“I’ve leveled up,” illustrator Daniel Smelansky of Providence says with a chuckle of his latest gig: creating the cover of Motif’s Gift Guide. That’s because he made a word-and-image collage about the lack of nonbinary bathing suits for an article in the Queer Issue last June, and illustrated a Fun Map with pumpkins and ghosts […]
Classes in blacksmithing, jewelry, clay, and welding are on offer for the holidays. The Steel Yard (TSY) in Providence’s Valley Arts District is offering courses, workshops, and gift cards for this holiday season. You can choose from various options, such as taster classes in blacksmithing, jewelry, ceramics, and welding. For gift cards, the purchaser sets […]
In creating the cover of Motif’s Indigenous Peoples Month issue, artist and visual arts teacher Ella Mahoney took her inspiration from her birthplace, Aquinnah, in Martha’s Vineyard, MA. “Every year, the members of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe go to the cranberry bogs, and pick cranberries together,” she relates. “From that, I took images of the […]
Fittingly, old haunts surround a couple of skeletons on the cover of Motif’s Halloween issue, as designed by digital artist Matthew Bernier of Barrington. They are the names of businesses now gone: Goldy Records, Chez Pascal, and The Watershed, to name a few. “Some of these places were my haunts when I was growing up,” […]
The leading character of the audio series The Diaries of Netovicius the Vampire was spawned by an offhand comment while creator Hugo Pierre Martin and his partner, Sonja Kelly, were walking around downtown Woonsocket a couple years back. “My partner said she saw someone who looked like a vampire driving a lime green Cadillac,” the […]
For teenager Elliot Langston of Pawtucket, using pipe cleaners to craft characters from monster movies, games, and anime is painstaking work – in both definitions of the term. The 15-year-old spends hours fashioning figures that are as detailed as they are accurate. But working with these implements can be painful. “The metal will poke you […]
Naylea Hernández of Providence paints in vibrant colors like her favorite contemporary artist, Rocio Cabrera. The cover artist for Motif’s Hispanic Heritage issue, Hernández makes a point of using slime green in a number of her paintings. It’s her favorite color, she says, reminiscent of Nickelodeon’s iconic and signature substance. In her composition for the […]
Origin Beer Project of Providence took the top hops spot at Motif’s 2025 Food Truck & Drink Awards held at 195 District Park on September 14. “It feels humbling,” said co-owner and head brewer Cheyne Tessier as he held the plaque proclaiming “favorite overall brewery” for the establishment he and his wife, co-owner Erika, founded […]
You won’t see a 6-year-old wielding a blowtorch, but you will see youngsters making jewelry and working with clay at a newly launched childcare program at The Steel Yard (TSY) in on Sims Ave in Providence’s Industrial Valley. The program is free for parents and caregivers who are instructors or students at the nonprofit industrial […]
For the cover of Motif’s Student Guide issue, illustrator Kai Gietzen drew a “monstrous crumpled up ball of notebook paper,” which, he says, “Represents all of the trials one encounters throughout the school year.”. Standing before the big ball is a figure wearing a backpack and holding a pencil as a sword. “I was looking […]