A weekend show

 

Some glass rain and lasercut textile plant forms hang at the "Nature Contained" show this past weekend in Providence.

FLOWERCLOUDS at FOO FEST this weekend!

The Rhode Island Mini Maker Faire will be within FOO FEST tomorrow on Empire Street in Providence. It begins at 1 PM and costs only $7 for SO MUCH FUN!!!

Garden salad

Baby bok choy and its flowers, spinach, orach, purselane, fennel

I don't often post pictures of my food, but I'm excited that these plants grew in the Community Garden in Olneyville.

Fest

I gave up and it felt so good.

The first half of the day has been comically disappointing, but I'm not going to let that prevent me from enjoying the second half. I highly recommend patronizing the party supply store in Olneyville Square, (the one between Kennedy Fried Chicken and Keystone Printing.) They were so kind to me today.

Lightness

Usually, I am a cyclist or a pedestrian. Never have I owned a car, though for about a year I borrowed one from my family. I can't say that I've had the smallest carbon footprint because I have flown over 200 times so far.  Being above clouds is a familiar sight to me. I took this several weeks ago on the way home from California.

Roger Williams Park is certainly the hidden gem of Providence. It covers more than 400 acres and was landscaped by the Olmsted Brothers over a hundred years ago. (Frederick Law Olmsted the elder was the landscape architect for Central Park in New York City.) I like to visit the Temple to Music, the lakes, the Botanical Center, the Japanese Garden, the Museum of Natural History, the carousel, and the stables for the police horses. I took this photo there recently. 

I especially enjoy throwing sticks into the lakes when the surfaces are at least partially frozen because it can produce a good fake laser sound, like a tightly- stretched  spring reverberating inside a tube. 

Lately I am elated about actualizing a couple dreams. One has to do with music, and one has to do with a lasercutter. You'll hear more about it soon.

Some work in Warren

I have a piece on display at the Imago Foundation for the Arts in Warren. My "Swing for singing" is in the "Love in June" show. The swing was recently at AS220's Pop- Up Gallery on Westminster Street in Providence. I really like the direction this piece is going in, and you should check it out if you're nearby. I'll be making a costume to wear when performing on it, eventually. Photos soon.

A new studio to work in! This one is for animation and collaboration

Flameworked glass and lasercut textiles,
some glass bees, eyes, and beaks for birds

Medium Format Polaroid

Graham Wheeler took these photos of me. 
He also recorded my pom pom tutorial!

How to Make Multiple Pom Poms!

WATCH THIS IN HIGHER RESOLUTION! Select 1080p under the cog icon!

AS220 Labs Spring classes

Handmade Nation Screening and Peru FAB7 experience share

This Wednesday, December 14th from 7- 10 PM

at the AS220 Labs (on Martha Street next to the AS220 Printshop)

I'll be hosting a screening of Handmade Nation, Faythe Levine's documentary about contemporary DIY craft in the U.S. 
Locals also featured in this film are The Dirt Palace, and Deb Dormody of general awesomeness (If'n Books and Marks and Craftland.)

The movie is one hour long and will be preceded by a slideshow about FAB7, the fascinating international digital fabrication conference that took place this past August in Peru. The screening  will be followed by a conversation about the importance of DIY, and how Fab Labs are facilitating that all over the world! 

Snacks and drinks will be provided!

Glass Rain

Last year I began flameworking thin pieces of borosilicate glass to sculpt raindrops. I assembled lots of pieces to construct these "Glass Rain" installations.

I installed a Glass Rain chandelier at the offices of the Rhode Island State House over the summer. It was on display in the Atrium Gallery for August and September.

This piece was about ten feet high, five feet deep, and four feet wide. The glass drops look so realistically watery when they're full of light!

Ivy Glick

1996

Ivy Glick is seven days older than me and we have been friends for half of our lives.

waiting for a pie to bake in 1998

We met in RISD's Pre-College Program when we were both students in the jewelry/ light metals course.

1930s ice skating dress in 1998

We lived together when I moved to Providence full- time in the spring of 1998.

She was majoring in photography and I was a frequent subject.

This was from a photo shoot for my RISD yearbook picture in 2001.

I first introduced her to glass torchwork in 2002. She was finishing her Master of Arts in Teaching.

October 15, 2011 RISD Alumni Sale
Now she does this and teaches art in South Carolina.
Ivy introduced me to the idea that a photographer's sentiments towards a subject can be legible in their images. She still takes the most flattering pictures of me. I love you, too, Ivy!

The Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in America

Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

In the Pennacook language Pawtucket supposedly means "place of loud noise" (referring to nearby falls), yet another resource claims that it means "at the falls in the river (tidal stream)" in Algonkian. Either way, my perception is that contemporary locals think of both the place and its name as unsexy. It's nicknamed, "The Bucket."

Pawtucket is actually an amazing place, filled with beautiful old buildings that reflect its glorious history. The first fully mechanized cotton spinning mill in the U.S. was built here in 1793 by Samuel Slater. It still stands as a fascinating museum, Slater Mill!

Evidence of the massive textile trade is still found easily all over the landscape. Did you know that Hasbro began in Pawtucket as Hassenfeld Brothers? They sold textiles, then pencil boxes & school supplies, and later toys! They incorporated as Hasbro in 1968 after the success of Mr. Potato Head and G.I.Joe.

The photo above and the photo below are of two views down intersecting streets at one corner, but there are SO MANY MORE square blocks like this. These aren't even the fancy ones!

After WWI and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, much of the textile industry around here declined. Many businesses lacked the capital or the foresight to invest in the future of textiles-- synthetics! Other businesses moved to the South.

The companies that filled the vacuums left in those vacated mill spaces were mostly focused on costume jewelry production. They didn't necessarily need to invest in massive machines like spinning and weaving equipment; much of the jewelry work at that time could simply be done by hand. Over the subsequent decades Rhode Island grew into the world capital of costume jewelry production and related processes (metal casting & plating, knife- making.) Who doesn't love a mural of an air compressor, lathe, drill press, chain- maker, engraver, and ? (One of those is a stranger I haven't met yet, but I bet their job has to do with folding and crimping.)

You can still find dumpsters and warehouses all around here filled with jewelry molds, buckles, beads, buttons, blades, and findings. This place is surely a heaven on earth.

Lots of these buildings continue to house working factories and businesses.

Unfortunately, many spaces are being razed, but some are also being preserved or re-developed. This is what is left of the Union Wadding Company on Goff Street. It was partially developed into lofts and studios, but an unusual arson last October destroyed more than half of the 450,000 square- foot complex. Noone lived in the parts where the fire started and I don't think anyone was injured, but all of the residents were displaced. From firsthand experience I can tell you that being forced out of your home is one of the worst feelings in the world.

Still recovering

Tragically, the parking lot looks like Wolf Myrow threw up. Figuratively speaking, it's still ill.

The tenants of the first floor are continuing to clean out, even though nearly a month has passed since the flooding happened. Power still hasn't been restored to some buildings in the complex.

Businesses have had to throw away millions of dollars worth of merchandise that was covered in chemical sludge- sewage- riverwater.

Aftermath

The power was finally restored and we've been allowed back in the building!

The waterfall usually looks like the picture above. Notice how low the river is.

I took the photo above on April 31st after the water had gone down a lot. The day before the water covered the land on both sides of the river.

The river should not cover the electrical transformers.

Flooding in the basement. The two images above came from the Atlantic Mills facebook page.

A fleamarket will happen in the parking lot tomorrow with the few vendors who didn't lose everything. Here a family tries to clean and salvage some of their inventory.