Kiki Shu created Always & Forever, the warm, mustard-backed cover art for this issue. According to Shu, the artwork is “a digital illustration made with a limited, layered color palette; it was drawn on an iPad in Procreate.” I asked the artist some questions to learn more about their illustration and art practice. What were […]
“Are you choking on the vomit of consumerist ‘gay pride?’— Darling spit that shit out — Gay shame is the answer.” So reads a hand-written flyer produced by the Gay Shame movement in San Francisco in the 2000s, according to author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on FoundSF.org, a San Francisco digital history archive I […]
Wanderground Lesbian Archive & Library A note from Wanderground Lesbian Archive & Library: “Wanderground collects and provides access to a broad selection of New England-based publications, artifacts, and personal memorabilia from the period 1950-2000. They offer community gathering spaces in order to preserve the vibrant past of local Lesbians, encourage present-day learning and discovery, and […]
“When I learned that this was going to be the summer cover, I immediately got excited thinking about bright summery colors, animal characters in sunglasses, and summertime treats like ice cream and lemonade,” explains Valerie Nelson, local graphic designer, illustrator, and visual artist who created this Summer Guide’s cover art. Drawing under a rainbow sherbert […]
In early May, Matt Farley released his 464th album (according to his total, but who’s keeping track?) titled Song High School Songs Fun. The album cover is a photo of him smiling like he’s being held at gunpoint, draped in a gray blanket, presumably a selfie taken in one shot at his house. He has […]
March 20 – Providence College Provost Sean Reid and the Office of Mission and Ministry vetoes the group art exhibition Nothing Living Lives Alone, featuring the work of Shey ‘Ri Acu’ Rivera Ríos, Feda Eid, and Luana Morales, which was scheduled to run from March 27 to September 28. April 3 – Providence College faculty, […]
The flowers are blooming almost violently outside. The chaos of drivers impatiently beeping fills the air. I pass through a heavy red door off Broadway in Providence and walk up the stairs to Angels Collective tattoo studio. The chaotic beeping deadens once inside. Light filters in through a green-paned, stained glass window at the top […]
The total sales by dispensaries in RI in 2023 was approximately $108 million, according to the Office of Cannabis Regulation. With that amount of revenue, and a slippery legal context in the years following cannabis legalization, I was interested to learn more about cannabis lobbying groups in Rhode Island. Lobbying is a professional or organized […]
While putting together this issue, we spoke often about gender. In celebrating Women’s History Month, it is important to acknowledge that while we live in a patriarchal society where the material effects of misogyny and gender-based inequity are very real, the concept of gender expands beyond the binary of women and men. Enforcing the gender […]
Indoor prostitution, or sex work solicited in closed spaces, was decriminalized in Rhode Island from 1980 to 2009, empowering sex workers with the ability to report crimes committed against them by clients. Decriminalization was in part created by a legislative loophole in the RI Supreme Court’s 1998 ruling, State v DeMagistris, which focused on criminalizing […]