Walking into Nick McKnight’s neon studio in Providence, I immediately see the signature glow of neon. The studio, Night Light Neon, is warmer than the warehouse-type building it is housed in. The signs are kicking off heat. There is a sign on the opposite wall that demonstrates the different colors of neon in two columns, […]
Read the full interview with Darlene Lacey below. Darlene Lacey started The Candy Wrapper Museum in 1975, when she was just a teenager. She says, “I had the idea to collect candy wrappers, but I wanted to do it with a purpose. I always loved roadside attractions and the way that ordinary things could become […]
Before Dutchess SS (aka Janaya Gonsalves) was gracing the stages of southern New England as a stand-up comedian, she was working a sequence of jobs that she says quickly resolved any nervousness she might have about performing in front of people. She reflects on working in food service, saying it’s hard to be nervous in […]
Content Warning: Disordered eating I grew up outside Cincinnati – meat and cheese country. From the moment I could eat soft foods, food was espoused as something tempting to resist. Well meaning aunts and mothers commented on chubby babies and their Cheerio intake (let the babies be). Later, I read glossy magazines that gave diet […]
I first heard about data annotation while scrolling TikTok. A woman wearing a fuzzy beige cardigan appeared on my screen with a clanging Stanley cup in hand to tell me about how she has been on a quest to make $100 each day, before and after her 9 to 5. Naturally, my ears perked. There’s […]
Jules Kang Sharpe is reading off their open tabs to me from their iphone on a sunny Friday morning in November. Lots of gluten-free recipes. Eels, which Sharpe mentions people have been really into, due to them being both “cute little grungy animals,” as well as the It Girls of the moment as they head […]
When I sat down with this issue’s cover artist, Michelle Perez, and asked what has been inspiring her recently, she brightened: “Girl monster movies.” Specifically, Jennifer’s Body. After moving to Providence from Jacksonville, FL (which she describes as stripmall country) to study illustration at RISD, Perez started researching the local lore and learned of the […]
When you’re a kid, candy is currency. It is the life-force-giving stuff of dreams, none too sweet nor too gimmicky. A dropper of sour goo? Sounds good. A hollow ball of tempered chocolate with a surprise inside? Choking hazards be damned. As folks grow up, they typically lose their devotion to the sweet stuff, either […]
Riverzedge Arts is a non-profit, Woonsocket based organization that teaches industry-standard skills to teens who complete commercial artworks for local businesses and community partners. Teens are compensated for their work, which include billboard designs, merchandise, business cards, and much more. Riverzedge Arts presents its Annual Youth Exhibition, featuring the work by teens involved in the […]
In 1974, the Navy declared three parcels of Rhode Island land as excess to their needs, including the air base in Charlestown. The Naval Auxiliary Air Station Charlestown was developed in 1942 as a WWII-era military asset, training historical figures like former president George Herbert Walker Bush. When the base was disestablished in the early […]