Stories of an Enduring Art Colony

Gaston Lacombe wants people to know that Provincetown is alive and well as an art colony.

In his weekly podcast, which debuted in August, the Canadian-born artist explores Provincetown’s storied past as well as its present-day artists and cultural figures, who Lacombe believes are making history now.

“Regardless of the challenges, a lot of artists, especially queer artists, come here because they can find a community,” Lacombe says. “Every decade, someone says Provincetown is done. In 1914, they were already complaining, ‘Oh, the artists are leaving.’ ” He cites a 1979 article about the Days Lumber Artist Studios (now the Fine Arts Work Center) in which artist Lillian Orlowsky laments that Provincetown is not what it used to be.

Lacombe’s podcast is called “The Art Colony.”

“I think we may look back and say, ‘Oh my God, the 2020s were such a great time for art in Provincetown,’ ” says Lacombe. “We just don’t know how the future will see us.”

Lacombe has devoted much of his first season to the institutions responsible for Provincetown’s continuity as an art colony, including the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, the Fine Arts Work Center, the Cape School of Art, the Commons, and Womencrafts, one of the few remaining feminist bookstores in the U.S. But it’s the personal stories of cultural figures in Provincetown’s past and present that give the podcast its intimate feel.

Read the full article in the Provincetown Independent