2025 Food Truck Awards Winners
This year’s RI Food Truck & Drink Awards managed to dodge the rain clouds and have a beautiful night by the Pedestrian Bridge, in lovely, view-encrusted District Park in the […]
THE MEMORY OF WATER: Some Things Stay In Your Bones
Photo by Jesse Dufault. Picture this: grief and laughter, absurdity and tenderness coexisting cohesively. Not easy to do, yet Burbage Theatre Company’s production of The Memory of Water adeptly captures this ephemeral equilibrium. Under the expert...
Aura’s Chocolate Bar: Sometimes, It is Love at Second Sight
Aura never planned to fall in love with chocolate. Chocolate may not have been her first choice, but it became the obvious one for her pastry adventures. When she enrolled at Johnson & Wales University, her...
Beer Booty Calls: Single, Situationships, or True Love
Does true love exist or is this something found only on the Hallmark Channel? If you aren’t familiar with this network, it usually involves a baker, country music singer, hockey player, or a prince who...
Roots Report
Okee dokee folks… “Sto lat, sto lat.” It’s a traditional Polish song that is meant to wish a long life to a person. “Sto lat” roughly translates to “100 years” and is a common Polish...
Down with the Boyfriends: Celibacy as a Form of Modern Feminism
Illustration by Maddy Bormes Valentine’s Day is on its way, and so is the heteronormativity that accompanies it. From the popular rom-coms we guiltily indulge in to the traditionalist ideals that have a grip on many,...
Who said romance was dead?: Here’s some ways you can treat yourself for Valentine's Day.
It’s that time of year again, where love is in the air and the stores are filled with as much chocolate as the eye can see. Typically it’s considered a holiday where you spend time...
Love Songs from the Ocean State: 7 RI Artists Laying All Their Cards on the Table
If you’re as chronically online as I am, you might have caught wind of the way people from in and out of state romanticize a Rhode Island summer and share the nostalgia of having fallen...
The Blood of Kings: How the Pitts-Wileys of Mixed Magic Theatre build love into every aspect of their art
Ricardo and Bernadet Pitts-Wiley of the Mixed Magic Theatre in Pawtucket have been married for 48 years, and have been colleagues in the theatre space for 26. Over the last few years, I’ve noticed how...
Telling Stories: A collection of profiles of local Black artists
While gathering profiles of local Black artists, We had far more suggestions from our guest editor and advisors than we could ever hope to cover. Kelly Marino interviewed three RI makers who are making waves...
The Poet of our Times
The Langston Hughes Community Poetry Reading is returning for its 31st consecutive year, to begin black history month. The annual free event will celebrate the powerful work of poet Langston Hughes with community poetry readings...
Black Excellence in Rhode Island: Support Black-owned businesses throughout Black History Month and every other day
Sarcastic Sweets Black excellence is something that should be celebrated every day. Black History Month not only honors that excellence but places it front and center. In that spirit, I invite you to visit one or...
Serve the song, enrich the community: The Proving Ground is a studio with a vision
You know how when you talk to people about something or someone they love they suddenly sit up straighter, remember things they thought they’d forgotten, and share their experiences with a sparkle in their eyes?...
BTS with DMK: An interview with storyteller KF Fuller
Rhode Island is bursting with creative energy. Providence calls itself the Creative Capital but that concept doesn’t stick to the confines of the city’s boundaries. The creatives that help make the Ocean State one helluva...
The Sandwich Hut: A Sammy Slam Dunk
There are some places in RI that feel less like a business and more like a trip back home. The Sandwich Hut is one of them. It all began in 1963, when Joe Tatulli, a World...
Parent Support Network for Beauty Health
Give and you shall receive! The time of year for giving is upon us, and the Parent Support Network of Rhode Island (PSN) continuously provides care and services to the community for those in need....
HELP IS A PHONE CALL AWAY: No one deserves to be abused
Abuse is an experience that many individuals have unfortunately lived through, but it is a topic that doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. There is a stigma, along with the plethora of other emotions a...
New Year, New Beers, New Rear: The Balance of Craft Consumption and Staying in Shape
Resolutions are great if they are realistic. However, isn’t resolving to always or never do something setting one up for failure? The best advice that I have is to set some goals that are achievable,...
Murmur Hi-Fi Revives the Ritual Nature of Experiencing Music
On a chilly December morning, Robert recounts to me the time he played his mother's favorite song, Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" through his hi-fi system. After the cumbersome time spent lugging the equipment and then...
Roots Report
Okee dokee folks… Well, it’s a new year. People put way too much stock in that. Shit just carries over from the previous year. Time is a human-made construct. In the big picture it doesn’t...
PVD Patient Care in Peril: Potential closure of two hospitals looms large
Photo courtesy of Gina Montecalvo Recent news has been grim about the future of medical care in our capital city. Dire finances have essentially endangered two of our local institutions: Roger Williams Medical Center and Fatima...
How To Stick To Your New Year’s Fitness Resolution
I get it. It’s the new year and yes! Finally a reason to lock into some new routines. I love that. I’ve been there. However, the clock’s midnight strike is not turning your glass slippers...
American Caesar Salad: Venezuela edition
News broke of an audacious operation on Jan 3 where US forces flew into Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, captured dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and flew them out to stand trial in federal...
ON THE COVER: Dalton Kaplan
Cover artist Dalton Kaplan of Pawtucket always had the art bug. “When I was a kid, I watched way too many cartoons,” the illustrator and graphic designer laughs. While sitting in front of the TV he...
Two Separate Periods Precipitation Mon – Wed: Snow and Freezing Rain, then Rain
At Providence, a clipper low Mon night followed by a shortwave Tue night into Wed morning will bring two separate episodes of precipitation, the first beginning as minimal snow possibly changing to freezing rain and...
Suspect Dead in Brown Mass Shooting and MIT Professor Murder: Authorities say crimes committed by single suspect
Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, identified by authorities as the suspect in both the Dec 13 mass shooting at Brown University in Providence that killed two and injured nine and the Dec 15 murder of MIT Professor...
YEAR-END REVIEW: Opening amidst adversity and budget cuts, here are five favorite PVD-area stage productions, 2025
Cibber-Vanbrugh’s The Provok’d Husband, a comedy about an extravagant wife, was a huge success in Newport. And Nicholas Rowe’s brooding The Tragedy of Jane Shore, inspired by the life of the mistress of Edward IV, drew standing-room only...
RI Video Roundup
We asked Motif’s resident video production supervisor to recommend some locally grown vids that made his year: 1. Dawn the Duck You may think you have a robust social life, but just know that there's a duck...
Read Locally: Top book picks by RI authors
By Steven R. Porter Rhode Island is known nationwide for its vibrant arts community. But the state’s published authors, despite their talent and success, are too often an afterthought. The year 2025 saw an absolute cornucopia...
COUNTDOWN TO THE LAST TEN BEST PINTS OF 2025
The holidays, over the years, have changed. This may be true for you as well. As a toddler most of us have followed family traditions. My late sister and I would wait for my father...
Roots Report
Heather Rose in Clover Okee dokee folks… If you listen to music enough you can always find lines in a song or whole songs that relate to the world around you. Lately I have been elder-Ubering...
Stuff to Do
A Shared Journey
September 13, 2025 - March 5, 2026This Is a Thing, Recent Gifts to Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, 2020–2025
September 14, 2025 - March 1, 2026The Court: Art in Play
September 24, 2025 - April 26, 2026The Flower, The Labor, and The Sea
September 27, 2025 - June 28, 2026
ON THE COVER: Ella Mahoney
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, […]
Between Land and Law: An Exploration of Tribal Identity and Sovereignty
When I set out to curate this collection of writing on “sovereignty,” I knew it was a mammoth to explore. Among original peoples of the Northeast, the word – the […]
Landlords, Inflation, and Market Regulation: Inflation meets greedflation
I live in North Kingstown, and a friend of mine, a retired police officer, rented the downstairs half of a house down the street from me. At least he did […]
Distro Driver Job Description
This is an unofficial overview of Motif distribution. The official details are explained in twodocuments, “Rules of the Job” and the “Driver Agreement.” Applicants for independent contractor delivery driver positions […]
Poems for October: Work by Patricia McAlpine
Patricia McAlpine is a poet residing in Burrillville, RI. She has a BS in English from Northeastern University and has participated in several writing workshops and was coordinator of the […]
Whaddya Mean, You’re Haunted?!: Famous RI ghosts speak out
Rhode Island has a history of paranormal activity throughout its history. Weekend nights can see crowds of people in Providence and Newport participating in guided ghost tours. Some historical cemeteries […]
The Rocky Horror Show Review
From October 10 – 26, Westerly’s Granite Theatre was host to The Rocky Horror Show, written by Richard O’Brien and directed by Patrick Barry. Advertised as a “deliberately kitschy rock […]
The Dark Arts Festival and opening of Candy’s Curiosities: Be afraid
We gathered as outsiders, loners, and weirdos. We, the lovers of the dark arts gathered to celebrate all that is spooky, horror filled, mysterious, and macabre together. The rain couldn’t […]
Rest easy, Spaceman.
About a month ago, Ace Frehley took the stage at the newly renovated Uptown Theatre in Providence. We didn’t know it at the time, but this would end up being […]