Cathren is a community collaborative artist who has been working with the Community Libraries of Providence and other non-profits since 2012, developing arts and literacy programs and creating public art installations. She has been an artist in residence at Hattie Ide Chaffee Home since 2023, implementing visual arts and health programs with seniors and dementia patients. Website: ArtHouseRI.com
Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché, My 19-year-old daughter isn’t really into school, she’s attending because I want her to. Recently, she met a 35-year-old man online who is from across the country. After two months she thinks she is in love with him. They Skype and she has seen his son and says he is real cute and […]
Allergy season is here. You can tell by the blotchy green dust on your car, the sniggley, snitchy sneezing, and your weeping eyes. Doctors recommend that you begin taking an allergy medication right away and stay on it for the duration. Before you step blindly onto this unending treadmill, we’d like to give you some information that your […]
Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché, My son is 19 and was recently caught smoking marijuana. He’s not a juvenile delinquent — his grades are good. The friends he smokes pot with are all otherwise good kids. My son has never previously been a discipline problem and has an amiable nature. However, his mom went ballistic and gave him […]
The legalization of cannabis is nearly upon us and it is a move that I both applaud and dread. If we lived in a perfect world, with people who respected the properties and consequences of inebriates and used them to enhance life rather than replace it, there would be no contest. However, we don’t — so let’s look […]
When I began reading about the health effects of yeast, i.e., candida albicans, it was with an impersonal eye. I was intending to track down the latest research and wrap up the facts in an entertaining manner, if such a thing is possible with yeast. But as I continued, I found myself becoming emotionally involved. The problems […]
Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché, I am not sure if this is a problem, but it does worry me a lot. My boyfriend never gets jealous over me, not even the tiniest bit. I have never cheated on him but I’ve purposely flirted with other men to try get a reaction from him, and nada. I finally asked […]
As a little girl, I noticed that every time my mother got pissed off at my dad, she would head out the back door, snarling to herself like a wet cat. An hour or so later she would return, purring quietly under her breath as if nothing had happened. For a while I suspected she […]
Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché; I am having terrible luck with relationships and I don’t understand why. I have heard that girls usually look for someone who resembles their father and this is why so many women from dysfunctional families with lousy dads end up in abusive relationships. But my own father was wonderful! He always […]
After watching Madonna fall backward off of the stage at the recent British Music Awards, I got to thinking. The old slip and fall is a great equalizer. It dumps us all indecorously upon our asses, celebrities and common folk alike. With the Motif Music Award Nominees issue upon us, I was curious to see just how […]
When I was a young girl, the movies made quite an impression on my malleable mind. I would walk out of a spy flick feeling suave and sophisticated, and if my sister suggested we stop for ice cream on the way home, I would sit in the car and dream while she and my dad went in […]