8. URI Library

Constance Allen

Peace Mobiles
Paper, mixed media

This installation will grow and change through the summer season.

Constance Allen is a woman of a certain age who lives here in Providence in elderly housing. When Bush began talking War, it triggered a passion for peace and the peace symbol and a need to share it that has ruled her life since. First came huge painted cardboard peace symbols wired to chain link on highway overpasses. Then smaller painted peace symbols on skewers for the front yard and garden. Next, a professionally applied vinyl peace symbol for the roof of the car, visible to satellite cameras and drivers in tall vehicles on the road. Fast forward to red white and blue paper plates with peace symbols painted on them, wired to the back of stop signs. Somewhere in there came thousands of little plastic "talking soldiers" with a heart on the bottom of their boots reading "Bring Me Home" which were left randomly to be found all over Providence. And now, the spinning 3D peace symbol which, working like a prayer wheel, spins and sends love and peace wherever it is needed. A "Flying Peace Tree in Bloom" mobile spun in the URI summer show last year. Now you can see the peace mobiles in PAW windows on Washington Street in the URI library windows. Peace Rules. Pass it on.