Welcome!

Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its latest exhibit will be on view from September 18- November 21, 2008. The art and art installations are by Rhode Island artists Paul Almeida, Emmet Estrada, Alice BenvieGebhart and Brenda Wilkinson, as well as Lisa Marie Barber (Wisconsin), Gary Duehr (Massachusetts), Lisa Kellner (New York), Donna Dodson ( Massachusetts), Adele Mattern (Ohio), Randall Nelson (Connecticut) and Mel Smothers (New York). The art installed in ten windows in Downtown Providence creates a six-block loop that viewers can walk day or night.

Please join us for the opening reception at Design Within Reach(210 Westminster Street, Providence, RI 02903) on September 18, from 5:30-7:30PM. Come and meet the artists, go on a walking tour and visit beautiful Downtown Providence during Gallery Night. A performance of poetry by Charlanne Kalley, in collaboration with Donna Dodson's sculptures, will take place from 6:30-7 PM outside her window.

Click on the image above for a printable map of this exhibition.

1. 191 Westminster Street

EARLY BIRD FARMS; FUTURE IN DOUBT, by Randall R. Nelson

sculpture- mixed media (milk cartons, plastic delivery
cases, Homosote and wood display walls, paper ephemera), 12'x8'x2', 2008.

In the 1970's and early 80's there were several "Missing Children" programs involving milk carton advertising and later, shopping bags. The longest running program was sponsored by Advo Systems of Hartford, CT, which featured information and a picture of the missing child and the heading "Have You Seen Me?" Six years ago Randall started doing Graduate Research on two subjects, Bird Species Depletion and Missing and Exploited Children. He found many disturbing parallels in the stories he was reading while doing the research on these disparate subjects. This piece is an attempt to resolve these issues.

About the Artist
Randall Nelson is originally from Jackson, Mississippi. He attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY from 1970-74 and graduated with a BFA in Sculpture, then served a five year apprenticeship with Toshio Odate, noted sculptor and woodworker from 1974-1978. He has a masters of fine art from Vermont College, Montpeliar, VT and presently lives in Willington, CT. He teaches woodworking and carving at Manchester Community College, Manchester, CT. He has a major retrospective exhibition, "Connecticut Wilderness," coming in March of 2009 at the Homer Babbidge Library at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.

2. 191 Westminster Street

Three of Hearts, Lisa Barber

Three of Hearts reflects Lisa Marie Barber's creation of small cities or worlds that project positive interpretations of the human condition. Her main artistic influences are Mexican folk art and altars rooted in her Mexican-American heritage, Bay Area Figurative Abstraction, and urban landscape. The work is intended to be both celebratory and sober, using accumulation as a way to imply richness, value, and process.

About the Artist

Lisa was born in Tucson in 1970, received a BS in Sociology (minor in Art) from Northern Arizona University in 1992, and earned her MFA at the University of Texas at Austin in 1998.After living and teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area for five years, Lisa moved to Kenosha, WI in 2003 to begin a professorship at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. She was awarded a 2006-2007 McKnight Artist Residency Award, an internationally competitive award in ceramic art, and her work was featured in American Craft Magazine. Solo exhibitions include Gallery 221 in New York City, the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center in Kansas City, Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, and the University of Arizona in Tucson. Lisa received an Emerging Artist Award from NCECA (The National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts) and another through The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco. A review of her 2007-2008 show at Gallery 221 will be included in an upcoming issue of American Ceramics Magazine. Please go to Lisa's web site for more information about the artist

3. 203 Westminster Street

Inner Urban Sanctum, by Lisa Kellner
Inner Urban Sanctum is an installation made of silk organza, pigment, mannequin body parts, wood, monofilament and latex paint. This piece examines the experiential qualities of private and public space. Lisa is interested in the emotional sensibilities that occur when flesh and bodily structure are juxtaposed with aspects of a personal sanctuary within the confines of an urban configuration. Inner Urban Sanctum intends to involve the viewer in peeling back the layers of a constructed persona to reveal what lies underneath.

About the Artist
Lisa Kellner resides in New York City and rural Virginia. Her studio is located in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from The Art Institute of Boston in 2008. Kellner completed her undergraduate studies at Boston University and The School of Visual Arts. Recently, her work was included in several exhibitions including: “Here and Now” at Transformer Gallery (DC), “I Dream of Genomes”, at the Islip Art Museum (NY) and the “Boston Young Contemporaries” exhibition at 808 Gallery (MA). Currently, Kellner is exhibiting a body of work, Untitled; The Emperor Has No Clothes, at the New Art Center’s “Material Meditation” exhibition in Newton, MA until October 26. She will be participating in the A.G.A.S.T. open studios October 18 and 19 in Brooklyn, NY at 94 9th st, #44.

5. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, at Eddy and Westminster

Venice/Providence:YOU ARE HERE, by Gary Duehr

Gary Duehr’s “Venice/Providence:YOU ARE HERE” utilizes satellite imagery of Venice and Providence and merges them to create a a hybrid space. “Where exactly are you?” this image asks of the viewer.


About the Artist
In 2007 Gary Duehr was chosen as a Best Emerging Artist in New England by the International Association of Art Critics. In 2003 Duehr received an Artist Grant in photography from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and his work has been featured in museums and galleries including Gallery Kayafas and Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston, MA; Exit Art, Umbrella Arts, and New York Arts, New York, NY; Gallery Tsubaki, Tokyo, Japan; SKC Gallery, Belgrade, Yugoslavia; and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba. Past awards include grants from the LEF Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

His public artworks include a photo installation funded by the Visible Republic program of New England Foundation for the Arts, and a commission from the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority) for a permanent photo installation at North Station.

Duehr is codirector of the Invisible Cities Group, which creates "large-scale urban detours" combining performance, poetry, and installations of visual art. He has written about the arts for journals including ArtScope, Art New England, Art on Paper, Communication Arts, Frieze, and Public Culture. Currently he manages Bromfield Art Gallery in Boston's South End.

4. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, at Eddy and Westminster Street

The People, Emmet Estrada

paint on cardboard on wood

About the Artist

Every day at Top Drawer Art Center, Emmet Estrada paints people who he says are from China, Japan, Mexico, France, or Egypt, all in the remarkably speedy hand-style of a graffiti writer, and with all the "Spirit Resonance" of traditional Chinese painting. In order to supply Emmet with enough material to work at his natural rate of speed, the sizes of each paint surface with which Top Drawer would supply him naturally became smaller and smaller, and the subject matter of each more and more singular. Today, Emmet paints on average 70 3" x 4" paintings per day, 200 per week. His most recent installation is at his exhibition "My Show" at Top Drawer Art Center, 2731 Pawtucket Ave., East Providence, and will show through October 3rd.

6. Fulton Street, across from Providence City Hall

Bereaving Points South, by Adele Mattern

…and soon the birds and ancients

will be starting to arrive, bereaving points

south.

--from The Racer’s Widow (Louise Gluck)


Bereaving Points South gives form to the act of making, and of transformation. A movement of birds, a talisman against forgetting, an acknowledgment of loss. Discarded elements of other lives are reconfigured and given new meaning through a single repeated gesture.

About the Artist

Adele Mattern recently received her M.F.A. in sculpture from The Ohio State University. Prior to returning to school, Adele was a clothing and textile designer and her work often engages textile materials and techniques. Recent shows include Lest I Be Quite Forgotten at ROY, in Columbus, Ohio and Vacant Place installed as part of the inaugural group show at Urban Arts Space, also in Columbus. Locally, her work was part of Lush at Grimshaw-Gudewiccz Gallery in New Bedford, MA. Adele has performed Soup Tureen, An Interview at The Pulitzer Foundation in St. Louis, MO. Earlier this summer Adele designed costumes for an independent feature film Kitchen Hamlet.

7. RI Housing, 44 Washington Street

City Living

Medium: Acrylic paint

City Living features the work of 2 city residents: Paul Almeida of Providence and Brenda Wilkinson of Pawtucket. Both artists work at Flying Shuttles Studio. Each piece reflects their personal responses to the theme of “neighborhood”, incorporating observations of their respective city surroundings.

A program founded in 1984 by the Arc of Blackstone Valley, Flying Shuttles is a non-profit studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island that provides artistic and technical training for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The artists specialize in creating handwoven goods and original artwork. The work of Flying Shuttles artists has been shown at the Atrium, Paper Girls Gallery, Narraganset Art Festival, the Fine Furnishings Show, Hera Gallery, The Pawtucket Arts Collaborative, Courthouse Center for the Arts, and the Outsider Art Fair, and in our own window and gallery space at 250 Main St., Pawtucket, RI.

Painting above, by Brenda Wilkinson

About the Artists

Brenda Wilkinson
Brenda Wilkinson, a life-long resident of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was born in 1962. She has been drawing since she was 5 years old. At Flying Shuttles Studio she draws and paints original works of art, switching gears occasionally to embroider or weave. She states, “I like to draw all kinds of special things like people, animals, neighborhoods, cities, oceans, lakes, woods, trees, and houses. I also like to write songs and poems.”

Paul Almeida
Born in Rhode Island in 1969, Paul Almeida became interested in art-making as a teenager, when some of his relatives showed him how to use various materials and techniques. Although his disability ultimately prevented him from fulfilling his ambition to be a background artist for the Disney Studios, he did not let it stop him from continuing to make art. His work reflects his deeply felt connections to his family, his workplace, his residence, and his country, employing abstract signs and symbols to depict each of these. Recurring images include hearts, peace signs, crosses, gravestones, houses, mountains and water. He says that his art is an “abstract of my life, surroundings, feelings”, and likes to play with mirror/reverse mirror symmetry, the personal meanings of colors, and keeping his work not completely explainable. Careful thought is given to each of his titles, which flesh out the personal significance of each piece. Paul is a member of Flying Shuttles Studio, a program of the Arc of Blackstone Valley. The studio supports the creative abilities of artists with disabilities.

His work has been shown in Rhode Island at Center City Artisans, Hera Gallery, The Atrium Gallery, Fine Furnishings Show, the Outsider Art Fair, NYC and Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute’s International Art Show in Minnesota. In 2006, the State of Rhode Island purchased one of his pieces to hang in the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, and he received a certificate from the Governor Carcieri in recognition of his “artistic contributions” to the State of Rhode Island.

8. URI Library, 80 Washington Street

Matriarchs and Goddesses of the Modern Era, by Donna Dodson

Donna Dodson’s wooden sculptures celebrate the “mystical relationship between human beings and the animal kingdom.” Lined up along the Washington Street windows of the URI library will be towering animal headed figures of the female form. The natural grain of the wood creates a fluid sense of motion within the piece.

Donna has also collaborated with Charlanne Kallay, who is producing works of poetry related to this series.
About this artistic collaboration, Dodson says, "I am exploring the dignity and complexity of feminine archetypes. Collaboration allows me to see my work through someone else's eyes. What started from an email exchange has grown into a very long conversation about all my pieces. Charlane will be perfoming her poetry outside this art window at the opening reception, Septemebr 18th, from 6:30-7 PM.



About the Artist

Donna Dodson graduated cum laude from Wellesley College in 1990 with a Bachelor of Arts. Her pre-med studies and her passion for Egyptian art led her to study wood sculpture with Joseph Wheelwright at his studio in Boston in 1995. She continued her studies in sculpture with Peter Haines at his studio in Cambridge by learning how to abstract and resolve forms. Since 2000, Dodson has been honored with solo shows in New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Kansas and Massachusetts and she has been invited to participate or juried into many group shows around the country. Dodson enjoys public speaking, and has been a guest speaker in conferences, panels and forums at the Boston Public Library, Pittsburg State University, Cambridge Art Association, Concord Art Association, Wellesley College and Stonehill College. She is a member of the International Sculpture Center, National Association of Women Artists and the Women’s Caucus for Art. In May 2007 she started the Art Salon Boston at her studio in Jamaica Plain to meet artists of all disciplines and host monthly conversations on topics of interest to artists in Boston and beyond.

9. Trinity Rep, 201 Washington Street

Rhode Island Illuminated, by Alice Benvie Gebhart

Overlook/Rhode Island Illuminated
"As an artist I specialize in fusing glass to create images of color and light. As with any artistic process one must start with an idea. My ideas and inspirations come from nature. I mentally record, take photographs and sketch the scenery around me emphasizing color and light in my compositions. Working off these sketches, I cut and layer colored glass in a kind of collage. These are fired in a glass kiln, often 4-5 times to obtain the desired effect. I often include specialty glasses such as dichroic glass and iridescent glass to give my work a luminescent quality. Iron oxide, mica, copper and 24 karat gold are added to the glass to create detail and special effects within each piece."

About the Process
Glass fusing is the process of using a kiln to join together pieces of glass. If you apply heat to glass, it will soften, become fluid and flow together. At appoximately1500º, two or more pieces of glass will stick (or "fuse") to each other. When the right kind of glass is heated and then cooled properly, the resulting fused glass piece will be solid and unbroken.

About the Artist
"It has been a lifelong ambition to merge the making of art and the teaching of art. My goal as an artist is to bring about a visual appreciation of our surroundings in my work. Finding beauty in the ordinary is my inspiration. My goal as an artist and a teacher is to foster an appreciation for the visual arts and incorporate the arts in our lives."

Born, bred and educated in Rhode Island, Alice has worked as an art educator at Cranston High School East and Rhode Island College and as a fused glass artist in her East Greenwich studio for many years. Recent travel throughout Japan, Italy and Ireland has been inspiring. Her professional memberships include Providence Art Club, Art League of RI, South County Art Association, National Association for Art Education and the American Craft Council. Recent accolades include Best of Show win at Art League of R.I and participation in Open Exhibit, 2007, and Invitational Members’ Exhibition at South County Art Association. Alice has a two person show at the Providence Art Club in April 2009 with painter Marjorie Ball.

10. Johnson & Wales, Snowden Hall, 220 Weybosset Street

Dear Andy (Montauk)Series, Mel Smothers

"Last year I read in the New York Times that Andy Warhol’s oceanside estate at Montauk, Long Island was sold, so I made a point of driving out to get a feel for the place. Andy was a very busy guy in New York City; he was famous, he was mass producing contemporary art with images he found in the NY Times. Montauk wasn’t on Andy’s calendar much. His famous friends liked it out there. I’ve taken a look around and like it too. I’ve painted Andy a few postcards.

He would have liked that."


About the Artist
"This series is about a resolution of my West Coast art education with Wayne Thiebaud’s Pop Art, that had a zen-like naturalist feel to me, and the relocation of my studio to NYCand immersion into Warholian East Coast Pop Art. Andy Warhol’s model was indigenous to materialism and mass commercial culture. As a painter, I’m interested in aspects of both; that is, the painterly formalism of California and, the conceptualism of East Coast. My current approach to a synthesis is influenced by van Gogh’s letters to Bernard and Charlie Russell’s barroom communications from Montana."

Selected recent exhibitions include Higgenbotham Museum, Virginia; Brooklyn Museum, New York City; Museum of Community University of New York (CUNY);Whipple Art Museum;
Mid-America All Indian Center and the University of California at Davis. Mel will have a solo exhibition at the Judaica Museum, New York City, 2009, with Warhol’s from museum collection, Emily O’Leary, Curator.

Coming Soon!

Welcome to the new site for Providence Art Windows. Stay tuned as this site is updated with the next round of artists by September 1, 2008.

Here is the map of the current round of artists: