by Jason Perez-Dormitzer
The rawest portrait of Providence will come from its youth. That’s what Scott Lapham, coordinator of the Photographic Memory program at AS220 Youth Studio, expects people to take away from the second annual State Youth Art Exhibit in January of 2012.
“You’ll see incredible pieces from a range of the cultural backgrounds from Providence’s youth,” Lapham told Tribe. “I encourage students in my program to photograph their own lives. I think they do it in a way professional photographers can’t.”
He went on to say that when young people are given the artistic tools to capture and reproduce their own lives, the resulting images provide a view of city life that comes directly from the streets and neighborhoods in which they live. Titled Think, Make, Do, the exhibit will include student work from AS220’s fall semester. Think, Make, Do runs from January 9 until January 27, 2012 at the Atrium Gallery at One Capital Hill in Providence. Included will be paintings, photography, performance art, digital media pieces and writing produced by AS220 youth, aged 14 to 21. The aim of AS220 is to engage a population that has little or no exposure to the arts.
“I’m quite certain they wouldn’t know about art if they didn’t have a chance to create it for themselves,” Lapham said of the exhibit’s young participants.
Though the Studio is open to all, AS220 culls many of its students from the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families, including youth in foster care, group homes and at the Rhode Island Training School, a juvenile correctional facility in Cranston.
AS220 goes beyond teaching its students how to create art. Think, Make, Do is an example of how these students bring their work to the public by hanging and promoting it. Lapham said the Studio is enhancing creative practice and exposing young people to expertise they can take with them throughout their lives, whether or not they pursue careers in art. “Once they experience the process of putting together a show, they realize they have skills they can use in any working environment,” Lapham said.
In addition, students get a chance to spend a number of years in the program, which gives them time to hone their skills and develop positive relationships with their teachers. Gianna Rodriguez, AS220’s visual coordinator, told Tribe that the relationships between teachers and incarcerated youth is particularly representative of what AS220 strives to accomplish. “We teach kids how to create art, but we are also mentors to this population,” she said. “We want to continue the relationship after they are released. Think, Make, Do will speak to the community we have [at AS220] because of these relationships.”
She said students from her classes have created a wide variety of artwork for the exhibit. Included will be pieces from her Place and Identity program, which features both figurative and abstract art, created not only with paint but also with maps produced by the students. There are also works from what she describes as the “unrestricted” artists. “Not all the kids were into the idea of place and identity. They’re thinking that this is what I want to do instead,” she said referring to content falling outside of the program’s customary focus.
Lapham described some of the work produced in last year’s exhibition as examples of the diversity within the Studio. He showed Tribe some artwork inspired by the different cultures and sensibilities of the students. “Diversity wasn’t the focus of AS220,” Lapham said, “but these kids really reflect the actual population of this city. That’s such an awesome part of the Studio.”
There are photos taken by a Cambodian student of the Buddhist icons in his house. Other photographs document a Narragansett Indian powwow. One of Lapham’s favorites depicts two girls against a backdrop of city homes, all in a puddle’s reflection.
“There is an honesty, richness and depth in this picture,” he said, adding that people know those city homes are in Providence giving the photos a layer of local appeal. Rodriguez said the portraits put together by her seventeen students represent a cross section of student demographics. “There’s not so much a portrait of Providence in these paintings,” she said. “But you can see the difference between a portrait created by a Cranston public school student, for example, from one painted by a Training School student.” But what’s most striking to Rodriguez is the improvement in her students’ skills. “In just three months, their skills have increased dramatically,” she said.
In addition to Lapham and Rodriguez, the AS220 staff includes Jeremy Radtke, head of the computer lab known as the Fabritory, Emon Mahoney, head of creative writing and Anjel Newman, head of the performance program. This is the second year AS220 has been part of the State Youth Art Exhibit. They’ve also participated in a travelling show with the Rhode Island School of Design’s Project Open Door and New Urban Arts.
Elena Calderon Patiño, Community Arts Program Director of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA), said AS220 was selected to have their own show because they promote the same ideals as her organization.
“The Atrium is an incubator for artists and curators to develop their skills. AS220’s educational piece is exactly what we want to promote,” she said. Think, Make, Do is part of the New Visions/New Curators series for January of 2012. The Atrium is located in the William E. Powers Administration Building and has seventy-two feet of wall space for exhibition.
“We want to expose artists of color to networking and showcasing their work to the public with the vision that they will continue sharing it at future venues and events outside the Atrium Gallery,” a New Visions release said.
The goal of the series is to promote and develop minority artists and curators throughout the Ocean State. Other shows included in the program, which started in May of 2011, featured works and curators from diverse backgrounds. Patiño is currently putting together an exhibit of Native American art of Rhode Island.
