NOVEMBER WINDOW ARTIST: KERI KING
Keri King is a multi-disciplinary artist with roots in Providence, RI whose large-scale public art installations have been featured at Providence Public Library (2017), the Pawtucket Arts Festival (2017), PVDFest (2016) and Providence Art Windows (2015). Her work around space and narratives has recently expanded to include scenic design for Olneyville-based theatre company, the Wilbury Group. Keri is a current artist-in-residence at AS220. She enjoys teaching Integrated Arts to students K-8 at the Wolf School, and has moonlighted as a guest speaker at Brown University, Bryant University and the RISD Museum.
When I first began preparing for this install, it was spring and my original renderings were colorful, the tone of the work lighter. But, by this moment in 2017, those plans felt out of step with the state of the world and my own internal rhythms, so I made a decision to shelf them and leaned into a palpable need to draw from a place more contemplative and with bite.
.
Each of the 2 featured panels started as a small-scale collage. As I chopped and resized and shuffled my Victorian-era source materials ..fantastically fragile women fainting and scarlet women shunned, passive nudes in ethereal landscapes... I thought about my history as a woman and the recurrence of having my body elevated by men and my voice - my creativity, intellect, emotions, financial agency - repeatedly diminished and stifled. It's happened in my journey to be recognized as a professional artist; in battles with bitter landlords and lecherous bosses; and especially in my romantic partnerships... This deceptively simple kneeling figure was able to hold a spectrum of experience for me and helped me to express a complex, quiet, and excruciating feeling. I didn't want to leave her alone in a window, though. It felt problematic and I had this sense of responsibility to her. So I created the image of a man, being lifted by the cool and examining feminine hand, muffled by a lacy handkerchief. Not without humor and it's own contradictions - presenting him there as an emotional counterweight balanced the piece, and was genuinely cathartic.
.
I am grateful to the Dirt Palace as a space where it was safe for me to try some new things and spend a few days working out my relationship with new materials, primarily of light, and unpack new narrative content. And I am pretty psyched to share this work at an empowering feminist space and radical arts institution in our city.
.
Untitled Diptych, 2017
collage reproduced on backlit film with led lights and other materials including cardboard, paper, and fabric
JANUARY WINDOW ARTIST:GIRLS ROCK RHODE ISLAND
Girls Rock! Rhode Island is a volunteer-based non-profit that uses music creation and critical thinking to foster empowerment, collaborative relationships, and the development of healthy identities in girls, women, trans and gender non-conforming youth and adults. We envision a world in which gender and identity are assets, not limitations, and where girls and women actively claim their own strengths and expertise to pursue goals of their own design.
Our signature program is Girls Rock Camp, where participants learn an instrument, form a band, write an original song and perform live in front of an audience in just five days. We run two Girls Rock Camps in the summer - one for middle schoolers and one for high schoolers. Ladies Rock Camp is the same idea but for adults and over just three days. Registration is currently open for the next Ladies Rock Camp, happening March 16-18 at JamStage in Pawtucket! http://girlsrockri.org/register-ladiesrockcamp/
We moved into our new headquarters located at 769 Westminster Street in Providence a little over a year ago, which has enabled us to offer more year-round programming, including a free weekly music drop-in program and gender discussion group for youth. We're also able to offer more Group Music Lessons for youth and adults year-round. This winter we have classes in ukulele, drums, vocals, keyboard, guitar and bass! Register by January 15th! http://girlsrockri.org/register-grouplessons/
This installation was designed by two teen Girls Rock Camp alums, Tessa and Zhania, who have both also participated in our GRIT (Girls Rock Internship and Training) program, serving as mentors and leaders at the younger camp. They chose "UNIFY" and "SUPPORT" from our organizational values to represent their experience as campers:
Music as a Force for Change
We focus on music’s ability to mobilize, unify, and invigorate people to create social change. Music is a powerful tool that connects individual expression to collective thoughts, emotions, and actions. Creating music within a band requires not only collaboration, respect, and support, but also individual effort, skill building, and expression. Our goal is to use music’s unifying force to empower individuals and communities to join together and create positive change for themselves and for society as a whole.
Do it Yourself! Do it Together!
We believe in the do-it-yourself spirit that empowers individuals to act and create on their own. We also believe that we are stronger together. The process of creation and self-expression develops personal ownership and self-efficacy, which are transferable life skills that need not be fostered in isolation. We share skills and learn from each other in a safe, supportive, intergenerational environment in which positive modeling, room for experimentation, and feedback are valued.
The posters on the left are a small sampling of the incredible artwork made over the years by volunteers for our Girls Rock Camps and Ladies Rock Camps (including Alison Nitkiewicz, Kevin Czap, Julia Gualtieri, Kendra Plumley, and Jennifer Hrabota Lesser).
The coloring book pages on the right are from the Women Who Rock Coloring Book Vol. 2, published by Girls Rock! Rhode Island, featuring 30 pages of hand drawn illustrations by artists and music fans.
We are always looking for volunteers for both year-round and camp programming, as well as donations of both cash and music gear. If you are interested in volunteering or donating, visit our website: http: girlsrockri.org.
******************************************************************** Did you know that Dirt Palace has a not-for-profit component named Dirt Palace Public Projects (DPPP)? To learn more about the DPPP board of Directors, go here. Dirt Palace Public Projects has got a bunch of exciting things coming down the pike. Here are links for more information: To learn more about our upcoming Wedding Cake House project go hereor follow our blog to keep up to date on breaking news!
*****UPDATES*****
SARA LAUTMAN IS THE VISITING GUEST ARTIST FOR DECEMBER
SARA LAUTMAN
SL is subletting at DP for a month!
A book, I LOVE YOU (Retrofit) is almost done. It's three stories - two previously published, one, no guarantees attached.  She'll also have a mini coming out next month from Birdcage Bottom, PICTURES OF BANANAS AND FUNNY BUGS.
Links to prints and other books are all at saralautman.com and all originals are for sale. Contact sara.lautman@gmail.com or @slautow on IG
 Dana has entered The Zone, which is her brainstorming period. It's a parking lot in the desert at dusk. It includes lots of sketching, Tweeted thoughts (#LogLog-ing), perfecting her pastry, reality TV, and extreme organization of objects in the spaces she inhabits. Check her insta for process/updates, and click on her header name for a link to her not-really-up-to-date portfolio. New website in the works for the new year! And now here's a selfie w/ a handmade holiday pillow...can be made to order...email dana.heng@gmail.com for deets.  O HORVATH O has been cooking up some weird new 1's for the new year- follow them on instagram or check out the webstore for future updates! 
Drawing ladies straining to kiss lamb tails
Rectrix performed at the Boston Hassle's new space – the Dorchester Arts Project
with Suicide Magnets. Thanks to Omari Spears for taking this great pic
Upcoming performances will be with KTB, Suicide Magnets, and Craow at the Funky Jungle February 4th and a West Coast tour with House Red in March
Megan is home after traveling for the past few months and is writing poetry about the new family dollar outside their bedroom window. Friendly reminder you can sign up for their newsletter hereThey had a poetry chapbook released in September by TXTbooks called A Stick With a Rock On It that you can buy here or available locally by asking them irl / emailing them at megan.manowitz@gmail.com. There will also be copies available at Ada books in the near future :')  PROFESSIONALLY they are starting an amazing cool job at an artist management company called Citrine Management and are finally making their job dreams come true :') DANIELLA BEN-BASSAT **Daniella is subletting her downstairs studio! 6x8 foot workspace expandable to 8x8 with access to larger common space for bigger projects. Storage space, woodshop, access to printmaking facilities. 125$ a month for a 4-6 month lease. E-mail dbenbass@gmail.com for more info!** She has also been making shirts...(see above and below)  
MAREN JENSEN
 Maren is spending some weeks in Oregon and California while making new work for a show at Machines with Magnets opening on February 17, 2018. She currently has some marker and pencil drawings for sale. Contact maren.rose.jensen@gmail.com or direct message on instagram @puddlleofmud  see you in january!
Getting into winter. Drawings with ink. Plotting resolutions for possible revolutions. Fan art for literary works. Binge reading. Frost heaving old ideas onto the pyre. Who's sending me these mystery post-cards? looking forward to new pen pals for regular correspondence and/or noncommittal love-letters.
MONTHLY PICTORIAL TREAT FROM THE DUSTY SHELVES OF THE DIRT PALACE
FURTHERING THE QUEST TO SPREAD FUN
LIKE GIN AND JUICE, MOSTLY GIN
Before you make all kinds of resolutions about going to the gym check out this book about "anti-exercise". 2018 THE BODY HAS ITS REASONS!!! " In our fragmentary vision of the body, we see only the symptoms - a bad back, a round stomach, muscles that ache after sports, awkward coordination, unsatisfactory sex. And we try to attack the symptoms through traditional exercises with force the body to act against itself, as if it were an animal to be tamed. The the body does not need to be educated; it needs to be liberated"
|
|
|
