Update from the Director…
September 2021… As Labor Day approaches and the school year begins our focus starts to shift to our 2022 schedule. This year we started by looking back at all we had planned for 2020, all we accomplished and all the projects on hold…
The 2020 exhibition schedule was planned to be a rich and nuanced look at contemporary photography. The central feature was to be the NetWorks Rhode Island Photography show, an exhibition to revisit the NetWorks project and present new work from the Networks Photographers in a gallery exhibition. The Project was an annual showcase of local talent across all visual media and was the jumping off point for founding the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts.
With the arrival of COVID-19 we had to scrap our plans for a number of supporting solo exhibitions and our annual international open call. We instead presented the NetWorks exhibitions as a series of online features and filled the gallery with a series of group exhibitions and some more experimental exhibitions. As we move into 2022 we are in the process of rescheduling the exhibitions we had to skip in 2020 and hope to accommodate all the artists who’s shows we had to postpone.
As we move forward we revisit Mary Beth Meehan’s NetWorks feature as way of introducing her and announcing we will be hosting Mary Beth’s latest project with an opening on September 16th. The exhibition, “ANNYE RAYE PITTS: WITNESS” is a collaboration between Mary Beth Meehan and Jonathan Pitts-Wiley and explores the life of one of Mary Beth’s portrait subjects from “Unseen Providence”. I hope you will be able to join us in person for this first installment of “ANNYE RAYE PITTS: WITNESS”
The gallery is open Thursdays – Saturdays Noon – 6:00pm and our schedule continues as a mix of both live and online exhibitions. I hope to see more of you in person as the year progresses. Read on for details and links to the events mentioned above and some additional events at the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts.
David DeMelim
Managing Director
Currently in the Gallery:
A Fall of Rain: Kat Kiernan, Juror
A Fall of Rain continues through September 10th. Juried by Kat Kiernan, Editor-in-Chief of the photography magazine Don’t Take Pictures the exhibition continues our series of exhibitions exploring the general theme of moving forward and brings together work from around the country exploring the restorative power of rain.
Next in the Gallery:
ANNYE RAYE PITTS: WITNESS, Mary Beth Meehan & Jonathan Pitts-Wiley
This installation based exhibition offers a look at the life behind one of Mary Beth’s large scale portraits from her “Unseen Providence” series exposing the public and personal history of Annye Raye Pitts. This collaborative presentation, created with Annye Raye’s grandson, Jonathan Pitts-Wiley offers both a look into the past and commentary on the present. The exhibition draws from over seven decades of material as a chronicle of American life through the eyes of the late Annye Raye Pitts, a community activist, educator, and singer who, in 1959, left the oppression of her hometown of Montgomery, Alabama, to seek freedom and opportunity for herself and her children in Providence, Rhode Island.
Coming Soon:
All Together Now: Jan Howard, Juror
After a year of challenges the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts is accepting entries to explore ideas related to community and address how Community is reflected in your photographic practice for an exhibition opening on September 16th. This Call is open to all styles and photographic processes and will be juried by Jan Howard, Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the RISD Museum.
Print Share:
Our next in person Print Share & Peer Review session is scheduled for September 8th. This opportunity is open to anyone fully vaccinated, to share and comment on work with fellow members and enthusiasts. Bring your prints to this monthly event which is scheduled for the second Wednesday of each month and starts at 6:30pm. Check the events section on our website for more information and updates.
Workshops:
Story Telling, Photo Essays and the Personal Project with David H. Wells
Make Better Videos with your Smartphone: Storytelling with David H Wells
Video Workshop with David H Wells in Providence, October 2 – 3 This workshop with David H Wells is for people who want to learn to make better videos with their smartphone and create engaging short video stories on any subject. Techniques and strategies presented can be applied to filmmaking in any format, but in order to focus on strategies for better videos, and not the technology we will be working with smartphones.
Currently Available Online:
All of our exhibitions are available on the RICPA website, past exhibitions can be found here https://www.riphotocenter.org/category/exhibits/past
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