ian sands

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Power to the people

Painted portraits are, as evidenced by the many on display inside Boston’s world-famous art galleries, a window into the world of royalty, politicos, and other spectacularly coiffed assholes from centuries ago.
Art of the Streets Dept.
By IAN SANDS | November 06, 2009

Less than zero

Three years ago, Russell Freeland had what most would consider a settled life. Just two years later, though, Freeland was hungry, exhausted, and homeless, trying to survive in Austin, Texas.
Artist Russell Freeland went from Boston to Austin — and gave up absolutely everything in the process
By IAN SANDS | October 09, 2009

Wheels in Motion

David Branigan, who recently returned to town after more than a year in Koforidua, in Eastern Ghana, says what he missed most about Boston is the "efficiency." That might come as a shocker for those of us here who have ever waited for the Number 66 bus
Ghana Fly Now
By IAN SANDS | September 04, 2009

Apartment aid

Back from an arduous vacation full of nail-biting beer-pong battles and vigorous Wii tennis matches, you enter the dilapidated dorm or apartment where you'll be spending the next year doing much the same.
Outfit your digs with bad art, help save a life
By IAN SANDS | September 04, 2009

For those about to lock

It's too bad Skip Gates didn't have Schuyler Towne's cell number on that fateful day last month. If he did, the Somerville-based lockpicking champ likely could have gotten in to the good professor's home in no time at all, and a national controversy (a
Somerville's champion lockpicker Schuyler Towne can't be stopped.
By IAN SANDS | August 07, 2009

The healing arts

Eunah Kim, a Korean-born, Cambridge-based artist with advanced lung cancer, has focused her craft on dark imagery.
Breathing Easier
By IAN SANDS | April 24, 2009

Food fight at MIT

Latke or Hamantashen?
A battle to determine the superior of the Jewish treats
By IAN SANDS | March 11, 2009

Sculpt by numbers

Nathalie Miebach's Brookline apartment looks like the home of a very talented madman.
Counting on the Weather
By IAN SANDS | March 04, 2009

The wrong change

A man driving a red sport-utility vehicle pulled up a few feet from the Cambridge Street firehouse in Inman Square.
Sightings
By IAN SANDS | February 11, 2009

Empowerment on Two Wheels

If you grew up, as I did, a privileged snot in a leafy suburb, chances are you took bikes for granted.
JP cyclists reach out to Africa
By IAN SANDS | November 05, 2008

Old trickster

On New Year’s Day 1980, telegrams sent from Utah arrived at the New York Times and the Daily News announcing that 50-year-old media hoaxter Alan Abel had suffered a heart attack at a ski resort near Orem, Utah. He left behind a wife, Jeanne, and daug
At age 78, able-bodied Alan Abel’s life is still one big joke
By IAN SANDS | October 09, 2008

Yes, but why?

Isolation was part of the challenge.
Bumpkin Island puzzler
By IAN SANDS | September 03, 2008

The art of being homeless

Jake Anderson was a high-school sophomore from Lexington, walking down a Boston street, when a man rattling change in a cup asked for help.
Street photography
By IAN SANDS | August 27, 2008

Rip off

The man, on this bright, crisp Saturday morning, stood facing a utility pole outside the Central Square Starbucks tearing down a flyer.
Sightings
By IAN SANDS | July 09, 2008

Virtual brotherhood

Three kids camped out in front of Brookline Booksmith’s storefront window in the middle of June and peered into a video screen broadcasting real-time views of a street corner in Dudley Square.
Uniting the world by two-way video
By IAN SANDS | June 25, 2008

Unappealing zoning

“That’s where I want to live,” says Maxine Farkas, a painter at Western Avenue Studios (WAS), artists’ workspaces housed in two buildings — the A-Mill and the so-called main building — on an old mill complex in an industrial section of Lowell.
No live/work lofts for Lowell
By IAN SANDS | June 04, 2008

Our bad

As the Curator in Chief of the Museum of Bad Art, I would like to thank Ian Sands and the Boston Phoenix for the article about the opening of our new gallery in the Somerville Theatre.
Letters to the Boston editor, May 30, 2008
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | May 28, 2008

Torturous portraits

If you’d gone downstairs to pee during a movie two Wednesdays ago at the Somerville Theatre, chances are you stumbled upon a gallery opening in the works.
Crappy art near Somerville johns
By IAN SANDS | May 21, 2008

Meeting Dad

They were in a circle chatting on the edge of the Harvard campus: a petite undergrad, her boyfriend, and her middle-aged alumni parents.
Sightings
By IAN SANDS | May 07, 2008

For the birds

Buckminster Fuller was an odd duck, one who routinely tackled concepts foreign to him.
Artful lodger comes to MIT
By IAN SANDS | April 23, 2008

Rough power

Watching Bill Gage perform with his band, BILL, is an eye-opening experience.
Bill Gage has Down syndrome. And his band rocks
By IAN SANDS | March 27, 2008

Dunkin' rage

They were siblings in a spat.
Sightings
By IAN SANDS | March 19, 2008

All fur coat and no pants

This letter is in response to the article in which Ian Sands writes of riding the T without pants.
Letters to the Boston editor, February 15, 2008
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | February 13, 2008

Diamonds in the rough

In 1941, 27-year-old Polish Jew Meyer Hack was deported to Auschwitz along with his mother, two sisters, and brother.
Holocaust survivor Meyer Hack kept a special collection of jewelry secret for 60 years
By IAN SANDS | January 17, 2008

Strip club

Do not show up unless you plan to take your pants off. This includes media.
Underwear underground
By IAN SANDS | January 16, 2008

Guest lists 2007

Phoenix and WFNX staffers submit their ten best albums of the year
By PHOENIX STAFF | December 21, 2007

Bring your own pillow

In 2006, an unruly mass of folks gathered on a lawn before the majestic, domed courthouse in the French-speaking city of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Playing in the street
By IAN SANDS | December 14, 2007

Dynamic duo

As Sting once famously suggested, being in a band is like marriage without sex. And joining a band is often a lot like entering into a romantic relationship.
Steven Vallarelli and Tim Griffiths forge their own Antiques
By IAN SANDS | December 11, 2007

About shutting down . . .

A little more than a year after the Someday Café closed its doors, it seems that Davis Square is poised to lose another beloved institution.
Jimmy Tingle opens up
By IAN SANDS | October 17, 2007

Inspiration and a tune up

I’m lost. I was supposed to be at Aladdin Auto Service in Cambridge like now .
The mechanical arts
By IAN SANDS | October 10, 2007

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