Providence Art Windows

Fulton Street

2011-12-15T11:45:00.004-05:00

111 Photographs of 111 Westminster Street

pictures taken with an IPhone

About the Work

This is the view from my desk, so I see the tower all day long and the constantly changing sky behind it. One day the sky was a deep shade of purple. It was almost unbelievable, so I took a picture with my iPhone resting on the window sill. Then another day the clouds looked like pink comets, so I took another picture. I shared them with a friend who works in the building and she replied “Isn’t 111 beautiful?!” -- I didn’t know people had referred to the building as “111” so that gave me the idea to continue the series through the year and create 111 pictures of 111 westminster. Many of the pictures are beautiful on their own, but seeing them all together and comparing the changing colors is the most impressive way to view the series. If you look closely you can find helicopters, airplanes, and the rare wild peregrine falcons who live on the tower.

About the Artist and to see more of Peter’s Work:

111of111.com

providenceraptors.com

191 Westminster Street, 1 & 2

2011-12-15T11:29:00.005-05:00

Margaret Owen

Winter Light

oil paintings

About the Work

Margaret Maurice Owen paints oil paintings on a daily basis that explore paint handling and composition. She documents hrer bright, light infused work on several blogs listed below.

Daily painting blog: www.permanentmagenta.com

About the Artist

Margaret Maurice Owen was born in Durham, NC in 1973. She studied at Parsons-Paris as a high school student, received a BFA from the University of Georgia in Athens, GA and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art Graduate School of Figurative Art in New York, NY. She lives and works in Providence, RI with her husband, artist Michael Owen and their six year old son. Margaret teaches drawing and painting at a wide variety of institutions and is currently gearing up for a painting workshop in Morocco.

More about the artist:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/permnentmagenta

Moroccan Sketchbook Retreat: http://www.moroccansketchbook.com/morocco_sketchbook_04.pdf

URI Library

2011-10-10T08:43:00.005-04:00

Alberto Bernard, Self portrait

Providence Art windows is pairing with the interior exhibitions at the URI Campus in Providence. Go inside to see more art from this exhibition!

NEW PERSPECTIVES: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC September12 - October 31 The touring exhibit from The Global Foundation for Democracy and Development is a stunning photographic documentaryby Anne Casale. Gallery Night Reception September 15 5:00pm,-9:00pm Gala Gallery Night Reception with music dance and special guests October 20 5-9pm DOMINICAN/RHODE ISLAND September 1 – November 30 Providence Art Windows Exhibit at URI Providence Campus Library featuring Rhode Island community artists originally from the Dominican Republic including, Elizabeth Berroa, Alberto Bernard Luis Cereda, Felix Diclo, Francisco Hernandez, Evangelista Jimenez, Norlan Olivo, and Miguel Rosario. DOMINICAN*NOH! The premiere of a play written and directed by Jhomphy Ventura October 21 & 22 7:30pm October 23 2pm The bilingual play with music and humor explores the challenges faced by families fromthe Dominican Republic trying to maintain their cultural traditions while embracing their new home. URI Providence Campus 1st & 2nd floor Lobby Gallery 80 Washington Street Providence RI 02903 Hours M-TH 9-9, F&S 9-5 closed Sundays and holidays All exhibits and events are free and open to the public

URI LIBRARY

2011-03-22T22:59:00.005-04:00

This window is a part of a collaboration of Hera Gallery and The Hive Archive, "Crossing Currents: Feminism Now."

ABOUT THE WORK

Politics is the art of the possible. Otto von Bismarck. 1868

Feminism is a political stance. Feminism expands what is possible. Instead of the von Bismarck quote that begins this statement, in this exhibition I am using poet, activist, and essayist Adrienne Rich concept of the Arts of the Possible. Rich believes that newness and social change are made through connective creative acts. Like Rich, I see the challenge of the von Bismarck quote to be: How do we make more things possible? In this spirit I invited artists and writers, who’s work builds new lexicons of imagery and troubles well-worn parameters. Creativity can supersede cultural conventions, but when it is really effective it expands what is possible artistically, personally and politically.

This grouping of artists and writers reveals their similarities slowly. All the artists see humans as fantastic creatures capable of dark and delicate ruminations. Each artist sees through a warped mirror. They individually build new worlds of wonder or disquieted longing. Collectively they speak of the fantastic and imagined body, as a metaphor and method to promulgate questions of gender and ethical living.

Kyla Zoe Rafert creates odd Victorian domestic settings populated almost exclusively with pensive young women. Much like the protagonist in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic feminist novella the Yellow Wallpaper, they are subsumed into the domestic patterns that decorate their seemingly sedate parlors. Rafert is a consummate printmaker. Formally, her etchings highlight her dead-on draftsmanship and beauty and the eeriness of brutally made marks.

Curator

Delia Kovac

February 2011

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Marissa Paternoster forges dark worlds. With thousands of tiny lines she builds figures that are equal parts post-modern mannerism and cartoon nightmare. Paternoster’s work ceaselessly confronts the viewer with a pained and elusive slippery subject. Her bodies are disjointed and without firm boundaries. In her work gender becomes a horrible carnival ride where desire and etiquette reveal their disgusting and abhorrent origins.

Amy Squires uses the body as her subject. In her site-specific installations and two-dimensional works, she takes traditional feminine tropes and inverts and celebrates them. Her work is influenced as much by minimalism as it is the Feminist Art movement of the 1970’s. Her work is inherently interdisciplinary and encompasses the contradictions of combining corporeality with immateriality.

LNY, reclaims portraiture as a vibrant contemporary art form. His work is global. It can be found on the streets of Japan, Korea, the USA, France, China and Germany. His work humanizes and commemorates individuals moving though the global diaspora. His oversized and painstakingly drawn portraits of immigrants and other dislocated subjects are found in indistinguishable urban sprawls. His work reveals the human politics of place and displacement while meshing socially engaged street art with magical realism.

Natalie Northrup, is devoted to the poetry of formalism. Her work is stridently handmade, revealing the labor inherent to fine art and women’s traditional handwork. Beyond that her work on paper and fabric pieces speak of brevity and abjectness in the same breath. Her roughly hewn marks refuse to be refined or controlled. Her marks read like an untidy Emily Dickenson poem. Her puckered and pulled fabric work reveals the ambiguity between preciousness and benign neglect. She finds the power of ambiguity.

Arthur Middleton, as a writer traverses unmarked paths guided by his heart light. Though seemingly straightforward his work is not simple. He mines lost historical and imagined modern spaces to find passionate, radical, and tender domesticity. He does not write to come to terms with the world. He writes new worlds into existence.

Author Joanna Ruocco and artist Sarah McDermott maintain an ongoing collaboration across disciplines and time zones. McDermott deftly draws and prints sinuous lines onto textured papers. This saturation of information, both graphic and tactile, dovetail with Roucco’s dexterous uses of language and her flexible and creative lexicon. McDermott illustrated Ruocco’s book The Mothering Coven (Ellipsis Press). Their latest joint effort is the book Compendium of Domestic Incidents. They are 2/3rds of a collective that publishes Birkensnake, an experimental fiction journal.

Trinity Rep

2011-01-17T10:07:00.005-05:00

Jennifer French

Animal Alphabet

2010

Acrylic & Collage on Canvas Boards

About the Work

After a year of being a stay-at-home mother, feeling compelled to begin making art again, I decided to create my own entry into the long tradition of alphabet books for children. Always inspired by the paper detritus of our culture, I drew imagery from materials accumulated over many years: old magazines, text books, coloring books, catalogs and junk mail, and combined them into loosely narrative collages. Patterns and details were painted into the collages, resulting in an amalgam of alphabet book, surreal landscape, and medieval icon. I find strange beauty in the darker corners of history, inspiration which found its way into this series as a slightly sinister sense of narrative, reminiscent of folk tales.

About the Artist

Jennifer Eli French was born in Denver, Colorado, and spent her childhood moving frequently. She attended high school in England and earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Jennifer lives in Providence with her husband, Rob, and twin sons Hank & Dexter.

Prints of the entire Animal Alphabet are available in her Etsy shop:

www.etsy.com/shop/jenniferfrench

To see more of Jennifer's work:

www.jenniferelifrench.com

Contact Jennifer at jen.eli.french@gmail.com for more information.

Now on View

2010-12-13T03:41:00.005-05:00

Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its winter installation series will be on view through March 2011. The current art and art installations in the downtown windows are produced by Jon Creamer, Jennifer French, Abby Saunders, Serena JV Elston and the International Gallery of Heritage & Culture.

203 Westminster Street

2010-12-08T18:06:00.004-05:00

Abby Saunders

Autobiography.

mixed media

About the Work

This piece was first shown at Bannister Gallery in Providence, RI in May 2005. The Remington Noiseless was a gift from metalsmith Sondra Sherman, and the space bar was hand engraved by George Beattie. Images are set and photo-etched in brass, and certain keys have been cast in brass. The keys have been ground away to create unintelligable type when struck.

About the Artist

To learn more about the artist, please go to http://abbysaunders.com/

URI Library

2010-12-06T01:13:00.010-05:00

International Gallery of Heritage and Culture

About the Work
The window display includes a series of mini-murals created by former members of the International Gallery AmeriCorps Program for space beautification: African American Musicians by Natalie Markward and a mural depicting Rhode Island African American historical figures for the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, painted by Munir Mohammed.

About the Artists and the International Gallery
The Mission of the International Gallery of Heritage and Culture is to create and support a community of Rhode Islanders who celebrate the convergence of their diverse artistic and cultural heritage.

The International Gallery for Heritage and Culture was founded in 1996 by Linda A’Vant-Deishinni and her husband Munir D. Mohammed, a museum without walls that utilizes art and history to promote cultural understanding. Together they designed many community outreach programs that include exhibitions, art education, lectures, performances and space beautification projects. They have partnered with museums, education institutions and organizations to provide enrichment programs for the state of Rhode Island.

191 Westminster Street Space 1 and 2)

2010-12-06T01:05:00.007-05:00

Serena JV Elston

About the Works

More Absurdity. (left window)
These works were made in response to a friend's suicide and being hit by a car. They are a physical manifestation of coping mechanism developed to battle depression.

Banquet (right window)
These Commemorative tapestries are the relics of 3 Banquets held to honor the attending guests.

During the winter of 2008 a Banquet Hall was erected from two suspended Scissor Trusses and a 13ft long 20 person dinner table sat inside the ship like structure. The exterior was shielded entirely with welded plastic bags and the inside was plated with silver heat reflective mylar sheets.

About the Artist
Serena JV Elston received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a focus in both Sculpture and Architecture. She served in the artist group The Tinderbox in Brattleboro, VT for three years till it’s closing in December 2008. Her creations demonstrate possibilities through an intimate understanding of material. Colliding Ridiculous with Craft she animates wingnuttey wherever her humongous projects sit themselves. Past works include a Portable Suspended Banquet Hall, Twenty-person Dinner Table, Two-Story Yurt, and a constructing her own burial chamber. She has future plans to cover the world in cozy hammocks and to one day build a castle on US soil with a velladrom full of skateboarders as its motte.

To learn more about the artist, please go to http://flickr.com/photos/serenajve/

Fulton Street

2010-12-06T01:02:00.007-05:00

John Creamer

The Sky Above; 1998 - 2011 (Years of Indiscretion III)

About the Work
Most of the photographs I take come about with a particular project in mind and add up fairly quickly. The thousands of Polaroids I have taken over the years were done so without
any particular purpose in mind, quickly put away in boxes or sent off in letters to friends in far away places. This is a portion of the third piece to come about in my finally trying to make some
sense of all that I have collected. My only hope is that this mostly summer made sky, put together from its clabbered and clear, dusky and dawning and midday pieces, found on a city street, as winter makes its way, might hold your attention for a few moments.

About the Artist
I was born in Providence, currently live and work at a boarding school in Groton, MA. I have a B.Sc. in mathematics from Brown University and an MFA in photography from Bard College.
More of my work can be seen here: http://jonanoj.blogspot.com/

Coming Soon! Applications for 2011 Providence Art Windows

2010-09-06T16:56:00.005-04:00

Do you want to apply to make an Art Window? New guidelines will be up mid december for the 2011 season. In the meantime, enjoy the new installations will popping up throughout the city in November and early December.

Summer Installations on View June 18

2010-06-14T17:55:00.003-04:00

Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its next installation series will be on view from June 18- November 5, 2010. The art and art installations presented in nine downtown windows are produced by Constance Allen, Jenine Bressner, Jennifer Daltry, Heather Freedman and Greg Kozatek, Holly Gaboriault, Michael Guadagni, Delia Kovac, Adam R. Thime and Leigh Waldron-Taylor.

Please join us for a walk with the artists on Gallery Night, Thursday, July 15th, at 6 PM. Starting point and reception is at Heir on Westminster Street. If you are unable to attend, please download the map above and take a tour of the art and downtown Providence.

1. 191 Westminster Street, right

2010-06-13T21:30:00.004-04:00

Delia Kovac

DOMESTICATED
mixed media

About the Work

Born from detritus, DOMESTICATED, is part elegy and part western cultural mashup.

DOMESTICATED pairs reimagined ancient Greek drama masks and mediæval helmets (Armets, Barbutes, Bascinet, Great Helms, Hounskulls, etc.) with images of the internet age. The protection, artifice, and individual dislocation of the ancient artifacts are distant cousins to our relationship with our contemporary selves. Created with humble materials, second hand cloth and overstock paper, DOMESTICATED accentuates the seams and genealogy of contemporary culture.

About the Artist
Delia Kovac was born in Milwaukee, WI. She received a BFA in Printmaking from the RISD and an MFA from Rutgers University. She is a former member of the underground Providence feminist art collective the Hive Archive. She worked in printshops on three continents including The Brodsky Center and the Singapore Tyler Print institute. She was a member of the video/music collaboration The Triple M Threat, which toured the Eastern seaboard. Her work has been show internationally including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, The Hunterdon Art Museum, The Wunderground Show at the RISD Museum, Alexander Gray Associates, James Yarosh Associates, Gallery Angiel and 5 Traverse Gallery. Her work is currently on view in the Boston Drawing Project at Joseph Carroll and Sons Art Gallery. Delia Kovac lives and works in South Providence, RI.

To learn more about the artist, please go to deliakovac.blogspot.com

2. 191 Westminster Street

2010-06-13T21:29:00.004-04:00

Michael Guadagni

I love things of a fantastical nature; based in reality but pushed beyond the limits of what we conventionally know. A lot of my work is influenced by play: toys, fantasy-based narratives, role-playing games (and associated with the nerd culture). As a professional band photographer, I'm also heavily influence by music and the aesthetics of band culture in Providence.

These seeds of inspiration grow in my mind to become tangible playthings unlike any others that I know. I re-purpose existing fabrics by creating new surfaces and using them to construct my characters. I hand-draw detailed patterns that I then screen print in layers, and I draw stitches and applique to create new textiles.

3. 203 Westminster Street

2010-06-13T21:26:00.005-04:00

Jenine Bressner

Why are we fighting when we’re on the same team?
hand-cut and laser-cut textiles, glass

About the Work
I'm frustrated by the inescapable theme of "Humans vs. Nature." To tolerate it, I have to find humor in the inanity of this idea, and its failure to recognize humans as nature. Though it might be possible for people or other animals to survive in mostly- synthesized environs, such a state of existence would be an artificial life.

The most inspiring works I've witnessed have all been naturally- occurring ones. I aim to make things that reflect my respect and awe for the natural world, my quiet sadness for its/ our uncertain future, and the irony of humans trying to control and recreate nature itself in artwork that can only strive to be as beautiful as authentic life.

About the Artist
Jenine Bressner wants to see things she has never seen before. She aims to satisfy this wish by drawing with glass rods in a torch flame, laser cutting textiles, and by working in other various media. She studied glass at RISD and Digital Fabrication at AS220, through MIT.

Jenine was awarded RISCA's Fellowship of Craft in 2009 and is currently preparing for a show next year at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. To learn more about Jenine, please go to jenine.net.

4. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, at Eddy

2010-06-13T21:18:00.007-04:00

Heather Freedman & Greg Kozatek

Habitat Becomes You

Mixed media installation.

About the Work

Shelter is a common theme, as well as necessity, shared by all lifeforms. Architecture peppers our planet, taking the form of nests, cocoons, hives, apartment complexes and high-rises. As humans, we find comfort in the idea of home. It is a place to retreat to, and a place to start out from. We rest, we reload. Sometimes, after we've done all the growing we can do in one place, we get pushed out of the nest. We must move forward towards new opportunities for growth. All aspects of ourselves, as well as our habitats, experience the unavoidable change found in moving through the stages of life. Opened cocoons speak of a stage of life completed. They are left behind as time moves on, and serve as beautiful sculptural reminders of time past. A sense of history, as well as future, is created.

About the Artists

Growing up in the midwest, Heather Freedman relocated to Providence to attend Rhode Island School of Design. Graduating in June with a BFA in Illustration, Heather's work explores themes in nature and movement. She enjoys experimenting with a variety of 2D and 3D media. A background and continued interest in classical dance adds an aspect of performance to her work. Heather is currently serving a summer term at CityArts with AmeriCorps, where she is teaching a creative movement class and is enjoying sharing art with young people. Heather loves trees, dancing, and a leisurely coffee break.

Greg Kozatek was born and raised in Apple Valley Rhode Island, where he consequently spent most of his childhood picking apples. Greg attended Smithfield High School and now a graduate of the Illustration Department from the Rhode Island School of Design, Greg hopes to work as a part of a creative design/production team to create work for film, television and theater.

5. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, Eddy Street

2010-06-13T21:16:00.005-04:00

Adam R. Thime

Untitled, 2009

Latex on poplar plywood

About the Work
Finding inspiration in street art and murals, I set out to create a work that drew from these interests while utilizing my personal style and techniques. The cross-hatched patterning employed in this painting is something I have explored and developed over the last few years. I create a jumble of seemingly random lines that come together to produce an overall unified image. Capturing a sense of randomness, when there is nothing random about it, while maintaining the flowing movement of the design through the entire work, has always been my ultimate goal. The large scale and bright colors of the painting were essential: I want the viewer to be absorbed by this painting, maybe even overwhelmed by it. I feel as though this piece has found a good home for the summer here on the streets of downtown Providence.

About the Artist

Adam R. Thime is a 2009 graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. He graduated with a degree in studio art and a second degree in biology. Since finishing at Wheaton a year ago, he spent eight months working for the Cape Cod National Seashore in North Truro, Massachusetts. He is currently living in Marlborough, Connecticut and working for the Department of Environmental Protection Inland Fisheries Division.

6. Fulton Street

2010-06-13T21:08:00.004-04:00

Leigh Waldron Taylor

An army assembles.
Mixed media installation.

About the Work
This work continues themes begun in I dream of boots and an army of women installed at mobius/Boston in 2009. Here I explore a child's fantasy of the feminine, it's imagined power to enthrall, and as means of escape. I dedicate the piece to Louise Bourgeois.

About the Artist
The artist lives and works at AS220. More work can be seen at leighwaldrontaylor.com.

7. RI Housing

2010-06-13T20:59:00.004-04:00

Holly Gaboriault

Paintings from the Africa Series

About the Work
My work is about telling stories, creating new folktales and new worlds. Much archeology and research goes into my work and is essential in order to find inspiration in the traditions and folklore from different cultures. I find their different perspectives, concerns and rituals have transformed my work over the past several years. Crossing the bridge between words and images, as I do with mask and puppet making, one thing always affects another and triggers something new.
The work in this window is an exploration of an African folk art series exploring pattern, color and its iconic shapes to evoke new stories. The primary themes in African art are based upon nature, humanity and roles people play which greatly influence my work.

The Silhouettes of Sudan were a series of four paintings inspired by the strong African silhouette and the cultural identity of hairstyles both past and present.
Tree of Forgiveness tells a story of the central figure dressed in royal robes leaning on a tree bearing weeping masks. As in many cultures, it is a belief that everything in this life has a spirit inhabiting it. So it is hard to tell if the man has transferred his grief to the tree or is comforting the tree with his own hand placed upon it.
Jungelaro Rising began as a study of the expressive, sometimes playful, and evocative art of African masks. The power of masks can carry spirits and possess the people wearing them in both community and private ceremony where rituals and rites of passage are performed. This painting illustrates where these enlarged masks as hot air balloons used for leisure, not ceremony, rising above a landscape to some unknown destination.
Pachebel’s Canon in D Major is a piece about the connection of people, one holding and one being held inspired by the music of Pachebel. 

About the Artist
I have always believed that storytelling feeds the imagination and gives people power. When I was very young, I filled my days writing and drawing pictures for my stories, long before I knew that was what an illustrator did. I am an author, painter, illustrator, designer and sculptor who finds the unimaginative rather dull and a certain elegance in what may exist.
 Graduating from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration, my first love was always archeology. I became fascinated with Egypt as a child and mummified meat for every science fair. It was inevitable that I would find inspiration in the other histories and cultures, African folktales and stories from places such as Japan, Indonesia, and Mexico. Ceremonies, rituals, costumes and music create new characters and worlds as I cross the bridge between words and images. Making Javanese rod puppets and both African and Balinese masks became a new direction to explore these ideas. Working in theater and ballet allowed me to work on larger scales and apply my interest for set and costume design.
Color, pattern and play are central themes in my work. I write and illustrate children’s books and have created a series of Etiquette Collage books satirizing Victorian social codes and timely tips. As a graphic designer, I create window displays and graphics for a variety of clients, including small businesses, restaurants, non-profits and artists. My work is exhibited in galleries throughout New England.
 Currently I am working on two children’s books and a series of collage books and creating paintings for future exhibitions. My studio in Providence is shared with two felines, Mexican music in the air and steaming cups of mango tea.

8. URI Library

2010-06-13T20:55:00.006-04:00

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.

9. Trinity Rep

2010-06-13T20:54:00.003-04:00

Jennifer Daltry

About the Artist and the Work
As an artist that draws much inspiration from nature, I have become very sensitive to the impact that human beings have on the earth and its inhabitants. Even in my own, fairly rural area, there is constant development, and I see how this effects everything around it. It is encouraging to see how well nature adapts and continues to persevere in the midst of these changes. By studying and then drawing my surroundings, I feel more in touch with the earth on a very basic level, and better able to strive toward improvement. Education: BFA, Rhode Island School of Design

Spring Installation Series Opens March 18

2010-03-16T20:02:00.002-04:00

Join Us!

Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its next installation series will be on view from March 18 - June 11, 2010. The art and art installations presented in nine downtown windows are produced by Jean Cozzens, Susan Freda, Katy Foley & Anastasia Laurenzi, Jason Chakravarty, Ricky Gagnon, Kathy Hodge, Valerie Kim, Madolin Maxey and Howie Sneider. The spring installation series contains artists selected by the jury that reflect light, transition and transformation.

Please join us for the opening reception, Thursday, March 18th, from 5-8 PM at The Gallery at Providence City Hall, 25 Dorrance Street, 2nd Floor., to meet the artists and go on a tour of the windows. Providence Art Windows is sharing an opening with She Works Hard for the Money curated by Rebecca Siemering, Director of Providence Art Windows and The Hive Archive in honor of Women’s History Month. The exhibition showcases work by 25 women who run Rhode Island nonprofit organizations and who also make art as a part or full-time practice beyond the working day. The exhibition will serve as an inspiring reminder that the vision to propel these organizations forward comes from the strong and creative presence within. The Gallery at City Hall is open during regular business hours, 8:30 am to 4:00 pm.

If you are unable to join the reception, please download the map above, and take a tour of downtown Providence.

1. 191 Westminster Street, Right

2010-03-16T19:19:00.003-04:00

Jason Chakravarty

Rudimentary Channels
U.S. Postal crates, lights

About the Work
U.S. postal crates possess a simple yet complex shape. The angles allow them to be configured in many ways while maintaining the simple presence of a building block. The corrugated plastic has a quality that lends itself to illumination. This installation represents a familiar tool- a tool that is becoming less vital. With quicker and cheaper alternatives to bill paying and evasive substitutions to hand written letters (email, instant and text messaging), postal services are becoming obsolete as our relationships become automated.

About the Artist
Based in Illinois and California, Jason Chakravarty creates mixed-media objects that explore questions of identity. Illumination is a key component of his work, most commonly in the form of neon, which for Chakravarty is the epitome of Americana. Materials such as glass, wood, metal, and found objects layer his work with narratives tracing the overlap between social, political, cultural, and personal identity. Straightforward imagery is collaged to create a recognizable vocabulary for investigating the search for individual identity among the perpetually proliferating brand-functions in the contemporary cultural landscape.

To learn more about the artist, please go to jasonchakravarty.com.

2. 191 Westminster Street, Left

2010-03-16T19:18:00.002-04:00

Valerie Kim

Untitled (sometimes baby it’s uh pretty good company)
Mixed media

About the Work

Have you ever seen the inside of your television?

Do you even care?

I do. I’ve been collecting discarded TVs since last summer, gleaned from the sidewalks of Providence.

This is what I found.

About the Artist

She loves trash and nature.

Not together.

Which is why she makes art.

3. 203 Westminster Street

2010-03-16T19:17:00.004-04:00

Susan Freda

Rhode Island Heavy Metals Climbing Vine
Mixed media

About the Work
My artwork has a parasitic relationship to its environment, it grows from what humankind has accumulated and overlooked. The provisions of these resources depend on the industrial, medical, and architectural environments and on the electronic, insulated, and plumbed conditions that society has built

By combining industrial and natural materials with forms based from the world of nature, including those of the body, I am building hybrid organisms. These organisms are alive and flourishing, often invasively, as they grow salt crystals or channel water or electricity from their host. At times they become the record of a natural process, leaving behind delicate and ephemeral marks as a trace or memory of a life. My organism’s exhibit the duplicity of impermanence and resilience found in all biological life, from the great expanses of solar and ecological systems to the most minute and personal, the self.

About the Artist
Susan Freda is a sculptor and jeweler working in RI. She received her BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design in 1996 and her MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2009. Inspired by the detritus of RI’s textile and jewelry industries, her work is informed by the intricacy, shine, and the handmade qualities of the products made here. Susan's work often incorporates industrial materials that have been utilized to approximate natural and organic systems. Her work references nests, wings, vines, arteries, scales, and neurons, assuming a range of forms from dresses and shoes to hybrid incarnations of plant, mineral, and animal structures. Susan has been awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and an artist residency at the de Young Museum of San Francisco. Her work can be found in the collections of Fidelity Investments, Meditech, and Neiman Marcus, among others. Susan's shoe sculptures can be seen traveling with the Fuller Museum as well as with Craft Alliance of St. Louis, MO. Her wearable fashion pieces have recently been included on the runway in NY's Fashion Week 2010.

To learn more about the artist, please go to: www.susanfreda.com

4. Eddy and Westminster Streets

2010-03-16T19:10:00.006-04:00

Katy Foley & Anastasia Laurenzi

...like a Shadow of Time.
cast light, store-front window, glass bulbs, and wire

About the Work
The movement of time is observed through the seasonal shifting of light and shadow. Light bulbs are the material vessel, stationed to register the order of the sun’s daily geometric path as light travels inside of, or projects through them. The field of bulbs within the window becomes a spatial registration of light and light’s memory of time. As the changes of time move through the field, new intervals of light and dark are revealed.

About the Artists
Katy Foley is a recent 2009 graduate of the Landscape Architecture Master’s program at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her latest installation, Intervals of Perception, 2009 RISD, demonstrated the passing of the ephemeral qualities of light and weather as a spatial experience of continual present moments and the perceived ‘thickness’ of space. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art where she made mixed media investigations of the movement of water over intervals of time. This work with time began with photographic explorations of Galway Bay while attending the Burren College of Art in Co. Clare Ireland.

Anastasia Laurenzi is a recent 2009 graduate of the Architecture Master’s program at the Rhode Island School of Design as well as a graduate of the University of Memphis with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts. Before attending RISD, her constructions were large-scale installations that dealt with the understanding of place using light (or the absence thereof). This led to a pursuit of understanding architecture and the way one moves through a space. Her most recent installation, at the Medicine Factory, explored the meaning of reflection and perception through the extension of light and anamorphic projection. Together, Anastasia and Katy are working toward progressing shared ideas of light and time in spatial construction, as well as a developing proposal for the Seekonk River draw bridge as an urban renewal site for Providence, RI.

5. Eddy Street

2010-03-16T19:09:00.004-04:00

Howie Sneider

RLCS002-010
Mixed Media

About the Work
Howie Sneider’s work illustrates manufactured landscapes and historic sites. Throughout his time in Rhode Island he has explored and documented many of the state's parks and formerly used defenses of the Narragansett Bay. The sculptures represent that personal journey through their combination of body forms, vintage photographic equipment and military surplus fabrics. The interlocking shapes serve as a metaphor for the mechanization of our culture and an ever growing set of accessories with which to enhance our understanding of the world around us. In these pieces the camera literally has a body to process and internalize that which it sees, raising questions about the recording of memory and the sharing of experience.

The photos were all taken in public parks maintained and preserved as historic sites. The images show the evolving state of our natural environment and some enduring monuments to the greatest mobilization of the 20th century.

About the Artist
Howie Sneider was born in Syracuse, NY. His childhood exploration of the forests and abandoned quarries of central New York encouraged his sense of wonderment and discovery. He moved to Providence in 1998 and attended RISD where he studied sculpture and photography. He currently runs the Public Projects for the Steel Yard, a local non-profit organization specializing in the industrial arts. He has taught welding, fabricating, sculpture and drawing and has collaborated with over 100 other local artists to create functional and decorative public art throughout Southern New England.

Prints and sculptures are available for purchase and more of his work can be seen at www.howiesneider.com

Special thanks to the RIDEM for their continued commitment ensuring access to and conserving our coastal resources and environment.

6. Fulton Street

2010-03-16T19:08:00.003-04:00

Kathy Hodge

Church Series
Oil on canvas; mixed media

About the Work
It seems not until approaching the 19th century that artists have focused on individual churches as subject matter. Previously artists had achieved some of their finest work in the creation of the structure itself, attempting in their building to evoke the unknowable. To us their work sometimes exhibits a surreal quality, but to those living in that time, it had a profound emotional impact. Abbot Suger, the builder of the first Gothic church (St. Denis, 1144), stated his goal as striving to evoke “some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven.” By the turn of last century, images such as Van Gogh’s Church at Auvers (1890), Robert Delaunay’s series of St. Severin (1909), and Canadian artist Emily Carr’s Indian Church (1929) show painters with a strong attraction to the image of the church.

This series of churches depicts real churches but are not realistic renderings. The placement and the repetition of shapes interweaves a tight structure into the picture. In order to add a visual weight and a sense of the past I have surrounded these images with ornate but worn antique frames which lend to the paintings the preciousness of icons. I have hung these paintings on raw canvas to give an impression of quiet, shelter and protection. Below are the detritus of our existence, a by-product of the life force that ties us to this earth while also compelling us to look beyond our physical world.
About the Artist
Kathy Hodge has been a painter working in the Providence area for the last 30 years. This series of paintings was completed in 1999 and can be seen on her website, along with other series, at www.kathyhodge.com.

7. RI Housing

2010-03-16T19:07:00.008-04:00

Jean Cozzens

About the Work

Reconstructing Providence -- 2004

six-layer silkscreen print, color stages.

The "Reconstructing Providence" poster was created in 2004 for a radio documentary made by Robin Amer. [http://robinamer.com/]. In silkscreen printing, each flat color is laid down in a separate layer, so an image with depth and complexity can be built up from what are really just simple stencils. While I was printing this poster, I set aside one sheet of paper after each color was printed, preserving a record of the six layers of ink that were necessary to create the image -- including one gradient roll for the sky, to allow it to go from light to darker blue.

Industrial Trust Building, Providence -- 2009

two-layer silkscreen print, five different colorway versions.

I first drew this building in the summer of 2002 (sitting on the steps of the downtown post office and, over a couple of weeks, becoming pals with the security guard there). In 2009, I re-adapted that drawing into a simple portrait of everyone's favorite "Superman" skyscraper, which was originally named the "Industrial Trust Building" (built, of course, by the Industrial Trust Company!). I wanted to try out different relationships between colors as well as creating prints that would evoke different atmospheres, lights, or times of day. Over the course of printing, I changed the colors of ink in the screen to create five different "colorways": versions of the same image made with different colors.

About the Artist
Jean Cozzens is an artist, designer, screenprinter, carpenter, and teacher. He has lived in Providence since 1999 (spending time also in Italy, Worcester MA, Philadelphia, and New Orleans). He received a bachelors' degree in architecture from RISD in 2005. Since then, he has collaborated on participatory cardboard city-building projects, mentored high school students in screenprinting and artmaking, organized the renovation of a kitchen in a collective house, and made tons and tons of drawings, prints, and posters. He will be teaching advanced screenprinting classes this spring & summer, at community print shops in New Orleans and in Providence. He thinks constantly about cities, buildings, and spaces, as well as graphics, light, and patterns. On his own, he works meticulously by hand on drawing, building, and printing; in collaboration, he strives to work in ways that allow knowledge to be shared and to grow.

To learn more about the artist, please go to:

http://www.secretdoorprojects.org/updates/

8. URI Library

2010-03-16T19:06:00.004-04:00

8. Ricky Gagnon

Smile

Acrylic paint on wood and canvas with assemblage
About the Work
As a 50-something person I have had my fair share of life's ups and downs just like most people, however I always try to remain grateful for the good things I have in my life on a daily basis. That is why I create my art every day because it transports me to a place of total happiness which I express using my very active imagination, my sense of humor, my love of color and my eclectic mix of bric-a-brac.

Have you smiled today? I hope you have now.

About the Artist
Ricky Gagnon is a self-taught artist who is a Rhode Island native. He studied mechanical drawing and architecture at Tollgate High School and Community College of Rhode Island. While creating art since childhood he began to focus on his painting when he bought an old beach house in Riverside Rhode Island in 1998 and started a ten year rehab project to restore the house to a 50's / 60's era decor. He created amusement park themed art pieces for every room. His house is also his studio which looks like a fun house gift shop crossed with Ripley's “believe it or not museum” and a Christmas light display. He spends all of his free time painting there with his two dogs Wanda and Lenny. To check out his art and house go to www.RickyGagnon.com

9. Trinity Rep

2010-03-16T19:01:00.005-04:00

Madolin Maxey

Treasured Objects

Oil Paintings

About the Work
This body of work has evolved over the last two years and consists of paintings and charcoal drawings of treasured objects from my home. Predominantly they are black iron teapots juxtapositioned with a clay horse whistle, shells, and other small objects. I went back to basic charcoal drawing for most of 2008, exploring only the black teapots. These drawings are on corrugated cardboard and are, for the most part, 4’ x 4’. I explored every angle, shine, and texture of these teapots, and by 2009 I was ready to render them in paint. My desire is to not reveal their size or location but place them in ambiguous spaces and relationships. Often as the paintings evolved, the objects seem to tell their own stories of winter nights, gossip, sea scenes, or summer gatherings. Or maybe that is all in my mind and now it is time for others to come and interpret these paintings.

About the Artist
Colors and shapes lead the eye in a vigorous dance around her canvases. At first glance, her paintings seem to depict familiar landscapes and actual locations, yet they are only loosely based on reality. Madolin paints from memory, challenging the conventions of the medium with poetic grace and playful energy, Her emotional reactions to a place or an experience become a story told through color and line.

Madolin Maxey is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design. A Providence resident since 1982, she has been a member of the Providence Art Club since 1996. Although primarily a painter, she has built teahouses, designed extensively for theatre, and initiated public art projects in Providence. She maintains a studio in Providence, and can also be contacted through the Providence Art Club.

Spring Installation Series Opens March 18

2010-03-05T09:23:00.004-05:00

Join Us!

2009-12-01T18:14:00.001-05:00

Providence Art Windows Announces Winter Installations

Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its next exhibit will be on view from December 5, 2009 - March 12, 2010. The art and art installations presented in nine downtown windows are by Rebecca Adams, Anne Alexander, BUY ART Providence, Margie Butler, Paula Dewell, Amy DiPlacido, Lynne Harlow, The Museum On Site (Andrew Losowsky and Lyra Monteiro) and Jillian Piccirilli. The winter installation series contains artists selected by the jury that reflect color, light and investigation of neighborhood and fanciful history.

Bright fabrics will be displayed in two windows on Eddy and Fulton Streets; at Eddy Street, Lynne Harlow will fill a window with hot pink fabric and tape, and Amy DiPlacido will have a hanging line of hand-dyed clothes in graduated colors on Fulton Street, presenting a fictional production line of clothing. On Westminster Street, BUY ART Providence will artfully arrange a window, showcasing other venues where you can buy art for the holidays that is local. Anne Alexander will hang metallic, seaweed ceramic forms which will float and ebb as if in the sea. For “Westminster Stories," by The Museum On Site, a series of labels will share stories about Downtown Providence collected by Andrew Losowsky and Lyra Monteiro. These labels will change every week and detail history of the buildings and the lives of the people who use them. Jill Piccirilli’s “The Paws Family,” displayed at Eddy and Westminster Streets, is a story conceived by the artist and her family about a fictitious family of rabbits, and the windows will display the Paws family, spanning four generations. The window should delight children to adults with its whimsical story. On Washington Street, Paula Dewell presents light filled landscapes in the University of Rhode Island Library windows that will transport the viewer to warmer days. Margie Butler will present long scrolls recalling memories of home at RI Housing. Finally, Rebecca Adams takes a turn for the dramatic in her representations of women in a range of emotions in the Trinity Rep windows.

Join the artists at Design Within Reach (210 Westminster Street) on Saturday, December 5th, at Design Within Reach, from 3-5:30 PM. The Providence Preservation Society Holiday Stroll will be happening at the same time, and the reception will wrap up before the 6pm tree lighting at City Hall. Plan to come Downtown and watch the windows transform the week before if you cannot make it to the reception. To take the tour on your own, download the map above, or pick a paper copy up around Downtown Providence.

1. 191 Westminster Street, Right

2009-11-24T15:35:00.007-05:00

The Museum On Site

Westminster Stories

People, memories, buildings, and history

About the Work

Westminster Stories is where you are right now. It's this block and the one next to it, featuring some of the histories of the buildings and what lies beneath the sidewalk; it's also the stories of people we have encountered here, and the memories of people who used to spend time here. Every week, a new set of labels reveals another aspect of this downtown hub, so come back next week, and learn something new. Also check the window for further events. See more stories and share your own at www.westminsterstories.com

About the Artists

The Museum On Site is dedicated to helping people understand their worlds through site-specific, free public experiences that share ideas and information in accessible and stimulating ways. Learn more at www.themuseumonline.com

Interviews by Betsey Biggs, Caitlin Fisher, Andrew Losowsky, Lyra Monteiro, Carmen Montoya, Diego Pirillo, Meghan Townes, Shana Weinberg

Historical research by Krystal Appiah, Andrew Losowsky, Lyra Monteiro, Jonathan Olly

Model creation by Zac Bruner, Sin Guanci, Meghan McKenna, Paul Nickerson, Jonathan Olly, Rachel Ramer, Sylvia Ann Soares

Label design by Josie Morway (josiemorway.com)

Printing by IO Labs

Photography by Kyle Born, Jan Bruder, Ben Carter, Matthew Cylinder (matthewcylinder.net), Caitlin Fisher, Bruce Gannon (pheonixphotography.net), Tobias Goulet (TMG Photography), Alisa Kotler-Berkowitz (Alisa Grace Photography), Peter Green (providencefalcons.com), Andrew Losowsky, Brian Mackey (fineartdigital), Kelly McGovern (km.doggyyap.com), Karissa Mlyniec (klmphotographyri.com), Lyra Monteiro, Neah Monteiro, Graham Newhall (inthereef.blogspot.com), Paul Nickerson (pnlucas.zenfolio.com), Britta Schellenberg (brittaschellenberg.com), Gregory Shumchenia (gspstudios.com), Nathan Tia (simplynate.com), Walter Tsui (waltertphoto.com), Cindy West

2. 191 Westminster Street, Left

2009-11-24T15:34:00.006-05:00

BUY ART Providence

Since December 2008 Mayor David N. Cicilline and the City of Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism have partnered with Providence arts venues and individual artists on a marketing and advocacy BUY ART campaign. Whether you buy art for $5, 50 or 5,000, a ticket to a performance, a museum membership or a studio class, participating venues are pleased to offer each art buyer a limited edition "I BUY ART" pins. The 2009 pins with five original designs featuring the artwork of Providence artists are now available at venues throughout the city. COLLECT — INVEST — GIVE — EXPERIENCE ...the Providence Arts Scene.

BUY ART Providence window is styled by Lisa Newman Paratore, owner of HOMESTYLE, and Karen Beebe, owner Queen of Hearts (and designer of the dress displayed). Items on display are from an assortment of our artsy downtown merchants. The painting is by Angel Quinonez and is one of the five artworks selected for this year's I BUY ART advocacy buttons. The felt and feathered necklace worn by the mannequin is from Queen of Hearts and made by artist Nori Swennes especially for this Providence Art Window!

To find out more about BUY ART Providence, please go to buyartprovidence.org.

3. 203 Westminster Street

2009-11-24T15:33:00.004-05:00

Anne Alexander

Suspended Seaweed

Raku fired ceramic

Turitella

Ceramic

About the Work

As a sculptor, I am greatly influenced by flora and fauna observed in the surrounding environment. I abstract and enlarge small parts of nature to create personal interpretations of forms. This organic iconography suggests themes of germination, growth, cyclic changes, and regeneration, all of which relate to human and animal life, our basic life needs and urges.

The viewer will also have an altered sense of his own size, as I play with scale in my work. The fact that one expects these forms to be tiny is important as they become unexpectedly more powerful when enlarged to a gigantic scale. By enlarging the size of the forms, I wish to make the viewer aware of his / her size in relation to one’s environment and also to add an element of surprise or humor.

The sculptures are often composed of groups of units. The piece then loses it’s sense of being an object and becomes an environment. One of my hopes as an artist is that after seeing my sculpture, people’s perception of the complexity and detail of form and texture in small parts of nature will be enhanced. If I am able to augment or alter one viewer’s sensation and appreciation of the natural environment, I feel that I have achieved success in my work.

About the Artist

Anne Alexander is a sculptor who lives in Southern Maine. She exhibits her work frequently in both in gallery and site sculpture shows throughout the United States. She carves wood and stone and models clay as sculptural mediums. Ms. Alexander has received two Pollack Krasner Foundation Grants and year long Fulbright Scholar grant to The Dominican Republic. This past year, while on sabbatical from her teaching position at Waynflete School in Portland, Maine, she was attended residencies at The Virginia Center for Creative Arts and The Vermont Studio Center. During this time, she also participated in the International Sculpture Symposium at The Andres Institute in Brookline, NH where her granite sculpture "Touch Me" is permanently installed.

To see additional images of her sculpture please go to http://homepage.mac.com/annealexander/ to find her website. Please also fan her facebook page of the same title.

4. Eddy Street, Two Brothers Beauty Supply

2009-11-24T15:32:00.003-05:00

Jillian Piccirilli

The PAWS Family

installation, dimensions variable

About the Work

This exhibition tells the story of the Paws family, as it was discovered by two sisters and then relayed to their daughter/niece. A well-to-do family that made its wealth in textiles at the turn of the century, the Paws are compelling in their intriguing family history and diverse value systems & aesthetic sensibilities. They are a living and growing, sprawling rabbit clan served by a respectable staff and housed in numerous locations across this country, though they are primarily based in New England. Their story can be a bit unwieldy, full of drama and intrigue; but then, of course, most families' stories are.

This exhibition of their living artifacts, historical documents, family pictures, and texts aims to allow viewers to immerse themselves in the Paws and their history. Their private lives, as told through the accompanying private correspondence between two sisters, has been thrown open and laid bare for the viewer. Our hope is that by sharing their reality, the viewer's own reality is enriched.

About the Artist

Artist Jillian Piccirilli studied art and anthropology at Cornell University, where she was the recipient of the University's Faculty Medal of Art and Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Medal of Art. Her work transverses a number of different mediums with a common interest in narrative, history, and expanding one's sense of the real.

{Contact: jillian.piccirilli@gmail.com}

5. Eddy Street, Two Brothers Beauty Supply

2009-11-24T15:30:00.003-05:00

Lynne Harlow

555 Hudson

fabric, tape, site-specific installation

About the Work

How little is enough? How much can be taken away before a piece crumbles? My sculptural installations are lean, elegant arrangements of color, light and space; they are presentations of physical facts. I want to isolate and exaggerate particular aspects of the ways we encounter and negotiate our physical world, and bring some awareness and joy to the process. And I feel that the most effective way for me to achieve this is by presenting installations, these restrained arrangements of facts. With restricted use of very particular materials, sheer and lightweight, the installations suggest the presence of light and the absence of weight.

About the Artist

Lynne Harlow is a reductive artist based in Providence, RI and New York, NY. She makes large scale site-specific work and small drawings and prints in a language of sensual minimalism. She holds an M.F.A. from Hunter College in New York. She exhibits her work in the U.S. and internationally, including recent shows at The Skydive in Houston, TX, P.S. 1 in New York and RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. In 2002 she was a visiting artist at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX.

To learn more about the artist, please go to lynneharlow.com.

6. Fulton Street

2009-11-24T15:29:00.003-05:00

Amy DiPlacido

Any American, Any Apparel

Fabric, site-specific installation

About the Artist

Amy DiPlacido received her BFA at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2007, and recently received an MFA in fiber at Cranbrook Academy of Art. She’s a mixed-media installation artist who explores the concepts of color, language, and perception. She has held two solo exhibitions, and has also shown at The Fuller Craft Museum. Recent awards include Student Showcase in Fiber Arts Magazine and Artist in Residence programs at Art Farm Nebraska and Art 342 in Colorado.

To read more about the artist, please go to amydiplacido.com.

7. RI Housing

2009-11-24T15:28:00.018-05:00

Margie Butler

House by the Sea and Room for Change

Acrylic and collage on board

About the Work

As a child I was always setting up house.

Now my art documents and plays with notions about setting up a life.

The panels I have made for the RI Housing site place my personal notions about home against some of the more unsettling forces that challenge people’s sense of security out in the world. By depicting colorful post-Katrina houses on stilts, collaging in photos of dwellings left in war zones, and using a yellowed city planning map, I can weave my own story into a larger landscape. One panel plays off my ideal of living by the ocean despite the problematic reality that sea level is rising. The other panel contrasts the outline of an empty, open center space and comfortable chair against antiquated wallpaper, urban rooflines and bombed out towers. The pieces deal with the subtle tensions between a desire to be anchored and the keen understanding that nothing is gauranteed.

About the Artist

Margie Butler’s art amasses layers of personal narrative to depict a visual vocabulary of female space. Generally working in smaller ephemeral pieces, Margie sought to expand her scale for the chance to participate in Providence Art Windows. Part of her art making is the collection of clippings, objects and stories that then become game pieces and launch pads for the collaged landscapes. The volume of what is accumulated prompts a never-ending process of editing and re-arranging. Each piece presents the chance of finding possibility and pleasure in the chaos.

Margie completed her MFA at The Art Institute of Boston in 2006 and has exhibited at The University Gallery/UMass Dartmouth Star Store, Artworks!, 5 Traverse, and Y.E.S. Gallery. In addition to her studio practice, Margie consults for national clients and arts organizations on marketing projects. Locally Margie has worked closely with the City’s Department of Art, Culture + Tourism to launch the art advocacy initiative Buy Art Providence.

To learn more about the artist, please go to www.margiebutlerart.com.

8. URI Library, 80 Washington Street

2009-11-24T15:28:00.017-05:00

Paula Karen Dewell

Looking Toward The Water series

acrylic on canvas

About the Work

Although my paintings range from very small to very large, this space provides a great opportunity to show some of the large landscapes that have been a recent focus. The pieces chosen for this exhibit are inspired by land and sea, mostly along Rhode Island’s south coast. Although inspired by real places, how I capture an image, how I play with color, how I manipulate the paint is as important as the subject matter.

About the Artist

Paula Karen Dewell lives in South County and works in a variety of media, including acrylics and water miscible oils. She is a retired public school art teacher and currently an adjunct faculty member at Rhode Island School of Design, teaching in their summer Pre-College program and Young Artist program. She tutors adults and young adults privately.

Paula has recently spent much time on landscapes, but still lifes, flowers, portraits and animals are always appealing subjects to capture as well. She feels that occasionally diverging and experimenting keeps her artwork fresh. Her work can be found at the Charlestown Gallery in Charlestown, Rhode Island, and Sarah Jessica Fine Arts in Provincetown, Massachusetts, as well as in exhibits in other galleries in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Commissions and free lance work available.

9. Trinity Rep, 203 Washington

2009-11-24T15:26:00.008-05:00

Rebecca Adams

Tissue Series

Acrylic paintings

About the Work

This body of work begins as portraiture and draws influence from retro and vintage black and white film. The series is a collection of black and white acrylic paintings, all on 12"x14" canvases. Every individual character is displaying the general and sometimes over exaggerated emotion of "sadness" , yet each painting represents the emotion in a unique way. The tissue ties each painting together as well as cinematically symbolizes "sadness" . As a whole, one can see the transition and of the many complexities and forms of the emotion. The sight of a mass of crying women does not only invoke the feeling of sadness, but also displays the complexity of the emotion by taking it to an almost comical level. The display of the paintings in a large uniform grid increases the overall impact through visual unity and allows the viewer to move through the work as film.

About the Artist

I am an artist currently living and working in East Side Providence. I graduated from RISD in 2006 with a BFA in photography. I have participated in numerous solo and group shows in Rhode Island, Virginia, and New York. I have shown work locally at As220 photo lottery, Pawtucket Arts Festival, RISD and Providence Downcity juried sales, as well as worked with The Hive artist collective and Dr. Sketchys life drawing program. My work and current resume can be viewed at my website as well as my blog: www.stashvamps.com

Winter Installations Open December 5

2009-11-16T14:42:00.004-05:00

Providence Art Windows Announces Winter Installations

Join the artists at Design Within Reach (210 Westminster Street) on Saturday, December 5th, at Design Within Reach, from 3-5:30 PM. The Providence Preservation Society Holiday Stroll will be happening at the same time, and the reception will wrap up before the 6pm tree lighting at City Hall. Plan to come Downtown and watch the windows transform the week before if you cannot make it to the reception. To take the tour on your own, a downloadable map will be available on the blog on December 2, and printed maps throughout Downtown Providence.

Fall Installation Open Until December 1

2009-09-15T23:05:00.006-04:00

The art and art installations presented in nine downtown windows are by the AS220 Print Shop, Babette Allina, Ted James Butler, David J. Delay, Walt Chaney, Marjory Garrison, Peter Lutz, C.W. Roelle, and Rebecca Siemering, with a special presentation of Picturing America images. This Fall installation series contains artists invited by the Director that reflect intensive labor, obsession for materials or passion for subject matter. Materials range from adhesive vinyl, sound, lottery tickets and wire, to the City of Providence as a subject. To take the tour on your own, please click on the downloadable map above.

When you take the tour, you will notice several selections from the Picturing America Supplementary Materials for RI Educators. Providence Art Windows partnered with the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities( RICH ) to display a selection of the Picturing America reproductions relating to the RI Educators packet at The URI College of Continuing Education Library in the Shepard Building at 80 Washington Street and in windows whose artwork reflected similar themes in the packet of historical works. To learn more about Picturing America, and RICH, please go to rihumanities.org.

Please note, the URI Library section with AS220 Print Shop is down but lives online. Go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/providenceartwindows/ to see pictures of the installation.

1. 191 Westminster Street

2009-09-15T22:55:00.004-04:00

Walter C. Chaney

Two Wooden Renderings of a Building, 2009

recycled fence

Found Object, 2009

recycled wood lath and plaster

About the Work

This is one of those projects that you started nine years ago and finally, actually finished it. Two Wooden Renderings of a Building is primarily made from recycled fence wood that was cut into various sizes. Through the years I would advance the project slowly until it felt right. They are a pair and only work for me in this position.

Found Object is also made of recycled wood lath and plaster. The materials work together to render the skin of this toy Titanic. I call it

Found Object because it is so rough that it looks found.

About the Artist

Walter C. Chaney has a BA from the University of South Florida and an MFA from the university of Utah, SLC, Utah. “Since slides have become extinct I have shown very little, so I appreciate the invitation to show here at Providence Art Windows.” Walter has created models for Hasbro and as a freelance model builder for over 23 years.

From the Director of PAW, “Walt is being very modest. His Two Wooden Renderings of a Building, won second place at the Fidelity Investments Greenworks show in February, where I was honored to show with him. I admired these buildings, and I thought they should be shared with the public once more.”

2. 191 Westminster Street

2009-09-15T21:51:00.009-04:00

Ted James Butler

Assorted Colors #4, White Out #1, White Out #2

oil on canvas, sound

About the Work

Visual representations of sound. If you come to the window, and there is a break in the music, tracks can be heard individually here:http://hillsandvalley.info.

About the Artist

Ted James Butler is a Providence-based electronic musician and visual artist. His current projects include Risqué Bouquet (Japanese Butoh-inspired movement with live electronics / noise), Hills & Valley (organic ambient drone), his full band Paper Eagles and a myriad of solo work under the name Ted James. A self-taught artist, Ted integrates his work into daily life, giving way to true transparency on his blog, beteroffted.com.

Follow Ted on Twitter at twitter.com/betteroffted.

3. 203 Westminster Street

2009-09-15T21:50:00.003-04:00

David J. Delay

October

drawings and collage on paper

About the Work

I approached this large window space as an “illustrated collage.” I wanted to create six drawings that would be strong compositionally and could stand-alone. I designed them so when arranged together, the whole would also have a strong composition and read as one complete piece. I played with scale and perspective within each drawing because I wanted them to somehow live in their own worlds. But still they are related thematically. And I added cutout leaves to fly through the piece and tie them all together and add to the idea of this being an illustrated collage

About the Artist

David Delay lives in Providence and has a studio in Pawtucket. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design for two years in the 1980's and returned to get his certificate in Natural Science Illustration in 2007. He is a member of the New England Chapter of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and The Pawtucket Arts Collaborative. With these groups he has shown his work throughout New England as well as at The Providence Art Club and the “First Thursday” event in Boston. He also has a line of note cards and everyday and holiday cards. This and his other artwork can be viewed on his website www.davidjdelay.com.

4. Two Brother's Beauty Supply, Eddy and Westminster Street

2009-09-15T21:49:00.006-04:00

Peter Lutz

Parallax

Site-specific installation

adhesive vinyl, reflective Mylar

About the Work

Patterns of tree canopies have always intrigued me and I wanted to create a static image that would shift with the viewer’s perspective. The opportunities provided by the large expanse of glass of the storefront were too good to pass up so I have accommodated the glass itself into the piece. The image is created with adhesive vinyl, which attaches directly to the glass. I’ve always believed that the storefront window acts like a mirror, as well as a display case, showing the viewer themselves as well as the product inside, allowing them to evaluate their self worth while being confronted by the object of their desire. Behind the vinyl is a layer of reflective Mylar, which not only reflects the vinyl image, but also the surrounding view of the street and buildings and ambient light. As Providence citizens pass by they are presented with several sets of overlapping patterns and shifting perspectives.

About the Artist

Peter Lutz is a mixed media artist with a diverse body of work ranging from printmaking, ceramics, mixed-media installation, and video. Peter was awarded the 2009 RISCA Fellowship for New Genres and has exhibited in Rhode Island, New York, Kansas City, Florence, Italy, and Prague, Czech Republic. His most recent piece, “Cleave” was featured at the group show “De/construct II” in Providence RI. Currently, Peter’s work can also be seen in Pixilerations [v.6] exhibition in conjunction with First Works Prov,opening Sept 24 - Oct 11 in Providence. For more information about the artist, please go to peterlutz.com.

5. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, at Eddy and Westminster

2009-09-15T21:48:00.005-04:00

Rebecca Siemering

Piece(work)

mixed media, time-based installation

About the Work

Rebecca Siemering, Director of Providence Art Windows(PAW), creates this time-based installation. The Fall installation for series for PAW contains artists invited by the Director that reflect intensive labor, obsession for materials or passion for subject matter. Several artists and collectives within this round of Art Windows have an intense enthusiasm for making Providence a better place to live and work. For the work created by the Director, Piece(work), will be a large, “crazy” quilt, with pieces culled from the streets of Providence and the news of the day. The quilt will be a reflection of the time from September 1-December 1, 2009, the duration of the show, and a new section of the quilt will be added every week. Since a window reflects the viewer and the city, the installation as a finished piece of art will also reflect the City of Providence. The city is a work in progress, and this quilt is a hopeful, demonstration piece. Come back every week to see the progression, and read more about the thoughts behind the creation of each panel at siemering.blogspot.com.

About the Artist

Rebecca Siemering is an artist, arts administrator and curator who has lived and worked in Rhode Island since 1997. As Exhibition Coordinator for the Arts & Business Council of RI since 2006, she has had a hand in producing installations and exhibitions with artists and arts groups in transitional spaces in Downtown Providence. Rebecca is con-currently the Director of Providence Art Windows, a public arts project that fills empty retail spaces in Downtown Providence with new art installations every 3 months. Rebecca maintains a thriving art studio in Pawtucket, RI. For the last three years she has been producing sculptures and textile art for her “Lottery Project” by taking a daily walk in the neighborhood and picking up thrown away scratch tickets. Her recycled, paper-based sculptural work is in the collection of Fidelity Investments, and in traveling in shows with the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum and the Fuller Craft Museum. You can view her work and writing about her work by going to scratchticketmania.blogspot.com. If Rebecca is not in the studio, she is in her little yard in Pawtucket growing as many vegetables and berries as she can. The neighbors affectionately call her “the corn lady.”

Rebecca has a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis.

6. Fulton Street

2009-09-15T21:47:00.002-04:00

Babette Allina

Things That Can’t Be Said

paint, glass, paper

About the Work

This installation uses abstracted, reductive mark making as a kind of visual short hand to communicate something verbally obscure. It is intended to engage pedestrians in an exercise of semiotics – asking them to ‘read the sign(s).’

It builds on an ongoing effort to create a lexicon of marks derived from objects natural or otherwise. Some marks are accidents, duplicated repetitively, until they become part of the vocabulary. Recently, the work has taken the form of paint incased in resin to create visual “stains”, or in collaboration with the Rowley lab at URI, light emissions using bioluminescent bacteria and chemical inhibitors. The processes that are being explored are dictated by the ideas of containment, and public vs. private communication.

About the Artist

Babette Allina is a painter living and working in Rhode Island.

Recent exhibitions include Myopic Books: http://vieralevitt.org/myopic/allina.htm, the Wheeler Gallery, and the University of Rhode Island Galleries. Her work has appeared in various publications including ArtNews, Urban Design and New York Magazine. She earned her BA in politics and painting from Bennington College, and an MA in political science from the University of Rhode Island. She is employed by the Rhode Island School of Design.

7. RI Housing, Washington Street

2009-09-15T21:42:00.005-04:00

Marjory Garrison

Call and Call Again.

Paint on Canvas

About the Work

An interactive piece that will keep you coming back for more. It's a story that starts in September and goes till winter. Daily recorded messages will be curated over the next three months, so call, and call again!

Call 401.626.4414 to hear a new sound or story every day.

About the Artist

Marjory Garrison spends far too much time on the phone these days, helping nonprofits around the country design and run grassroots campaigns. A writer and campaigner by trade, she likes drawing her friends into curious encounters and curated group experiences, whether through her mail art shop or thebiggestlittle.org. She is inspired by mileage and story-telling, and would like to make a career of sitting and listening to the stories you tell on long road trips.

8. URI Library, 80 Washington Street

2009-09-15T21:38:00.012-04:00

AS220 Print Shop Key Members

AS220 Community Print Shop Staff and Key Members

Jennifer Almeida

Morgan Calderini

Kat Cummings

Michael Kachanis

Victoria Lockard

Stephanie McGuinness

Derek Schusterbauer

Carol Sweeney

Meg Turner

Meredith Younger

About the Work

* Please note the installation with the AS220 PrintShop is in transition. It lives online at the Flickr page, and the collective web site below.

The AS220 Community Print Shop Key Members, in collaboration with the general public and the Providence Public Library, have screen-printed and installed new work in the window of the University of Rhode Island’s downtown library.

Interested pedestrians who passed by a sidewalk-based screen-printing station received a simple prompt; “What would you like to see more of downtown?” In front of them lay a small assortment of illustrations – including trees, tunnels, bridges, and bicycles- that had been culled by Key Members from the Special Collections at the Central Branch of the Providence Public Library and prepared as silkscreen stencils. The images selected by the participating public were then screen-printed onto translucent window film. Once dry, these visual records of the public’s wishes were composed by the Key Members in the URI Libraries’ windows facing Washington Street.

About the Artists

For more about the artists and the AS220 Print Shop, please go to

as220.org/printshop.

9. Trinity Rep, 201 Washington Street

2009-09-15T21:35:00.004-04:00

CW Roelle

wire drawings

About the Work

The artwork that CW has chosen to show with the Providence Art Windows are examples of his wire drawings that he feels contain movement. Lines are fluid things that easily put into motion static figures simply by running around and through them. Like veins.

About the Artist

CW Roelle's first job was picking corn. He quit after two days. The next job was at an ice cream parlor called Bud's Polar Bear. That one lasted long enough for him to pay for a school trip to Europe and then he quit one day so that he would have the night off and could then attend a small party at a friend’s house. After the trip and a number of babysitting and lawn mowing jobs he gave in to his own reluctance and took a job at the grocery store where his father was the night manager (he became a daytime stock clerk and had to get a hair cut). Moving to Baltimore to attend The Maryland Institute College Of Art freed him from that job (except, that is for his first Christmas break and the summer between his freshmen and sophomore years when he went back for a bit). His first job in college was an 8-hour a week work-study shift at the school bookstore. There were some pretty cushy work-study jobs, that wasn't one of them. Working only 8 hours a week made it difficult to buy things like art supplies and food so he took a job at the security desk at the dorms. The security shifts were overnight (11-7) and he was able to get a lot of his class work done. Then during his sophomore year the opportunity to work at a nearby video store arose and he lept at the chance. To get the job he had to write an essay about what movies meant to him. Now he worked three jobs and was going to school full time. This continued until he graduated, except for the work-study, which turned into working as the bookstore late night janitor. After graduation he continued on at the video store and working security shifts for a little while and then he was hired as a shuttle driver for the school. The shuttle job was great until things started change in the management of the security office and he quit working for the school all together. The video store wasn't enough to live on so in his last months in Baltimore he took a job as a doorman at a local rock club, he was paid five dollars an hour and whatever he wanted to drink (always diet coke). The day came in early 2000 when the time was no longer live-withable in Baltimore and Mr. Roelle moved to Providence RI, the only other city where he had friends (his family lived around Rochester NY, but that town was as enticing as New England). Upon moving he quickly got a job as a parking lot attendant via a friend from college who was doing the same thing. Now it is nine years later and though he works for a different company, he is still working parking lots. It is a job that allows a lot of down time in which he can work on his artwork, at the moment he is holding shifts in that first garage and another one, having 11 other lots under his belt.

To learn more about the artist, please go to www.flickr.com/photos/cwroelle/

AS220 Print Shop Making Art Windows on the Street

2009-09-14T13:26:00.001-04:00

Stop by outside the URI Library today, or tomorrow or Wednesday (beginning at 10 AM every day). The AS220 Print Shop, for their Art Windows piece, will be making prints on site to put in the windows, asking the question, "What do you want for Providence?" The resulting tally of printed images will show what passers by, who work or live in the city, what they think Providence needs most in Downtown. Images so far include more green space, more room for bikes, courteous behavior, affordable living, etc. New images will be made every day from a poll of passers by. Come down and participate if you can.

Go to the URI Library Windows on Washington Street to participate!

Please Join Us!

2009-08-30T21:57:00.004-04:00

Fall Exhibition of Providence Art Windows Opens September 17
Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its next exhibit will be on view from September 17 –December 1, 2009. The art and art installations presented in nine downtown windows are by the AS220 Print Shop, Babette Allina, Ted James Butler, David J. Delay, Walt Chaney, Marjory Garrison, Peter Lutz, C.W. Roelle, and Rebecca Siemering, with a special presentation of Picturing America images. This Fall installation series contains artists invited by the Director that reflect intensive labor, obsession for materials or passion for subject matter. Materials range from adhesive vinyl, sound, lottery tickets and wire, to the City of Providence as a subject. Please join us for the opening reception at Design Within Reach (210 Westminster Street, Providence, RI 02903) on September 17, from 5:30-7:30 PM. Come and meet the artists, go on a walking tour with a map and visit beautiful Downtown Providence. To take the tour on your own, a downloadable map will be available September 17th on the blog, providenceartwindows.blogspot.com.

Best of Rhode Island

2009-07-23T21:53:00.004-04:00

Rhode Island Monthly has bestowed Providence Art Windows "Best of" for Public Art in its annual August issue. The editors write, "If there's one upside to downtown Providence's vacant shop windows, it's that Providence Art Windows has filled many of them with paintings, installations and sculpture." A photo is included of the recent installation "Marshmallow Life" by Eric Rice and Jillian Clark. Check out the rest of the issue on stands soon or go to RI Monthly's website.

Join Us!

2009-06-15T19:34:00.005-04:00

Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its next exhibit will be on view from June 18-September 11, 2009. The art and art installations presented in nine downtown windows are by Rachel Cohn, Jennifer Daltry, Ani Ghajanian, Not About the Buildings, The Hive Archive with New Urban Arts students, Roger Lemelin, Benton Moss and Alyssa Spry, Alison Owen and Lisa Perez, and Amy Wynne-Derry. Please join us for the opening reception at Design Within Reach (210 Westminster Street, Providence, RI 02903) on June 18, from 5:30-7:30 PM. Come and meet the artists, go on a walking tour with a map and visit beautiful Downtown Providence.
A downloadable map is available above, and a paper one at the reception.

Most artwork and installations are for sale. Please contact PAW Director Rebecca Siemering at 401.566.8260 if you are interested in any of the artists.

1. 191 Westminster Street

2009-06-14T21:36:00.004-04:00

Amy Wynne-Derry
Infinite Menagerie
Materials: mirrors, wood, paint

About the Work
The silhouetted animals reference animal identification books and museum display boards. I have been inspired by the Victorian Age of collection and Natural History museums for years. The effect of the painted image is meant to be altar-like and the infinite repetition of the image speaks to the illusion of plenty when in fact the species are in danger of depletion/extinction. Perhaps a remembrance. This installation gives me a chance to interact with the motion of the pedestrian and give the viewer the chance to experience visual impermanence.

About the Artist
Amy Wynne-Derry is a painter with a studio in an old lace mill Pawtucket, RI. She has been a Full-time Visiting Artist in Painting and Drawing of The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston since 2001. She also teaches in RISD’s certificate and summer programs. Locally she has shown at 5 Traverse Gallery and The Chazan Gallery. She has also been a “Celebrity Tour Guide” for Gallery Nite Providence. She received her BA from Smith College in Art History and Cultural Anthropology. Her MFA is in Classical Painting Techniques and Anatomy from The New York Academy of Art in NYC. Her work can be found in both private and corporate collections.

Amy Wynne-Derry does site-specific custom wall paintings for both private and corporate interiors. Infinite Menagerie is available for purchase and installation. Any inquiries please contact Providence Art Windows.

2. 191 Westminster Street

2009-06-14T21:32:00.004-04:00

Rachel Cohn

The Museum of Supernatural History: The Legend of Mercy Brown
Acrylic on tyvec, assorted fabric, plywood

About the Work
This display from the Museum of Supernatural History intends to present a supplemental history of the state of Rhode Island. The display aims to recreate a naturalistic local habitat of a two distinct groups of supernatural beings native to Rhode Island: ghosts and vampires. To visit the ghosts in their own environment, take a walk down Benefit Street on College Hill, the most haunted street in America.

The Legend of Mercy Brown
In 1892, a young girl named Mercy Brown died from "consumption" in Exeter, Rhode Island. Over the course of several years, other members of her family had also succumbed to “consumption” and when her brother Edwin became sick, the villagers suspected a vampire. They exhumed the corpses in the family crypt and found nothing but mummies and skeletons, except for Mercy; her body remained unchanged and the blood in her heart was still red. She appeared to have moved inside her coffin. Mercy had been buried in January and the coldness of the winter would have preserved her body, but for the villagers of Exeter these signs were a confirmation of the undead. They removed her heart and burned it, mixing the ashes into water as a potion for her brother to drink. Unfortunately the cure didn’t work and Edwin died later in the same year.

Mercy Brown was the last vampire exhumed in the state of Rhode Island. In 1882, scientists had discovered that the disease, tuberculosis, was caused by bacteria, but unfortunately for Mercy that information had reached rural Exeter too late.

About the Artist
Rachel graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005 with a B.F.A in Painting. She has worked in commercial art and design in New York City, painting murals, working on movie sets and most recently working on the design team for Window Display at Bloomingdale’s flagship store in Manhattan. Currently Rachel divides her time between Brattleboro, Vermont and Copenhagen, Denmark.

3. 203 Westminster Street

2009-06-14T21:28:00.006-04:00

Ani Ghajanian

Consumed
nickel silver-forged & soldered, maple tree seed pods,
paperclay, thread, mixed media installation

About the Work
The resemblance of maple tree seed pods to wings was the inspiration for the development of this sculpture.Working intuitively, my emotions and experiences at the time informed the creation of the moths and their home inside a ribcage heart. The installation grew from there. In my art I explore themes of where we come from, where we are going, and our relationships with love and loss, fear and dreams. Abstracted forms of the human figure and parts of the body play a frequent role in my work for the presentation of these topics. I find great joy in sculpting clay and wax, casting, metalsmithing and crafting from nature.

About the Artist
Ani Ghajanian is a sculptor living and working in RI. She earned a BFA in sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design in 1996. As a freelance artist, she has 10 years experience sculpting products for the toy industry.Her career since graduating also includes work as a jewelry designer in RI, a handbag designer in NY, and an art teacher for children at Manhattan’s 92nd St. Y Art Center and Providence City Arts. In November 2008, Ani completed a one-month artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center. Recently, she received a scholarship to study glass at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. In August she will be part of a 4-person show at Tugboat gallery in Omaha, Nebraska.

4. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, Eddy and Westminster Sts.

2009-06-14T21:20:00.005-04:00

The Hive Archive with New Urban Arts Students

Hexacomb
Mixed Media

About the Work
Six women artists from The Hive Archive partnered with six young women artists from New Urban Arts to design and fabricate
a sculptural installation that celebrates the creative voices of women and girls in Rhode Island. The Hive artists began by exploring inner narratives of empowerment and inspiration with their partners. Together each pair created a collaborative piece for a series of
six collaborative pieces that define a story, a physical space, or
an artistic process that provokes each artist to make art. Each individual piece utilizes the hexagon of a honeycomb and this repetition ties the individual pieces together in order to form a central narrative. The Hive Archive believes that the sum of a whole is greater than the individual parts and that people sharing ideas, skills and resources will always lead to actions greater than those of any individual. This theme is central to Hexacomb, in which twelve individual voices come together to inspire a greater movement of women in the arts in Rhode Island.

The Hive Archive was founded in 2001 as a non-profit,
women-run feminist arts organization, focused not just on art
making and empowerment through creative expression, but also
on civic involvement and social change. We are a multi-faceted organization that strives to dismantle obstacles that limit women in reaching their full creative potential. The Hive Archive seeks to provide programming to support creative women and girls — including access to art studios, career learning opportunities, and skills expansion — to advance an accessible and safe environment for collaboration, learning, and activism.
Visit us at www.hivearchive.org

New Urban Arts is a nationally recognized interdisciplinary arts studio for high school students and emerging artists. Our mission is
to build a vital community that empowers young people to develop a creative practice they can sustain throughout their lives. We provide studio, exhibition space, and mentoring for young artists who explore the visual, performing, and literary arts through yearlong free out-of-school programs.

Visit us at www.newurbanarts.org
Hive Artists New Urban Arts Artists
Deb DeMarco Amanda Abreu
Heather Guidero Ginger Avila
Jori Ketten Alyce Brown
Kirsten Lamb Ava Ginsburg
Monica Shinn Kelsea Ricard
Alyssa Holland Short Sara Tolbert

5. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, Eddy and Westminster Sts.

2009-06-14T21:11:00.004-04:00

Benton Moss and Alyssa Spry

bric-a-brac

mixed media sculpture

About the Work

How do we relate to the objects in our lives? How have we come to define ourselves by our Stuff? How do objects-- the sale of objects, the advertisement of objects, the accumulation of objects-- contribute to a collision of public and private space? We are a culture of excess. The check out line of your local CVS is all the proof you need: Pez dispensers, commemorative coins, erasers shaped like cartoon characters, exfoliating shower gloves, chips clips…excessive stuff, excessive waste, excessive unnecessity. The myriad knick-knacks and mildly useful paraphernalia that crowd our public landscape are constantly finding their way into our kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms. Our private spaces become a collection of objects, the objects themselves becoming an integral part of the architecture of our lives. And as advertisers manipulate and exploit aspects of our intimate, personal lives in an effort to sell us their products, private space (where we keep the objects) is vaulted into the public arena where more objects vie for our attention.

About the Artists

Alyssa Spry and Benton Moss have been distracting each other from more important work since 2001. They have shown work together and separately in Chicago, Memphis, New York, Los Angeles and New Hampshire. Spry has a visual and performing arts background with a BFA in figurative theater from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Moss is currently finishing a fine arts degree at the University of Memphis.

6. Fulton Street

2009-06-14T21:03:00.003-04:00

Alison Owen and Lisa Perez
Site-specific installation

About the Artists

Alison Owen

Each of my installations is created on site over the course of several days in direct response to the physical and emotional characteristics of the architecture. Working with simple materials – thread, thumbtacks, paper, paint, balsawood – I construct installations that subtly alter the space. The resulting works draw upon my impulse to investigate and make sense of my surroundings. I consider my work to be drawing-based, but rather than working in two-dimensions with pencil on paper, I draw in three dimensions with materials both tangible (cut paper, strips of wood, paint) and ethereal (light and shadow). Like drawing, the work results in a series of marks upon the space that reveal the process of intense observation, interpretation and recording. Every detail of the space is explored and carefully considered; the way the electrical conduit doesn’t run quite parallel to the baseboard but rather diverges at a slight upward angle, the manner in which light slides across the surface of a wall, the odd way in which two pieces of drywall meet leaving a raised horizontal ridge on the wall. I draw attention to the peripheral – those aspects of the space that are normally overlooked. A crack in the wall or a conduit becomes not only part of the work but also a locus of attention. The end result is that the experience of the viewer is not solely directed by me, it is also influenced by the original architect as well as every individual (whether electrician, carpenter, or previous artist) that has left a mark upon the space. Each installation is a conversation with all of these past mark-makers.

In my wallpaper installations, I create flocked wallpaper using the dirt, dust, and lint that I gather while cleaning the installation site. In this body of work, domestic labor and the installation process have fused into a single project. I create a new environment with the almost invisible detritus of everyday life.

Lisa Perez
Working with various materials and methods, Lisa Perez's art embraces an ambiguity in the definitions and boundaries of sculpture, drawing and installation. Drawing is the starting point of all works from pencil, pen, and paint to paper constructions, installation, and architectural intervention. Her work invites a shift in expectations and engages a recognition of that which often slips into the margins of perception in our hyperspeed culture. Perez received her MFA from the University of California at Berkeley and currently lives and works in Providence, RI. Recent exhibitions of her work were installed at the Drawing Center - NYC, RISD - Woods Gerry Gallery, and 5 Traverse Gallery. Recent projects can be viewed here.

7. RI Housing, 44 Washington Street

2009-06-14T20:54:00.004-04:00

Jennifer Daltry

Trees #1 Tree#2
oil paint on canvas

About the Artist and the Work
As an artist that draws much inspiration from nature, I have become very sensitive to the impact that human beings have on the earth and its inhabitants. Even in my own, fairly rural area, there is constant development, and I see how this effects everything around it. It is encouraging to see how well nature adapts and continues to persevere in the midst of these changes. By studying and then drawing my surroundings, I feel more in touch with the earth on a very basic level, and better able to strive toward improvement.
Education: BFA, Rhode Island School of Design

8. URI Library, 80 Washington Street

2009-06-14T20:49:00.004-04:00

Not About the Buildings

The Banned Series
Photographs

About the Work
The Banned series of photographs examines the bizarre yet fascinating
concept of book-banning, and examines the inevitable irony about
censorship: when books are publicly challenged for being
inappropriate, they instantly become more alluring than they otherwise
might have been.

The book titles chosen for this series were banned or challenged for a
variety of reasons. All Quiet On The Western Front, for instance, was
banned in Nazi Germany for glorifying pacifism, but it was also banned
in Boston for obscene language, and the American edition was also
censored after the Book of the Month club requested that some of the
more unpleasant passages be removed.

In 1983, the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for the removal
of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl on the grounds that it is "a
real downer." Even today, the book is missing from many school
libraries.

Some books have been challenged on the grounds that they promote a gay
agenda or advocate an anti-Christian lifestyle, and others because
they contain foul language or deal with race issues. Another frequent
explanation for challenges is that books are inappropriate for younger
audiences. Many people believe that rather than reading a difficult
work and discussing its issues, it would be more prudent to ban it
outright. I could not disagree more with this theory of dealing with
social issues, yet the concept nevertheless fascinates me.

About the Artist
Not About The Buildings is an events organization committed to
fostering a vibrant literary community in Providence. It was founded
in 2006 by Matthew Lawrence, a writer who was born and raised in Rhode
Island.

9. Trinity Rep, 201 Washington Street

2009-06-14T20:41:00.005-04:00

Roger Lemelin

Paintings on Cardboard

About the Work
As a teacher of elementary age children, I find myself repeatedly giving the same advice;
work with your mistakes, let the paint do what it wants, don’t erase so much. With these paintings I decided to take my own advice and work in a childlike manner, approaching the canvas in a very spontaneous and fluid manner. I envision my paintings as songs or visual poems revealing fragments about the artist and his life; both spiritual, personal and mundane. Each layer of paint and color reacting to the last, visible as a history of the act itself. My aim is to be playful and direct in approach, allowing a dreamlike quality to coalesce. Personal iconography is added from photographs, figures that appear as almost translucent phantoms. Layers of interacting drips and puddles form shapes folding and overlapping into an ambiguous landscape. Ultimately, it is color that guides me, hues blending and creating a kaleidoscope of sorts.

About the Artist
Roger J Lemelin is an artist, musician and teacher living in Seekonk, MA. He currently teaches for the Worcester Public Schools and has received several honors such as Teacher of the Year. Roger holds a BA from Rhode Island College in printmaking, an MAT from RISD and recently received a certificate in Children’s Book Illustration from RISD. As an artist, he has had a solo exhibit at AS220 and displayed at other local venues. Roger is currently seeking a publisher for his children’s book, painting, playing music and planting a big garden in his yard.

Join Us!

2009-03-12T20:43:00.005-04:00

Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its next exhibit will be on view from June 18-September 11, 2009. The art and art installations presented in nine downtown windows are by Rachel Cohn, Jennifer Daltry, Ani Ghajanian, Not About the Buildings, The Hive Archive with New Urban Arts students, Roger Lemelin, Benton Moss and Alyssa Spry, Alison Owen and Lisa Perez, and Amy Wynne-Derry. Please join us for the opening reception at Design Within Reach (210 Westminster Street, Providence, RI 02903) on June 18, from 5:30-7:30 PM. Come and meet the artists, go on a walking tour with a map and visit beautiful Downtown Providence.

A downloadable map will be available June 18 on this blog, and at the reception.

the current exhibit of art and art installations will be up until June 12 and includes works by Deborah Baronas, Jillian Clark and Eric Rice, Marisa DiPaola, Deb Hickey, Paul O'Connor, Barbara Owen, Peter Owen, Meg Powers and Sarah Sandman. Please download a map at right to follow the walking tour.

1. 191 Westminster Street

2009-03-12T20:26:00.007-04:00

Marisa DiPaola

‘belle’ & her lickable library wallpaper
chocolate & orange cake frosting, silk-screened onto sewn parchment paper

About the Work My artwork is a collection of storybook self-portraiture through an exploration of fairy tale characters interacting in this world. To be the ‘belle’ of the ball, the fairytale of being some unknown peasant girl about to have one charming adventure with a prince or beast. ‘belle’ of “Beauty and the Beast” (La Belle et la Bete) sees the beauty in the otherness of the beast. Despite being attached to the walls of his castle, she is not hindered, and able to enjoy her the fairytale ball. How do you lure a beast? With chocolate, I suppose. And sweets.

About the Artist I am a nomadic sculptor and installation artist, creating site-specific sculptures from found materials. I graduated with honors in 2000 from the Rhode Island School of Design, majoring in painting & experimenting with wearable sculptures. Upon graduation, I received a travel grant for Cordoba, Spain, which began a collection of travels to fourteen countries, producing site-specific artworks in Spain, Japan, & Iceland, & entire series of work while on residencies in India & Egypt. I exhibit my wearable and fiber installation pieces internationally, at museums, galleries, universities, and cultural institutions, most recently at Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, Massachusetts.

2. 191 Westminster Street

2009-03-12T20:21:00.007-04:00

Deborah Baronas

Mill Culture
Oil on canvas, fabric dye on silk and cotton

About the Work
The intent behind the making of these paintings is to promote the historic awareness of the textile mills in southern New England and the community of workers who settled here. It addresses the historical significance and the contemporary use of the mill complexes of the region. Today the mills are about building reuse, conserving existing buildings and neighborhoods instead of sprawling into new land outside town centers. The conservation of this ”embodied” energy that went into the building in the first place is further enhanced as these paintings will aid in remembering the spirit of the workers also within that structure. Using imagery of the mill workers is significant in understanding the complete culture of the textile industry in our region. The consequence of the rise and fall of this industry in our area is far- reaching and ongoing. It weaves through all socio economic levels within the mill culture. By incorporating textiles into the painting, I am able to add another dimension to illustrate my emotional response to the subject. Textiles become a vehicle for transposing shadows and light into pattern that effect or are derived from the landscape. Borrowing from the iconography of the mill technology as well as the workers creates pattern that acts as a filter through which we look at the mill landscape. Growing up in Western MA, I graduated in Textile Design from RISD and worked in the textile industry in this country and abroad before its migration overseas. This project stirs my desire to study and record my interpretation of the evolution of the mill village culture and textile industry. These works are part of an ongoing series of investigations.

About the Artist
Deborah Baronas graduated from RISD in Textile Design and worked in the textile industry in the United States and Europe from 1979 – 2003. Currently she works as an artist and designer out of her studio in Warren, RI.

3. 203 Westminster Street

2009-03-12T20:18:00.005-04:00

Meg Powers

Architeuthis
Velvet and taffeta fabric, beading

About the Work
Certain creatures have taken on mythological roles due to their frightening appearance and elusive behavior, specifically, the Giant Squid. However, after years of human evasion, in 2006, a live giant squid was caught and subsequently died from injuries suffered in the struggle of capture. The Giant Squid has been de-mystified and reduced to a sad scientific specimen. Man has symbolically conquered the ocean by conquering one of its most elusive and cautiously revered beasts. A large body of the artist’s work focuses on glorifying the "uglier" or more frightening examples of the natural world in an attempt to shatter walls of indifference and revulsion between man and nature. The myth of the ship-sinking, Sperm-whale battling giant squid is incorrect, but it inspires respect and reverent awe. Architeuthis, the Giant Squid, isn’t a creature with an agenda-it is, however, a creature of great speed and strength, worthy of out respect. This piece is an attempt to reestablish the reverence and awe inspired by the mythos of the Giant Squid. Royal colors and rich fabrics render the Squid as a mythic creature of opulence and regality, befitting its mighty legacy.

About the Artist
Meg Powers, a native of Providence, Rhode Island, has been immersed in the arts throughout her life. She is a freelance illustrator and costume designer whose first professional work began three years ago with Big Nazo Puppets and soon expanded into short films, animation, and theatrical costume design. Powers draws inspiration from a wide range of sources including natural history, fantasy literature and illustration, and the history of fashion and decor. The desire to illustrate and contextualize her historical and scientific research fuels most of her work. She has recently applied to several programs throughout the country and looks forward to beginning a formal study of costume design and production for theatre and film this fall.

4. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, Eddy and Westminster Sts.

2009-03-12T20:14:00.006-04:00

Jillian Clark and Eric Rice

Marshmallow Life
installation, mixed media

About the Work
Our window is an attempt to use the entirety of a given space with limited resources. Over ninety percent of the materials used in this installation were either found, or donated by local businesses. The use of reclaimed and repurposed wood gives life to building materials that have been deemed otherwise unusable. The two larger trees in the foreground are constructed almost entirely of discarded pallets. The background is fabricated from recycled shelves and floor boards. The installation also features several spotlights and over fifty LED lights, all solar powered. The rough look of this landscape provides a distinct contrast to the oil paintings found within.

Throughout the piece is an underlying theme of conservation. Diminishing natural habitats create smaller gene pools from which these animals can reproduce. With this comes the risk of mutations, including albinism. The lack of pigment caused by this genetic anomaly puts them at risk in the wild where they require camouflage for protection. These paintings are meant to be seen as portals to a more realistic nature scene. Each creature is given importance through the strong sense of light and portrait-style framing. The animals seem, in return, very aware of the viewers’ presence. This awareness is intensified by the spatial relationship between the animals in their habitat and the people on the sidewalk.

About the Artists
Eric Rice is a third generation woodworker, born and raised in Rhode Island. He is currently a student of business at the University of Rhode Island, with a focus on retail design. His work has appeared at several locations including The Hive Gallery at The Hope Artiste Village in Pawtucket, and the AS220 Fools Ball benefit. Eric has also been shown on MAKE, a magazine and website devoted to do-it-yourself technology and art.

Jillian Clark is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design with a B.F.A in Illustration. In addition, she has studied in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Florence, Italy. She currently works at Homestyle on Westminster street, and as a freelance painter and muralist. Her work has appeared in various locations, including window installation projects in downtown San Diego.

Both artists currently live in Providence and share a studio in Pawtucket.

5. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, Eddy and Westminster Sts.

2009-03-12T20:07:00.009-04:00

Sarah Sandman

Won't You Be My Neighbor?
installation, mixed media

About the Work
In response to our nation's economic obstacles, our culture must now shift its overt individualistic focus to the benefit of its neighborhoods. Wealth can be measured by currency or by the connections and relationships that bind our communities. Increasing the social capital of contemporary society will help relieve our distressed market economy. Won't You Be My Neighbor? tips its hat to Mr Rogers and acknowledges a critical component buried in this nostalgic program. This installation draws attention to the omnipotent weight and tenuous bonds our collective structure. "Community is the key to physical survival in our environmental predicament and also to human satisfaction." - Bill McKibben

About the Artist
Sarah Sandman will complete her MFA in Graphic Design at the Rhode Island School of Design in May 2009. She has a BFA in Visual Communications from the University of Kansas and studied design at the Fachochshule Trier in Germany. She worked as an art director for Egg and The Bellwether Group in Seattle and Green Team in New York City. These firms practice sustainable and environmentally conscious production methods and promote clients that reflect these values. Sandman is currently working on a collaborative thesis with Melissa Small called 1+1=3: How Communication Design Can Build Social Capital. The aim of their project is to create participatory design experiences that increase social awareness and confront environmental issues. In May of 2008, Sandman organized 12 artists to design and create an installation in the Greenpoint Brooklyn subway station. The project's objective was to initiate a conversation with Brooklyn residents about the Exxon Mobil oil spill that contaminated the Greenpoint neighborhood's soil. In the summer of 2008, she orchestrated a cross-country cycling project called the Gift Cycle with collaborator Melissa Small. The Gift Cycle transported gifts from the artists of one community to the artists of the next community for exchange. The final result was a nationwide gift economy that united over 200 artists. In October of 2008, she organized a project called Bike Write in which 50 cyclists followed a typographic route that spelled "Yes We Can" in the city Providence. The project brought together riders in support of Barack Obama and alternative transportation.

Special thanks to Malachi's Cafe for the salt, Precision Laser for the laser cutting and RISD 2nd Life for the recycled paper scraps, and to artist Melissa Small.

6. Fulton Street

2009-03-12T20:04:00.004-04:00

Barbara Owen

Fluttering
gouache on paper installation

About the Work
A grouping of works on paper, small gouache abstractions that when connected make up a “Fluttering”. These abstractions are caught in the moment of transition; a twisting or a developing that evokes movement, a falling forward and backward, a shifting depth of color. One can take in the picture as a whole, its shape and movement, or study each element as a separate entity.

About the Artist
Barbara recently moved to Rhode Island from Brooklyn, New York with her family. She has a studio in Pawtucket and finds herself at home in the area. She holds a BA from Bennington College. She has participated in several artist residency programs, including Brydecliff Artist Colony in Woodstock, NY. Her work has been exhibited at The Arts Center, in Troy New York, Southern Vermont Arts Center, in Manchester, VT amd BWAC, in Brooklyn, NY.

Barbara creates her work using gouache on paper, oil on canvas, ink on Mylar, and directly on walls. Choosing different vehicles to express her devotion to the theme of color relationships through abstract organic forms.

7. RI Housing, 44 Washington Street

2009-03-12T19:59:00.003-04:00

Deb Hickey

CONNECTING TO PROVIDENCE

Photo sculptures 4'x6', inkjet and photo-transfer prints on foam core, metal rings, wood

About the Work and the Artist
These images are a mix of photographs and paintings made from photographs, taken in Providence from 2006-2008.

Reading much literature on Providence's 'Renaissance' I decided to move from Boston to Providence in 2003. I was as interested in affordable housing, as I was in pursuing a career as an artist. Convinced that there was going to be a renaissance I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I bought a home on the West Side in 2005 and began to create a new style of painting from architectural photographs. It is through the camera that I began to connect with my new city by exploring Providence's landscape and architecture. The geometry of architecture in Providence attracts my eye and the city has plenty to choose from. Many of the images are from the West Side of the city, where I regularly go for walks in search of new images.

More about the Artist

Deb Hickey graduated in 1996 from The Art Institute of Boston with a BFA in Photography. She has shown her work in galleries in Medford, Arlington and Chelsea, MA. She also belongs to the 297 Gallery in Bristol RI and the Congress Street Gallery in Portsmouth NH. Deb's work can also be found in many collections throughout New England. In March 2009, her work will be at AS220 in a show entitled, Ready or Not, Here I Come which focuses on her coming to the Providence 'Renaissance' and on what she found when she got here.

8. URI Library, 80 Washington Street

2009-03-12T19:52:00.006-04:00

Peter Owen

Paintings

About the Work
I began this project while living in Los Angeles in order to view l.a. in a way that I felt was counter to the typical experience. Los Angeles sprawl makes us dependent on cars, therefore the landscape is framed by the windshield. I recorded the city from the street level, on foot, a plein-air painter transplanted into the grimy and smog-glazed neighborhoods of Los Angeles. All of the drawings are done in alleyways, on sidewalks, in parking lots, at various times of day and night. The locations affect the markmaking - uncomfortable areas produce sketchy or nervous lines. And the travel affects them as well: a dozen panels in a backpack rub together and wear off areas of surfaces, revealing a lower strata of information, a previous location. My paintings deviate from plein-air painting in that each panel is a layered recording. The images are superimposed on one another, an accretion of landscape. After five years of using public space and city imagery as a platform to create paintings and drawings I’ve pulled back from working strictly outdoors and have transitioned into an indoor studio practice. This allows me to work on a larger scale. The paintings I’m working on currently are mash-ups of the areas I’ve lived and traveled through New York, Los Angeles and presently Providence and greater New England. Even though the lines lie exposed and naked on the paper, the compositions and layered imagery build to a mystery that is at the same time accessible and hidden. The paint drops in like anchors at various points of the compositions, the line work reads as mixed up folk tales of spaces lived in. From a distance, they look almost like sidewalk stains, but up close a multiplicity of lines refer to various places, tangled together. You can never get the whole, true story of a specific part of town; each place holds the varied experiences and memories of thousands of people. These paintings and drawings offer small observations of different spaces, clues about the variety of uses, truths, and histories of place.

About the Artist
In his paintings and drawings, Peter Owen explores the urban landscape, isolating and layering moments to reinterpret personal experience within public space. He has lived in Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and New England, and his work draws from each of these places. A primarily self-taught artist, Owen has shown at D.E.N. Contemporary and The Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles, Brenda Taylor Gallery in New York, F.U.E.L. Gallery in Philadelphia, and The Fallout Gallery in Las Vegas.

9. Trinity Rep, 201 Washington Street

2009-03-12T19:43:00.006-04:00

Paul O'Connor

Left Window The act of predation always results in the death of the prey

Right Window In more complicated positions, it is much rarer; usually taking the form of a swindle succeeding only if the superior side is inattentive

Mixed Media with Collage on Paper

About the Work
The goal of these works is to illustrate how context, in this case the context of light, alters overall composition and the perception of the viewer. Backlighting and the use of translucent materials allow these images to change characteristics depending on whether it is night or day. This lets passersby re-evaluate their understanding of the work and experience a direct model of how meaning is dependent upon context. In the past, I have used juxtaposition of imagery and mark-making to alter the normal associations that the viewer brings to the work; but these pieces are the first of which change themselves, contrasting moods and compositions depending on their environment.

About the Artist
Paul O'Connor is an artist, printmaker, and bookbinder. While attending Rhode Island School of Design (Alum 2007), he was the recipient of the G. W. Hodge Award for Excellence in Printmaking and the Claiborne Pell Award in the History of Art and Visual Culture. He lives and works in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Providence Art Windows Wins People's Choice Award for Public Art Exposure

2008-12-15T15:24:00.006-05:00

Providence Art Windows wins "People's Choice" for best Public Exposure for Artists during the 2008 Boston Art Awards. This first annual celebration was organized by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research to honor the best art made in New England (excepting Connecticut) in 2008. Put together by artist and critic Greg Cook, PAW was honored to accept, and brought PAW founder Liz Keithline along for the kudos. PAW was in good company with other Rhode Island winners, including 5 Traverse Gallery, Neal Walsh, Scott Lapham, Xander Marro and many more.
A great night, and we will work hard to be brought back again next year.

If you would like to learn more about the night's winners and entertainment, please go to:

http://www.bigredandshiny.com/

Welcome!

2008-11-30T16:29:00.004-05:00

Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its next exhibit will be on view from December 4, 2008 – March 13, 2009. The art and art installations are by Rhode Island artists Deb Hickey, Saberah Malik, John Riedel, Ann Marie Scartabello, Ida Schmulowitz and Alison Collins (New York), Lynne Harlow (Rhode Island and New York) Sharon St. Hilaire (Massachusetts) and Caroline Woolard (New York). Please join us for the opening reception at Design Within Reach (210 Westminster Street, Providence, RI 02903) on December 6, from 4:00-6:00PM. Come and meet the artists, go on a walking tour with a map and visit beautiful Downtown Providence during the Providence Preservation Society’s Holiday Festival and Downtown Stroll.

Please download the map above to take the walking tour. Printed versions are available in Downtown Providence restaurants, stores and hotels.

1. 191 Westminster Street

2008-11-30T12:54:00.010-05:00

Ida Schmulowitz

Park View/Trees and Forsythia
oil on canvas; 6’ x 8’

About the artist and the work
I have painted outside since about 1978. When I moved to Fox Point from the Benefit Street area in 1981, I looked around for a place to paint and was struck by the panoramic view from the pedestrian bridge over Rte 195 leading to India Point Park. Some people looked at the bridge as just a cage, but many appreciated the uniqueness of the spot. Standing over the highway looking east or west at sunrise and sunset was inspiring. The bridge became my outdoor studio for 23 years. Over the years I would change my particular vantage point on the bridge, which would lead to the beginning of a new series concentrating on a particular view. Each painting evolved over a series of time- sometimes put aside and taken out months or years later to be completed. I work with layering of color to create a certain depth in the work. I also work with color to create an overall color light in each piece. Painting from the same spot for so many years gave me a familiarity with the place so that the landscape also became a jumping off point for my experimentation with creating space and using color.

This painting is one of the last paintings of a series I completed looking at a particular group of pine trees and a bank of forsythia. The trees and forsythia were chopped down as part of the construction of the new pedestrian bridge.

2. 191 Westminster Street

2008-11-30T12:54:00.008-05:00

John Riedel

Selected Collage-Constructions,1974-1980

In 1974, I first worked in collage, with a series of small pieces as an offshoot of the abstract painting I was doing at the time. In 1975, after a trip to Italy, I began to paint from reality, and also memory, landscapes and cityscapes of Pawtucket.

After a few years I reached an impasse and constructed a collage of the same name to express my sense of frustration with my painting at his time. This came about largely because of interesting things being thrown out by the neighbor next door on garbage night. A few of the objects included in this work were a broken road block sign, a picture of myself painting, and one of my old palettes.

However it wasn't until the winter of 1978 in Providence, that I began to work on a series of collages, to the exclusion of other art work.

The sizes of these pieces ranged from 4 ft x5 ft to 1 1/2 ft square. Toward the end, these collage constructions also grew to be three dimensional, having a depth of 3 to 5 inches. I restricted myself to working only with found objects, whether it was paper, (including old book end papers), cloth, metal, plastic, wood, etc. In the early stages of the work, it was important not to fasten anything down. This could be done later in the process, to keep the work in a state of flux.

From 1982 to the present I have continued to paint from reality; however, the arrangement or composition of the paintings has in many cases, increasingly resembled the later collage-constructions.

This is a result of an increasing feeling that separate objects are only bridges to the things around them. In painting, as in collage, separate objects can become areas of color working to mutually strengthen each other.

3. 203 Westminster Street

2008-11-30T12:53:00.002-05:00

Caroline Woolard

Our Goods

This installation is in motion and cannot be experienced from
one vantage point. Look for a peephole, hidden images, a website, and change.

About the Work
Caroline Woolard relocated the research desk of her experimental
barter network, OurGoods, to 203 Westminister Street. She will be
working at the desk, feet feeling sand, at surprise moments throughout the installation. Keep stopping by to see her work in progress. Hanging on her ladder chair is the launch project for OurGoods, a Utility Dress for barter only. Between an apron and a tool belt, this wrap dress was designed by Caroline Woolard over the past year and sewn by a talented male seamstress in NY. If you would like a Utility Dress, go to www.OurGoods.org and make me an offer!*

* Please barter your unique creations and skills. I am interested in
many things: your suffrage movement research, your glass shattering
voice, your serious drawings, your functional ceramics, your weird
glass objects, your (kevlar!?) textiles, your handmade furniture, your
web help, photo/video documentation help, conversational Spanish
tutoring, accounting help, yoga instruction, liability law services, help
growing hydroponic vegetables, vintage patterns, secret recipes, your
apartment in Manhattan to let my (good) guests stay in, or anything
else you value and/or make and think we should exchange. If you
absolutely cannot barter, you can donate $200 and take a dress.
www.OurGoods.org

About the Artist
Born Providence and based in NY, Caroline Woolard received her
BFA from Cooper Union in 2006. As a Research Scholar at NYU and a Research Assistant at Mildred's Lane, Woolard investigates the construction of subjectivity in architecture, art, and design. Woolard's interventions are presented publicly in the urban
environment and have been affiliated with psychogeographic events like Conflux in NY, Cryptic Providence in RI, and Unoccupied Spaces in Montreal. Caroline Woolard is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, the Leon Levy Foundation Grant, and the Elliot Lash Award for Excellence in Sculpture. She has shown her work at the Newport Art Museum in RI, Jackson Gallery in GA, Oxbow Gallery in MI, and The Bruce High Quality Foundation in NY. Next, Woolard will show her newest collaboration with dancer Linda Austin after a residency at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center on March 28 at 2pm.

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

2008-11-30T12:45:00.003-05:00

Saberah Malik

Beauty Supply
gilding, oil on wood, and shibori silk

About the Work
As the Narragansett tribal genealogist Ella Sekatau narrated, “stones are the bones of the earth.”

I also see stones as evolutionary witnesses of our changing earth; as historical markers of territorial boundaries, whether in the form of stone walls or natural outcroppings; as silent witnesses of all that has gone on before us, or as it is happening in our lifetime – rocks re-arranged during natural upheavals like the Pakistan earthquake of 2005, China’s more recent Sichuan earthquake, or man-made destruction like what the administration referred to as “re-arranging the rocks” in aerial bombardment in Afghanistan.

Stones, rocks, boulders, and pebbles are my everyday companions as I walk or drive through my Cowesett hills neighborhood or any other part of Rhode Island and New England. Stones are an integral and oft-repeating motif of our landscape, and I witness their changing shapes and colors, which transform in shifting weather and the progression of seasons. I see wet stones glisten as silver and gold, softly contoured under overcast skies, sharply delineated in directional light, or seemingly flat in scorching heat.

The evolutionary and ecological, geographic and socio-economic, historical and personal relevance of flowing water resonates in how a shoreline shifts the apex of its curve, broken boulders morph into amorphous shapes, component minerals sparkle with happy hues. Stones, as they define the New England landscape, equally define those of Pakistan, China, or Afghanistan. Stones, indeed are the bones of the earth: global, common, useful, useless, precious, semi-precious, and water is earth’s rhythmic pulse, patiently serving, patiently shaping with resonating relevance.

About the Artist
Saberah Malik grew up in Pakistan and present day Bangladesh.

She studied art and design at the prestigious Panjab University in the ancient and cultural city of Lahore, graduating with a BFA and MFA in Graphic Design. As the best graduate and Gold Medalist, she was awarded the National Merit scholarship for higher education.She chose to study in New York and graduated from Pratt Institute with a Masters degree in Industrial Design.

Saberah settled in Connecticut after her marriage. In order to dedicate time to raising a family she started painting as a creative alternative to professional design. With her two sons away at college, she has been able to devote full time to painting over the past few years. Saberah has participated in invitational as well as many juried shows in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Pakistan, and her work is in several private collections.

She lives and works in Warwick, Rhode Island, which has been her home now for almost three decades.

5. Two Brothers Beauty Supply, at Eddy and Westminster

2008-11-30T12:43:00.004-05:00

Alison Collins

in statu nascendi
steel, dimensions variable

About the Work
The installation in statu nascendi, is comprised of 100 woven steel nests created in response to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The title in Latin translates to “the magic moment of creation” or “in status of birth.” The nests explore conflicting themes of the natural and the decorative while evoking ideas of dwelling, shelter, origins, nurturing, and abandonment.

About the Artist
Alison Collins is a sculptor who lives and works in New York City. Her work explores the cultural constructs of masculinity and femininity through relationships to decorative forms and architecture. Collins creates delicate, yet menacing installations primarily with steel. She earned a BFA in Painting from Tulane University, an MFA in Sculpture from Louisiana State University, and an MA in Art History from Louisiana State University. Collins is a professor of art at City University of New York .

6. Fulton Street, next to Providence City Hall

2008-11-30T12:34:00.005-05:00

Lynne Harlow

Tropic
fabric, Plexiglas, tape Site-specific installation

About the Work
How little is enough? How much can be taken away before a piece crumbles? My sculptural installations are lean, elegant arrangements of color, light and space; they are presentations of physical facts. I want to isolate and exaggerate particular aspects of the ways we encounter and negotiate our physical world, and bring some awareness and joy to the process. And I feel that the most effective way for me to achieve this is by presenting installations, these restrained arrangements of facts. With restricted use of very particular materials, sheer and lightweight, the installations suggest the presence of light and the absence of weight.

About the Artist
Lynne Harlow is a reductive artist based in Providence, RI and New York, NY. She makes large-scale site-specific work and small drawings and prints in a language of sensual minimalism. Lynne holds an M.F.A. from Hunter College in New York, and exhibits her work in the U.S. and internationally, including recent shows at P.S. 1 and EFA Project Space, both in New York. In 2002 she was a visiting artist at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX.

7. RI Housing, 44 Washington Street

2008-11-30T12:31:00.007-05:00

Deb Hickey

CONNECTING TO PROVIDENCE

Photo sculptures 4'x6', inkjet and photo-transfer prints on foam core, metal rings, wood

About the Work and the Artist
These images are a mix of photographs and paintings made from photographs, taken in Providence from 2006-2008.

More about the Artist

8. URI Library, 80 Washington Street

2008-11-30T12:23:00.003-05:00

Sharon St. Hilaire

About the artist and the work
I paint with yarn, creating minimalist works with bold color and texture. Each painting is composed of thousands of crochet stitches. Crocheting allows me to create texture and - my tactile designs are compelling statements of simplicity and complexity at the same time. Each strand is then precisely fixed onto a substrate. I call my technique, “Repeté” with the creation of each single stitch becoming a mantra for the mind and hand. The color field is broken by textured patterns created by the manipulation of that one stitch. So, like the single blade of grass in nature, the single crocheted stitch is insignificant, but in mass makes a powerful statement.

My art represents my quest for control, for quiet and for solemnity. What would seen like minimalism at first glance, is upon close scrutiny actually complexity created by near compulsiveness. The meditation on the single stitch is randomly broken by multiples of the stitch. It is just as when the random thought interrupts the mantra. It is an imperfect process so that some pieces are more the failure of quiet. My goal is to express what lies beneath, to transcend. I try that and fail in most of my life but with my art I am able to appear to be in control.

My original inspiration came from seeing a yarn painting by a Huichol Indian from Mexico. My first works copied their technique of embedding yarn into hot wax to create abstract works. Eventually I moved from wax to glue and from single strands of yarn to crocheted strips. All of the works start as a drawing translated into a crocheting pattern.

9. Trinity Rep, 201 Washington Street

2008-11-30T12:10:00.004-05:00

Ann Marie Scartabello

Collage and Mixed-Media Paintings

About the Work
Ann Marie Scartabello’s collage and mixed-media paintings use several layers of acrylic textures along with some floral stampings in a simple design. The textures and images lead the viewer through a unique pictorial world.

About the Artist Ann Marie Scartabello is originally from Providence and moved to South Kingstown 25 years ago. In 2006, she began to pursue art in the form of collage and mixed media. She has received several awards at the Wickford Art Association where she is currently an artist member, as well as on the board of directors. Her work has also been exhibited at Kent County Hospital, North Kingstown Library, South County Hospital, South County Art Association, True Brew Cafe, Edgewood Gallery, Java Madness and she is currently a resident artist at Hope Gallery in Bristol, RI. Ann Marie is also a member of South County Art Association as well as Newport Art Association.

Coming Up-Next Exhibit Opens December 6, 2008

2008-11-06T12:53:00.006-05:00

Providence Art Windows is pleased to announce that its next exhibit will be on view from December 4, 2008 – March 13, 2009. The art and art installations are by Rhode Island artists Deb Hickey, Saberah Malik, John Riedel, Ann Marie Scartabello, Ida Schmulowitz and Alison Collins (New York), Lynne Harlow (New York) Sharon St. Hilare (Massachusetts) and Caroline Woolard (New York). Please join us for the opening reception at Design Within Reach (210 Westminster Street, Providence, RI 02903) on December 6, from 4:00-6:00PM. Come and meet the artists, go on a walking tour with a map and visit beautiful Downtown Providence during the Providence Preservation Society’s Holiday Festival and Downtown Stroll.

A downloadable map will be available on this site December 1, and printed version in Downtown Providence restaurants, stores and hotels.

Welcome!

2008-08-19T01:42:00.014-04:00

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

2008-08-18T10:09:00.018-04:00

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

2008-08-18T10:09:00.017-04:00

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

2008-08-18T10:08:00.008-04:00

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

2008-08-18T10:07:00.024-04:00

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

2008-08-18T10:07:00.022-04:00

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.