Friday, October 31, 2008

Sustainable: Visions for a Living Planet Opens SUNDAY


Image copywrite M. Stern

Calling all dystopian and utopian visionaries and dreamers! What is your vision of a sustainable future? How can humans co-exist peacefully with our environment? WHat are your thoughts or responses to the theme of sustainability? Are we doomed to annihilation? Will a greener city sprout from our cracking pavements?

This is a collaborative printmaking exhibition featuring 26 local RI artists and 10 members of the Just Seeds/ Visual Resistance Cooperative. This show creates an opportunity for local and national printmakers to engage in a visual dialog on the theme of sustainability.

Print prices range from $2-$300. The average price is only around $40. Affordable!

Artists include: Arley- Rose Torsone, Andrew Oesch, Beatrice McGeoch, Bec Young, Ben Fino-Radin, Caroline Paquita, Chandler Hearn, Chris Stain, Colin Matthes, Cybele Collins, Delia Kovac, Dylan Miner, Erik Ruin, Erin Rosenthal & Leif Goldberg, Greg Pennisten, Heidi Born, Jay Zehngebot, Jen Daltry, Jenine Bressner, Jola Bielat, Jomas Daconceicao, Josh MacPhee, Lu Heintz, Mary Tremonte, Meg Turner, Meredith Stern, Mickey Collette, Mike Taylor, Nicolas Lampert, Pete Yahnke, Scott Reber, Shawn Gilheeney, Victoria Lockard, Wavelady, William Schaff

Open reception: Sunday November 2, 2008 from 4-7pm at AS220
115 Empire Street, Providence RI (401-831-9327)

Monday, October 27, 2008

New Screaming Females Poster


You see it before anyone. I actually editioned this one. It is printed on light gray paper.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Count Down Till December Opening



As much as I believe in digital media, when I have a large project with a definite deadline, I pull out the graphite and rulers. I have 40 days, I hear that much has been accomplished in that amount of time. I am grateful for erasers and caffeine.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Preliminary work for New Screaming Females Posters


if you arn't familiar with Marissa's Band the Screaming Females.

CLICK HERE

they are on tour now so CLICK HERE for info on that.





Monday, October 13, 2008

Dear Providence @ NUA Opening




Here are two shots of the massive wall of correspondence.

The MOSF Opening was great



I am really proud of this show.

If you haven't been yet you really really really should.

more info here

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Providence, Statement

September 28, 2008


While performing my duties as an employee of the Rhode Island Historical Society, I came across a letter written by the author and feminist activist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). The letter reminded me that Gilman spent much of her young life in Providence.

Gilman is best known for “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a semi-autobiographical short story that details a woman’s confinement in a remote house due to her “hysterical condition” and her subsequent decent into madness. Gilman loosely based the story on her own experience of what we currently term post-partum depression. She had this breakdown in Providence, and the house she attempted to raise her daughter in still stands on the Eastside. After further research, I discovered that most of the buildings in Providence connected to Gilman are still standing. The exception to this is the Butler Exchange Building, where on the 5th floor from 1881-1884 Gilman established the Providence Ladies Sanitary Gymnasium to promote women’s physical fitness and autonomy.

Gilman’s work as an author and lecturer attempted to demystify gender roles and equalize household responsibilities. In my work Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Providence, I made portraits of these buildings not only as an homage to Gilman, but also as a consideration of the power and history of these structures. The buildings she lived and worked in are important sites to consider as the physical spaces where radical feminist ideas germinated.


The Following are a list of addresses associated with Gilman’s time in Providence.


32 Gilmore Street, off Bridgham Street between Cranston Street and Elmwood Avenue
The House where Charles Stetson, Charlotte’s First Husband and father to her only child Katharine Beecher Stetson, boarded while he established an art studio in Providence. He would eventually help found the Providence Art Club and grant Charlotte an amicable divorce. Stetson raised Katharine in Providence with his second wife, Grace Ellery Channing, one of Charlotte’s closest friends.

22 Manning Street, at Ives Street
This is one of the several childhood homes of Gilman. Her mother rented a portion of this house while Charlotte attended RISD. After graduating RISD, she worked as a commercial artist for the Kendall Soap Company. In her Autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography, Gilman recounts her time in this building and reprints a poem she wrote as a child about her joy gazing out the 3rd floor window of her bedroom across Providence.

21 Humboldt Avenue, at Taber Avenue
The house Charlotte moved to after her marriage to Charles Stetson. In this house, she gave birth to her daughter, suffered from post-partum depression.

Butler Exchange Building, on Westminster Street at Kennedy Plaza
Built in 1872, it housed The Providence Ladies Sanitary Gymnasium on the 5th floor, the Rhode Island Commercial School an antecedent to Bryant University, as well as the grocers and importers Dodge and Camfield and Waite Auto Supply Company.



I would like to expressly thank the following individuals for their assistance on this project:
Karen Eberhart, Special Collections Curator; Phoebe Simpson, Technical Services Librarian / Conservation Specialist; Lee Teverow, Reference Librarian, Dana Signe Kindstedt Munroe, Registrar- all of the Rhode Island Historical Society Library and Elizabeth Delmage currently of the Savannah Historical Society for answering all of my pesky questions and tolerating my various interests. In addition, I am grateful for the assistance of Jane Lancaster Charlotte Perkins Gilman Scholar and author of "'I Could Easily Have Been an Acrobat': Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Providence Ladies' Sanitary Gymnasium 1881-1884," American Transcendentalist Quarterly Vol. 8, No. 1, 35-52 (1994).

I dedicate this piece to my mom, Thea Kovac.