The Dirt Palace, a collective of feminist artists, will celebrate its 25th anniversary this month with a fundraising brunch on the lawn of its Wedding Cake House at 514 Broadway in Providence The suggested donation is $25 to attend the event, which will be held on Sunday, August 24, from 11am to 3pm. Attendees can […]
“I finally found my niche,” Sydney Bienstock says of her journey from doing arts and crafts as a youngster to fashioning distinctive collages, like the one gracing the cover of this Motif issue. Bienstock always loved art. But she didn’t consider herself a good illustrator or painter, she relates. Wanting to be a creative, she […]
For cover artist Shey Rivera Ríos, it’s all about community. “I create in all kinds of art forms; I really love performance and visual art,” they say, adding, “All of it is connected to community and organizing.” The artwork for the Motif cover was taken from a poster Rivera Ríos designed for the fundraiser Foo […]
Walking between oval mirrors mounted above altars on opposite walls in the entryway of the Pawtucket Arts Collaborative gallery in Lorraine Mills, the theme of the mixed-media and immersive In-Between group exhibition became readily apparent. As a sign of welcome, an alabaster hand and an ebony hand reached out from one mirror, while a white […]
The Warwick Public Library (WPL) on Sandy Lane, whose reading programs run from infancy to adulthood, is abuzz with the Summer Reading Challenge. Split into three age groups, participants have to log 16 hours of reading time by August 23 to earn their prizes. They also get a halfway prize after reading for eight hours, […]
“I get paid to do the Hokey Pokey. It’s kind of a cool gig,” Anne Leyon Kilkenny says of her job at Providence Public Library (PPL) on Empire Street. She joined PPL 15 years ago as an early childhood/children’s educator, which was a new position at the time. The Library, a 150-year-old nonprofit institution, wanted […]
The pandemic delivered an uppercut, but not a knockout punch, to the print magazine industry. Still, a number of titles vanished from newsstand racks in the wake of COVID-19; either folding outright or migrating to online only, according to retail sellers. And readership? It’s likewise been trimmed, partly by the departure of Millennials and Generation […]
In her compositions, multimedia artist Alejandra Spruill of Orange, MA, focuses on contrast. “I look for things that don’t go together, but create a whole,” she says. For example, Spruill says, “I took a painting palette and sliced it up. Then, I combined it with a silver gelatin portrait of a friend of mine.” Her […]
From clam shacks to high-end restaurants, the lobster roll has become a quintessential item on the menu in RI. In early 20th century New England, fishing folk put lobster meat into buns for convenient meals. A hot buttered lobster roll made its debut at Perry’s Restaurant in Connecticut in 1929. In a decade, a cold […]
When cover artist Esther Helas of Providence was in high school, her biology teacher caught her drawing in class. One day the teacher, Edwin Yoo, handed her a sketchbook and said, “Do it here,” the digital illustrator recalls. “That changed my life,” Helas says. She became serious about art and, after taking a figure drawing […]