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,” […]
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 […]
Don’t be a robot, exhorts visual and music artist Spocka Summa of Providence, the cover artist of Motif’s Fall Guide in concert with several Anti-Robot Club members. Together, they designed this issue’s artwork: “Break free and be yourself!” In today’s media-driven, celebrity culture, it’s easy to become programmed, “Like a computer that does XYZ, and […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The cover artist for the Queer issue took their name from their favorite dinosaur, the Tyrannosaurus rex. Rex LeBeau of Newport, for as long as they can remember, loved dinosaurs. “When I was little,” they recall, “I completely covered the walls of my bedroom with dinosaur drawings. Taking them down when we moved left a […]
Illustrator and animator Georgia Darley Oldham of Providence doodled her way onto the cover of Motif’s Summer Guide. When she received the assignment from art director Olivia Lunger, Oldham started doodling and sketching out a bunch of ideas. “I asked myself what images come to mind when I think of summer,” she says, while sipping […]