Meg moved from Oakland, CA to PVD in May 2018 and works as a freelance writer and marketing specialist. For her, writing isn't a choice or even something she thinks about- it's her primary method of communication and the way she processes information. Meg is excited to write for Motif because ever since moving to PVD, she's been developing crushes on all these RI residents, so that's what she wants to write about – the people who make this strange little state so dreamy and worthwhile.
Thomas Fantasia speaks articulately, then cuts himself off. Modest, respectful, cautious. He interrupts himself to emphasize: he’s still learning. “There’s so much more I have to learn about our traditional dances and songs,” says Fantasia. “I’m only speaking on my experience. I don’t speak for other communities that may have other understandings… I share from […]
“I was born and raised in Providence. I’m locally grown organic,” says cartoonist and illustrator Matthew Kramer. Kramer graduated from Brown with an MFA in Literary Arts and works as a freelance artist. They just returned from Paris where they completed a three month poetry residency. “There’s always people in the parks lounging in Luxembourg […]
Five weeks before Wooly Fair, in the Nicholson File Mill studios, Dave Allyn stands on a ladder busy at work. He and Stephanie Grant are building large-scale lanterns with long swaths of multicolored fabrics. Talia Lipkind is making a dichroic glass disco ball. Fred Gorman is asked what costume he’s going to wear. Classic rock […]
i.The manacles: heavy irons coursed through with rust, ghostly webs tracing the blood, sweat and tears of Africans, ripped from their lands and torn from their relations, herded across the vast Atlantic in squalid, creaking dungeons, sold at market and beaten into servitude until their exhausted bodies and spirits gave them over to death’s embrace. […]
Photo: Meg Coss. In late summer, the dark purple drupe of the black cherry tree reaches maturity and the resident birds – the robins and sparrows, the finches and crows – have a feast. Fully ripened, nearly black in color, the fruit is gobbled and shat out. The backyard pathway is a mess of purple […]
Is there a moment in a horse’s stride when all four hooves are off the ground? was the question Leland Stanford wanted Eadweard Muybridge to investigate. In 1878, Muybridge, a photographer roaming the western U.S. in a horse-drawn carriage/darkroom, took a series of photographs at Stanford’s Palo Alto racetrack. Muybridge photographed a horse named Sallie […]
When art succeeds it inspires. It asks questions. It holds mirrors. Curating Commemoration: Poiesis / Remedy, on display at the WaterFire Arts Center, features the works of 45 area artists. Curated by Melaine Ferdinand-King and Joel Rosario Tapia, two rising curators selected for a curatorial mentorship initiative of the Providence Biennial for Contemporary Art, Curating […]
Two years ago Rob Pena began work as a community organizer for a marijuana justice campaign within Reclaim Rhode Island. He was campaigning to help craft the future of Rhode Island’s cannabis industry, doing the work to ensure the Rhode Island Cannabis Act included social equity provisions and record expungement. In 2022, when the bill […]
On May 25, 2022, Gov. McKee signed the RI Cannabis Act into law. The law legalized cannabis for adult use and stated a three-member commission (aka the Cannabis Control Commission, CCC for short) would be responsible for overseeing the regulation, licensing, and control of RI’s medical and adult use cannabis markets. McKee had 40 days […]
Photo courtesy of RI Film Office ‘90s movie nostalgia is alive and well in Rhode Island. 2021 saw the resurrection of the Sanderson sisters for the filming of Hocus Pocus 2. And this year, Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell reprised their roles of Dexter and Ed for the filming of Good Burger 2 in the […]