Dec - Jan 2020 Storefront Window

DIRT PALACE JANUARY 2020

WINDOW DECEMBER WINDOW ARTIST: CAROLINA ARENTSEN Maria Carolina Arentsen is a RISD graduate who majored in ILLUSTRATION. She was born in Chile and grew up on the east coast of the USA. She worked as a Freelance Editorial Illustrator for 10 years, winning the John Randall Orth Award from RISD for one graduate who would focus on editorial illustration after graduation. She has been included in Print Magazine’s National Regional Annual for judged selections of her work and has illustrated for many magazines such as Brown Alumni Monthly, The Annenberg Institute for School Reform’s Visions in Urban Education series (V.U.E) and as far as San Francisco and Estonia and Chile. She worked for a few years in the jewelry industry and as a marketing director for Bottles Fine Wine in Providence RI, where she helped them attain Best Local Wine Store of Rhode Island. Her Illustration carreer involved an interest from Adobe to purchace her work as clip art but she decided not to do that and keep her artwork rights. She saw that the industry was going more in clip art direction so she became more involved in her painting. Recently her artwork was displayed at Ti any & Co. for a show celebrating the work of local Latin American Artists. She has also exhibited locally at : Krauss Gallery at The Moses Brown School, Coastal Art Gallery in Wickford, RISCA’s Art Gallery, Newport Art Museum’s Coleman Center and Upside Gallery in Upstate NY. Her poster work has been exhibited in Estonian Opera and Cultural Events as well as the Atelier of Picasso in Paris. Carolina had exhibitions in TF Green Airport and in Block Island Airport. She was asked to judge once for the Block Island Airport exhibition and now her exhibitions are permanently listed in The Public Art Archive.  https://www.publicartarchive.org/results/?type=artist&term=carolina%20arentsen https://www.ri.gov/press/view/28758 She has been awarded citations by; MayorJorge Elorza, Former Governor of Rhode Island, Lincoln Cha ee and also exhibited her work in the o ce of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. She works also in furniture restoration, improvement and creativity. Creative projects of all kinds are her fortė. https://carolinaarentsen.wixsite.com/mysite https://carolinaarentsen.wixsite.com/mysite/carolina-arentsen-page-2 My installation is a dialogue with the window and my paintings. It’s very white and clean and very colorful and busy. I am interested in minimalism but my paintings deal with a variety of complexities which are dealing with abstract layering and drawing, life drawing, conceptual drawing etc. Many things..like life….in one picture…like life. I have reflective materials and neon fabrics in this window display Because it’s in an intersection, and to make it effective both day and night was my aim.

Hello/Goodbye

DIRT PALACE DECEMBER 2019    AN EVENT:  Upstairs. Tomorrow: Friday Dec. 13th. Use Library Court Entrance.  Music! Games! for Parlor or otherwise. A birthday (NORAA!)  Come over! Donate for touring bands! Help eat cake!    AN EVENT: downstairs AND upstairs. More info to come, but don't worry, SANTA (beautiful version) will be there! Come sit near them, maybe on their lap if you're a child and talk about what you want out of life or just in your stocking. Food court! Buy last minute gifts that accidentally let on to your family how weird and magical you and your world actually are.  Just hang out.

GOODBYE FOR NOW: RIP Annapurna Himal Wagner  Gutted and maybe not ready to say all of the things. Or any of the things, but wanted to get out information about Annapurna's memorial & where to donate to her funeral fund and to share a few photos/drawings that cut to the heart of the genius and generosity of Annapurna. Remembering that time when MoMA PS1 called us to see if we’d do a play and we decided not to tell them that we weren’t a performance troupe and you played the sweet existential leather daddy and cracked us all up when we adopted a diet that was 90% Sparks. Or when you convinced us that “Boris Vallejo” was a totally normal theme for a holiday card and we decked ourselves out in fur and studs and painted on muscles. Here you are licking a bass wearing a dead squirrel on your side and we’re all trying (and failing) to make sex faces at you and everything is ok in the world if only for a moment.  You come into the kitchen and the smell of wet earth, or vetiver is only preceded by the wildness or warmth in your eyes. Memorial: Sat Dec 21st at Bell St Chapel. Showing of Purna's art writings, photos, and videos, immediately following her services. WINDOW NOVEMBER WINDOW ARTIST: AS220 YOUTH AS220 YOUTH PRESENTS FUTUREWORLDS 5: ESCAPE FROM JOLLYWORLD The multi-media Hip Hop production that tells the story of a drug addicted rapper who finds himself emerged in JollyWorld; a hyper animated dimension where even the most common folk can reach their otherworldly potential. Futureworlds examines how and why communities of color have been disproportionately criminalized for addiction, a disease that is now gaining growing compassion and policy reform. At the same time, our aim is to educate young people about the dangers of abusing drugs, with special focus on opiates and nicotine. The Youth members performed in the production, wrote the play, created the set pieces, composed the beats and wrote the music. This exhibit brings us a little deeper into JollyWorld The youth artists that contributed to the pieces in the installation are: Branson Tucker-Smith, Desmond Andrews, Jahrell Walker-Smith, Javie Hamel, June Santos, Keely Roberts, Lily Feliz-Castillo, Litty Justo-Espinal, Nuna Rodriguez, Ronnie Strew, Ronnie Zai, and Ruby Lopez. AS220 Youth is a nationally recognized, award-winning after-school educational program and creative incubator for young people. Serving young people ages 14-21 with a special focus on those in the care and custody of the state, the program strives to dismantle the pipeline to prison by empowering  at-risk, beyond-risk and incarcerated youth through arts, culture and collective action. AS220 Youth harnesses comprehensive arts education and technical training, career building, hip hop, and social justice education to affect change for youth and their communities. *****UPDATES***** NORAA KAPLAN I live here now ???? ? ?? ????? My name is Noraa Neither Kaplan and I’m the newest member of the dirt palace. I moved in at the beginning of November and I still wake up every day boggled by my mind-boggling surroundings. My time here has been filled with late-nights, the crackle of laughter, fries from New York System, inspiration, and general satisfaction about getting shit done. A little about me: I’m a profane and sacred artist, making sense of the devastatingly personal and the radically communal. In other words, I make sad, sexy shit. I was born and raised in Providence and I’ve been floating around the DIY scene in town for a long time. I don’t like to limit myself, so I work in multiple media, including music, performance, poetry, painting, book arts, nonfiction writing, theatre, drawing, and so on. I also lead radical Jewish services through a group I founded called Shalem, create new biblical translations, sing in the Assembly of Light Choir, and sometimes book shows and events. I’m a nonbinary trans dyke who is also a faggot, I’m a disabled and mentally ill anarchist, I’m a lot of things and nothing. I love: chocolate chip pancakes at Royal Lunch, shitposting on twitter, dancing like twice a year, making new friends, and being extremely gay. ANNELI SANAYE HENRIKSSON 🍄🐞I printed Anarchist feminist Pippi Longstocking shirts and they are for sale in my online shop!100% printed by an anarchist feminist at the Dirt Palace. *click here* GABY HURTADO-RAMOS I’ve been making ceramic tiles with some tender moments between boxers and some firey swans. Also playing with bleach and stamps on shirts… should I start a children’s/all ages clothing line??? If you want a flamingo shirt check them out online ~here~ Next month I will be in Tucson! There I’ll be giving a gallery chat at the Jewish History Museum in conjunction with their exhibit, Asylum/Asilo, centers the stories of people seeking asylum and our responsibility to end the abuse of migrants and asylum seekers.which I illustrated portraits for, as well as a printmaking/bookmaking portrait workshop as part of their Mapping Migrations photo memoir project. Can’t wait to be in the desert and dance to cumbia…. I’m looking for work again! Any leads in anything… preferably art related,  working in production, installation, framing, printmaking, woodworking, assisting artists, or a chill place to sling drinks food etc could also work. And I’m ~of course~ available for freelance illustration. XANDER MARRO  X is working on time. Not exactly sure of what this means but she sets two alarm clocks these days to drag herself into it. Into the day. A couple of weeks ago she read this book (below: Time is a thing the body moves through) in one sitting. It’s sort of about time. Swallowed it whole like a pill that is an antidote to scarcity. Also has learned that nothing makes her quite as happy as talking about/sharing books. And much of her reading these days happens by listening and so she’s been converting her audiobooks to mp3’s. Here is a spreadsheet list. If you want any, e-mail (missxander@hotmail.com) her and she’ll send them to you and be very excited to have gotten to share them.  Outfits still a pleasure. Still dressing for labor. Here is a floor made of pennies made of ceramic, with a section of a Sussy Santana Poem. The labor feels like it is slowly turning back towards the creative, and this feels really nice. CODY ROSS Cody is anxiously recreating objects in his bedroom for use in an upcoming "calendar." Looking forward to several upcoming projects, one involving the development of a digital repository wing of the Dirt Palace Library—more on that later. JOSEPHINE DEVANBU We've uploaded initial materials about Critic's Choice! Check out a rough cut of the video here, featuring extremely animated commentary by yours truly. PIPPI ZORNOZA

Cosmic Smells and Rainforest Hells

DIRT PALACE SEPTEMBER 2019 Screening: Ruffles, Repair & Ritual: the Fine Art of Fixing Thursday, October 17, 2019 at the Chace Center in the RISD Museum 6 - 8:30 pm Single-channel video screening featuring a selection of video artists, filmmakers, and animators from the Ruffles, Repair & Ritual: the Fine Art of Fixing exhibition at the Wedding Cake House in Providence. Free. ARTISTS Alicia Rodríguez Alvisa Mimi Chrzanowski Jo Dery Rashin Fahandej Kelly Gallagher  Jodie Mack Megan and Murray McMillan -- Video Premiere!  Joiri Minaya Marsha Parilla Greta Scheing CURATORS Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez J.R. Uretsky This event is the final part of three collaborative events with the RISD Museum and part of the 150 artists' multidisciplinary works on exhibition at the Wedding Cake House in Providence. Ruffles, Repair & Ritual: the Fine Art of Fixing, celebrates the extensive renovation of the Wedding Cake House into a cultural facility that will support an Artist in Residence program and expansion of the Dirt Palace.

WINDOW SEPTEMBER WINDOW ARTIST: SHANNON VANGYZEN The Matriarchs Shannon VanGyzen is visual artist and educator based in Providence, RI. Using the language of an expanded painting practice, she makes assemblages and installations that examine the aesthetics of social class and taste through objects found in the home space. Using household objects as emblems for status, taste, and culture, she experiments with strategies of display in order to create a narrative that references the complexities of socioeconomic imbalances in America. Decorative materials such as furniture, lace, curtains, pillows and linens are stretched, ripped, stuffed, knotted and pieced together. Globs of paint and spray-foam insulation seep out of the crevices, as if vomited. Armatures made from used and discarded chairs, lamp stands and table legs support the bulbous structures. The subversive treatment of decorative objects, coupled with the anthropomorphic nature and abject quality of the forms, indicate loss and decline within the domestic sphere. Oscillating between states of grandeur and monstrous wretchedness, the sympathetic forms simultaneously mimic and destabilize the veneer of power and public persona. VanGyzen holds an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (2017), where she received the Dean's Scholarship, the Graduate Student Research Award, and the Museum Council Sculpture Prize. She is a recipient of the Emerging Artist Award from Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT and the Emerging Artist Grant from the St. Botolph Club Foundation in Boston, MA. Shannon also holds a BFA in Painting and Art Education from MassArt in Boston, where she received the 2D Department Award for Excellence, the Inez K. Woodberry Award, and Departmental Honors. Shannon has shown her work in Massachusetts, Vermont, Providence, New Hampshire and Oieras, Portugal. Currently, VanGyzen works and resides in Providence, RI where she teaches high school mixed media art at School One. *****UPDATES***** ANNELI SANAYE HENRIKSSON Hi! Hello! Sup! I'm Anneli and I am a new member of the Dirt Palace. In August I moved from Chicago to Providence to live at the Dirt Palace! I first visited Providence and the Dirt Palace In 2017 when I did a mini month long residency and  window installation here. I fell in love with the Dirt Palace and I was determined to return. It took me two years, but I am so I happy I finally made it here. After ten wild and chaotic years living in Chicago, Providence is a dream! "The Feeding of the 5000" 2016, beeswax, indigo, walnut, bedsheet, camo paracord, birch branch, size varies. This October I'm traveling to Napa, CA to be a visiting artist in residence at the Oxbow School, a single semester residential art program for 50 high school seniors and juniors. As a visiting artist in residence I will lead an art project with the students and give a public lecture at CIA at Copia Theater in Napa. The lecture will be on Tuesday, October 22 at 7pm. I invite you all! (This is my first public artist lecture and I am very excited and nervous!) More info about it here.  Saturday, November 2, Comic Arts Brooklyn, at Pratt: the Dirt Palace is a featured guest and will be tabeling!  GABY HURTADO-RAMOS In August I went to Penland School of Craft and took a ceramics workshop making a life-size human bust and pillow. It was dreamy to be in the mountains and work with clay all day. My screenprinted hankies are now up and for sale! I made these in July after noticing the flowers, planted and wild, that grow between fences, in cracked concrete, in front yards and abandoned lots in Tucson and Providence. I’m imagining the kinds of growing and resilience needed in this time of walls and borders. I’m visualizing the blooms and buds of unlocking what we’ve constructed as private property and arbitrary boundaries. I’m smelling burning rotting metal of walls long gone in the future.... dm me on the insta or visit my online store if you’d like a hanky. JOSEPHINE DEVANBU I'm extremely excited to announce that Look at Art. Get Paid. is partnering with the Massachusetts Cultural Council to expand the program across three art museums in MA over the next two years. We’re putting out feelers for a new team member based in the Boston area who excels in arts management and administration. If you’re interested, please email your resume or direct inquiries to ruby@lookatartgetpaid.org and we’ll follow up soon with more information! Artist Dana Heng and Critic Orianna Rodriguez performing "Security Checkpoint" at the event "Critic's Choice" at the RISD Museum. Photo by Charles Baldwin. “Critic’s Choice” opened on June 2nd, and invited four Rhode Islanders who don’t visit art museums to oversee site-specific art interventions by local artists at the RISD Museum. The artworks push for transparency, access, and accountability.  CODY ROSS Cody has returned from “away” with a pile of new objects, including a functioning sewing machine, the newest issue of QUEER.ARCHIVE.WORK, several Visual AIDS releases, and a mug reading “Over the Hill.” He is already missing Daniella. Among many other people, he was able to visit a number of Dirt Palace members and member-adjacents through the grace of circumstance and intent: O. Horvath, Sara Lautman, Megan Manowicz, Arthur Katrina. He only listened to one podcast—a Wesleyan lecture by Fred Moten—succeeded by a cover of “Life is a Highway” played on repeat for the duration of his 3,000 mile trip. DANIELLA BEN-BASSAT  This is Daniella's last month at the Dirt Palace and she is feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for the four (????) years she's spent here. Stay tuned for a massive parking lot / Club Darnell price chopper sale!!! Here is a picture of her at the beach taken not long after writing her own name in the sand. Photo credit: Josephine. XANDER MARRO   Xander’s days these days: convincing herself that mitering joints on base cap moulding is a craft skill that she has almost mastered. Loving moulding. Wanting to put moulding on top of other moulding and then put ruffles on that. Luckily that’s sort of not too off brand at the Wedding Cake House? Here are some stills from a recent video project...A collaboration with her friend Daphne. People keep asking them if they will show it again or put it on-line, to which the answer’s are...yes! Ask us to show it somewhere, we want to screen it more! And yes! Someday we’ll put it on-line! They have more collaborations up their sleeves, but have been slowed down by work: X has too much work, D not enough work. Do you have a vacation for Xander? A job for Daphne? Kidding about the vacation for Xander, but not about the job for Daphne - part time, or one off gigs all of interest (writing/service/labor/whatever) and she’s usually available for sliding scale card readings (dialoghost@gmail.com). Ooooh...and actually X is going on “vacation” - by vacation she means talking to a class in Chicago & will be there Oct 8th-10th - hit her up if you’ll be there and want to say hi! PIPPI ZORNOZA Upcoming RECTRIX shows Pharmakon RECTRIX Craow FRIDAY October 25th @ AS220 Queen Elephantine, Hammer Party, Gyna Bootleg/RECTRIX collab, Mark Cetilia November 16th @ AS220 Pippi will be showing work at 184 Project Space in Brooklyn as part of an exhibition "Suffer Better" November 2nd *****Bulletin Board***** notes from/about past DP pals/extended fam/other things of possible interest - Rumor has it that Rachel Berube is moving back to the area!!! we're overjoyed! Do you have any housing leads? For December 1st? With daughter Iris! so looking for a 2 bed! preferably with laundry and dishwasher - Our friends Sarah & Tim have started a new screening series at the Columbus called Wet Gate - yay for more experimental film in Providence! They're getting started with a bang bringing Bradley Eros to town on Friday October 4th ***DIRT PALACE LIBRARY HI-LITES*** MONTHLY PICTORIAL TREAT FROM THE DUSTY SHELVES OF THE DIRT PALACE FURTHERING THE QUEST TO SPREAD FUN LIKE GIN AND JUICE, MOSTLY GIN