Wednesday, May 276 - 10pmMyrtle, East Providence Join us for the 4th annual Motif Spoken Awards! We are excited to be returning to Myrtle to celebrate RI’s spoken word community. Want to see your favorite Rhode Island...
By Lillian MK Photography By Olivia Lunger By Izzy Cooke ...
The Music Awards went off without a hitch this year, and over the course of the evening more than 400 local music lovers dropped by to dance, listen, and cheer on fellow musicians. We'll have...
It’s often said (well, I definitely say this), that some of the deepest conversations and connected moments can happen while one is sitting in a car. This is certainly true for the duo, band, sisterhood...
Image: Olivia Lunger. Local Civil War re-enactor Bill Sherman was having trouble recruiting young people into the hobby, so he hit on a novel idea that is perfectly suited to Gen Z. He immediately telephoned his...
The Continental Congress, befooled. April Fool’s Day originated among the French a few years into the Revolutionary War. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin had been pleading with them for any sort of assistance. The brand...
If you have been a craft beer lover over this past decade, you may remember when the first Rhode Island Brewery Passport was released. It was changed to an app in 2020. Six years later,...
No Kings 3, Mar 28, 2026 No Kings – nokings.org – is a non-violent protest movement responding to the monarchy-like concentration of power in the hands of the president, to the exclusion of Congress and the...
After attending Chalumeau’s release party for their album BLUE at The Met in Pawtucket last August, I wrote that if you ever got the chance to see them perform live, you should jump on it....
On February 28, after 20 years of being a community staple for first dates, Super Tuesday regulars, and movie fanatics alike, CWTheaters (previously called CinemaWorld) was forced to shut its doors for good. The decline...
Last year, I had a blast and a half working on a fun commercial shoot. I landed the gig because the fella producing, Josh Kirk, asked around to find an actor to portray the client’s...
Photo: Jenn Lombari. @jennlombariphotography ssa lin has been making a local splash like a rockin’ rainstorm after a record-setting blizzard, since releasing her first single, “tallboys,” at the end of 2025. The feedback has been good,...
Here are some hot new local tracks to finish melting the ice. The Hopeless Romantics – “Quiet Kind” The third and final single from The Hopeless Romantics’ upcoming debut album, “Quiet Kind” is also a reworked...
Okee dokee folks… PLEASE stop using AI. The more it knows, the more it grows. We are feeding a beast that will someday destroy us. AI is not your friend, though it may pretend to...
Graphic by Olivia Lunger. ...
Hey idiot, why are you and your friends getting high indoors? Don't you know? We have a planet, a whole, big planet filled with trees, rivers, and critters. The outside world doesn't have to start...
Medical marijuana was legalized in Rhode Island in January 2006, and by May 2022 even recreational sales became legal through state-licensed dispensaries and authorized retailers. Yet it still isn’t safe for medical users to come out of the closet....
Cover artist Elliott Italiano of Jamestown is a self-made glass artist. As a young adult, Italiano's interests centered on fashion, inspiring thoughts of pursuing a degree in luxury marketing and design. He relates to his past...
MAD Magazine cover, Feb 2016: Donald Trump and Alfred E. Neuman We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process...
Cover artist Mina Miki of Providence calls her baby blanket her longest friend. “His name is Blankie, but now he looks less like a blanket and more like a piece of tangled silk,” she says....
McKee’s Budget Includes Rollbacks for State’s Renewable Energy Programs PROVIDENCE — Five years after lawmakers passed the state’s first firm climate mandates, the historic Act on Climate law is in danger of getting rolled back by...
The closure of the westbound section of the Washington Bridge that occurred in December of 2023 has inspired major grievances within the greater Providence metropolitan area. Traffic within the city limits has become unbearable, especially...
Graphic by Eric Barao When the US Congress allowed the Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire on Dec. 31, 2025, they created a health insurance crisis that could have inspired a plot line for “American Horror...
On January 30, 2026, an estimated 5,000 Rhode Islanders – including students and numerous local businesses – participated in a historic, nationwide strike in an effort to get the tyranny of Immigration and Customs Enforcement...
Okee dokee folks… “Art is fucking political. Always has been, always will be.” I looked for a source to attribute this to but there doesn’t seem to be a definitive person who said it. Doesn’t...
Gregory Alan Isakov and band, with support from the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra at PPAC on Thursday, January 29, 2026. Photo by Gregory Alan Isakov’s tour photographer, Kenzi Everitt, @kenzieveritt. As the house lights dimmed on...
From left to right: Brendan, Charles, Peter, Wil, John, Daniel, Patrick Kinnane, and Jeffrey Azize. I am a hopeful romantic and a huge fan of romcoms. The films often have a woman in the lead navigating...
I’ve never known much about growing flowers. The few gardens I’ve started in my life ended all too unceremoniously, in death. And I’ve never known much about 3-D printing, either. In fact, probably attributed to...
Snow accumulation at TF Green Airport reached 37.9 inches, shattering the all-time record of 28.6 inches set during the legendary Blizzard of 1978. 07:01 pm EST - 2/23/2026TF Green AP, RI37.903:10 pm EST - 2/23/20261 SE...
Photo: Jackie Davis as Robyn and Kortney Adams as Sharon, by Mark Turek. Not since Oscar and Felix – or Laverne and Shirley – have we cackled so hard at the antics of mismatched roommates bumbling...
Publisher & Editor Mike Ryan Managing Editor Meg Coss Creative Director Gina Lerman Social Media & Event Planning Tess Lyons Podcast & Video Eric Barao Special Projects Dana Schneider Sales Bradly VanDerStad, Jenn Lombari, Elise Fortier News Editor Michael Bilow Music Editor Marc Clarkin Comics Editor Erminio Pinque Poetry Curator Jaybird Walker Distribution Michael Bilow […]
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Motif Magazine is dedicated to the arts and entertainment in RI and surrounding areas, and to bringing readers alternative local news about subjects of all kinds. Motif was founded by Jim Vickers in 2004 to help bring to light some of the amazing music, arts and culture happening around Rhode Island that was escaping coverage […]
All right, I’ve got it. It took some time, effort, and a lot of hard work, but I finally managed to get five damn minutes to sit down and have a beer. Oh, and it’s the Sierra Nevada Hoptimum. This brew has taken off just about everywhere I’ve seen it, and I know that because […]
New Year’s resolution: Stop whining; make wine. At least, it is if you’re Emanuella Petrucci, owner and founder of Women Wine Making. Petrucci , who grew up on the west coast of Italy on top of a little mountain, started making wine in 2011 to honor her father and her heritage. “I grew up around […]
With the season’s first snowstorm behind us and the mercury dropping to bone-chilling levels, RI’s winter dance offerings are ready to heat things up. From local productions to several touring troupes, things could get hot around here long before the spring thaw. Festival Ballet Providence (FBP), the capital city’s resident professional ballet company, will get […]
White Dynomite make a big impression visually on their debut self-titled CD before one even pops the biscuit in. Between the retro-styled cover, which comes off as a cross between Sticky Fingers and maybe a random 70s AC/DC, and the insert CD photo of the band members in white suits, combined with calling the band, […]
Now that the holiday season is over, we can safely put aside the family fare and turn from heartwarming messages of hope to emotional destruction and collapse. Not that Epic Theatre Company was ever going to follow seasonal trends: last month’s RI Premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s dark and twisted Passion Play, as well as the […]
Rhode Island first hit my radar as a spoken word scene in 2000, which is a testament to my ignorance at the time. The Providence Poetry Slam Team created a ruckus for its notability years prior – it was the1996 National Poetry Slam Champion and earned itself a feature spot in the 1998 documentary Slam […]
Editor’s note: As we head into the New Year, The Hummel Report has new information and developments on a handful of investigations from 2012. All Fired Up Taxpayers of the Central Coventry Fire District were lined up out the door in the auditorium at Coventry High School in early December, where court-appointed […]
