The Providence Produce Warehouse

One of my favorite things about Providence is the diversity of both the population and the architectural makeup of the city. Over Wintersession, a six week mini-semester between fall and spring semesters at RISD, I had the opportunity to take a few classes outside of my required foundation studies curriculum. One class, "Artist as Witness," encouraged me to explore outside of my locus of control and take in the city around me. For my primary project, I decided to document the controversial demolition of the Providence Produce Warehouse, a designated historic landmark located between the Providence Place Mall and I-95.

The decaying property was purchased from the state of Rhode Island in 2005 by Carpionato Properties, a developer based in Cranston, with the promise of restoring the architectural integrity of the building and developing it for new public use. Despite their seemingly good intentions, Carpionato sat on this promise until 2008, when the security of the building had been breached and the structure had fallen into such great decay a Providence Building Official ordered Carpionato to acquire a demolition permit, citing the safety of the residents of 403 apartments across the street as a concern.Gelatin silver prints, 2008

For more information, visit Art in Ruins, a site dedicated to urban decay and renewal in Rhode Island, and The Providence Preservation Society.

50 Series

The final project for my second semester drawing class was to complete a series of 50 drawings, based on one subject. The idea behind the assignment is that the artist reaches a point where they are so frustrated with drawing the same thing over and over again that a dramatic change occurs in the style and execution of the latter half of the series. For my series I chose to draw portrait heads, with the intent of moving from constructing the head with a series of gestures to being able to draw the head with one continuous line. The earlier drawings in the series took upwards of twenty minutes to complete, whereas toward the end, I could finish a drawing in less than two minutes.

One thing I constantly strive to reflect in my work is the wabi-sabi aesthetic. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic that roughly centered on the transient qualitites of things. That is, the pursuit of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete." (Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers)

Wet Charcoal

More classwork from foundations drawing with Victor Lara. His approach to drawing had us working with compressed charcoal, foam brushes, and spray bottles. Messy, but very fun.

Dry Charcoal Figure and Heads

Figure drawing is perhaps one of my favorite activities. These drawings are from my spring semester drawing class with Victor Lara, whom I consider to be one of my most influential teachers thus far.

first post

Here are a few pieces from my first semester drawing class at RISD. These are from my final for my first half of foundations drawing with Yitzhak Elyashiv, more affectionately known as "Utzy." The assignment was to create a series of 10-15 drawings of any subject. These are charcoal pencil and conte crayon on 18x24 toned paper.