and experimentation, wood selection and sourcing.

Provincetown Stories with Russ Lopez

This week, we welcome author, editor, and publisher Russ Lopez to The Art Colony to discuss his new book, Provincetown Stories. Lopez recounts first visiting Provincetown in January 1981, returning for decades with his husband, and eventually buying a home before COVID, while noting changes such as higher costs, heavier tourism, and evolving attitudes around race and performance. He describes his earlier LGBTQ history book Hub of the Gay Universe (2019) and explains that fiction offers freedom to convey “truths” without strict documentation. Provincetown Stories is a linked collection of short tales with recurring characters, renamed locations, frank depictions of sex and partying, and magical realism, including an immortal Cuban figure, Luna, and a made-up Feast of St. Bonaventure. Lopez reads excerpts about arriving over the Truro hill and Provincetown’s artistic creativity rooted in unconventional freedom, then shares where to find the book and upcoming local events.

On the Pier Looking Out at the Water with Liz Carney

This week, we interview Liz Carney, artist and owner-director of Gallery 411 on Commercial Street. She describes her roles as painter, educator, entrepreneur, and property manager, and traces her family’s Provincetown roots through her mother, a MassArt-trained art educator who bought 411 Commercial Street around 1980 and filled it with renters including artists, writers, and local characters. She discusses the building’s history as the Francis Guest House and its architectural changes in the 1960s. Liz explains founding the small storefront gallery in 2011, her shift from “studio” to gallery, her focus on local artists, and advice for artists seeking representation. She also discusses her plein-air painting practice, influences, and the next generation of creative Carneys, ending with a brief speed round.

Follow The Music with Mike Flanagan

This week, we welcome Provincetown musician and artist Mike Flanagan, a full-time resident, who plays saxophone and piano, as well as multiple other instruments, studied music education at Berklee, earned a master’s in Music Education at NYU, and now is the entertainment director at Provincetown's Tin Pan Alley and Post Office Café.  He also teaches band, keyboard lab, and co-teaches Italian at the Provincetown School. Flanagan recounts his path from Brockton to Boston and New York, his early inspirations, and how drag performer Liza Lott helped connect him to Provincetown gigs.  He discusses managing rowdy piano-bar crowds, taking requests, and memorable audience moments, plus collaborating with singers and producing tribute and cabaret shows. He highlights Billboard-charting releases, a John Lennon Songwriting Competition win, and a 1M+ view YouTube video, and previews his Bear Week Town Hall concert “Bear Hug” on July 16.

The Long Walk Home with Pete Hocking

This week, we welcome Provincetown artist and teacher Pete Hocking. Pete discusses seven as a formative age before peer pressure. Pete recounts childhood Cape Cod trips, early dreams of living and painting here, and influences from comics, superheroes, and Snoopy. He describes a career balancing art with teaching activism and leadership at Brown and RISD and art at Goddard, adoption’s impact on his self-portrait and queer-themed work, and how an MFA in creative writing ultimately brought him back to painting. In Provincetown, street scenes and later dune and seashore walks shaped more abstract paintings focused on fragility, climate, and remaking the world; he outlines his workshop philosophy and upcoming classes, and reflects on social media as a long-term creative archive.