Clowning is more than just wearing your heart on your sleeve. It is guts out, actual balls to the wall, raw vulnerability right there in your lap. Clowning is serious stuff, and it’s always messy. Providence artist Ricky Katowicz never self-identified as a clown, but this is the closest I can get to describing his practice. Puppeteers and noise musicians are a dime a dozen in Providence, RI but Katowicz’s performances push past the typical into a very real space of vulnerability. Katowicz’s projects, especially The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show, are something to be celebrated. The Show combines the formats of late night talk show and Saturday morning kids programming. “The idea for Ricky Rainbow Beard as a host came about in 2015 when I realized I needed to host a kids show because I’ve thought of this for too long and now I just need to do it,” says Katowicz “The show was conceived over the last four years but it only existed in my sketchbooks.”

While at an emotionally abusive weekend clown camp I learned that every person has an “inner clown” — you just had to turn yourself inside out to find it. Clowning is more than just wearing your heart on your sleeve. It’s guts out, actual balls to the wall, raw vulnerability right there in your lap. Clowning is serious stuff, and it’s always messy.

Providence artist Ricky Katowicz never self-identified as a clown, but this is the closest I can get to describing his practice. Puppeteers and noise musicians are a dime a dozen in Providence, but Katowicz’s performances push past the typical into a very real space of vulnerability. Katowicz’s projects, especially The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show are something to be celebrated. The show combines the formats of late night talk show and Saturday morning kids programming.

Video Still from Dance Sunday.

“The idea for Ricky Rainbow Beard as a host came about in 2015 when I realized I needed to host a kids’ show because I’ve thought of this for too long and now I just need to do it,” says Katowicz. “The show was conceived over the last four years, but it only existed in my sketchbooks.”

Making its first appearance at PVD Fest in 2016, The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show is advertised for children, but like other kids’ programs made by Gen-Xers (think Yo Gabba Gabba) Katowicz’s combination of gender bending cartoons and punny puppets often leaves grown-ass audience members wonderstruck. This is largely due to the host, Ricky Rainbow Beard, whose affect is not akin to the wide-eyed, maniacal, goon that talks slow and loud at the children of TV land. Rather, Rainbow Beard is deadpan but warm and seemingly a little shy when engaging his audience.

“I wanted to be a bearded host that could change the color of his beard on a whim because it contained all of the colors of the rainbow,” he says of his character. “The plan was always to have a magical segment on the show where I twisted my ear to cycle through all of the colors like a slot machine and land on something different each time.” 

The genius of the show is that every part, the interviews with special guests, the introductions of cartoons, the strange interruptions from live-action characters—all of it—is inquiry-based. Rainbow Beard and crew never tell audience members how to feel. When asked about his promotion of curiosity Katowicz jokes, “When curiosity is based in personal desire, it can result in real learning, and other times curiosity leads you down a gutter with a murderous clown.”

Katowicz’s projects, like The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show or Domestique, a playful noise project where Katowicz uses “domestic appliances to create layers of sound,” are more than mere performances. They are Katowicz revealing a part of himself, flashing that “inner clown,” and Ricky’s clown, well, it’s a weird dude, and that’s okay. This is Ricky’s gift, along with his wonderfully crafted puppets, costumes, and cartoons; notable collaborations; his comedic timing and the pedagogical offerings of his special guests which are all equal parts inclusive and disarming.

Ricky Katowicz, Video Still from DOMESTIQUE resized

Smart and magical, Katowicz’s work invites viewers to step into silly worlds of inquiry and vulnerability. Ricky’s world is kids’ stuff; it’s open-hearted and unafraid. Ricky Katowicz is doing the imperative work of the artist in the current, ever-darkening political climate. He gives all of us permission to be truly ourselves and in doing so, he is giving us back our power.

Ricky Katowicz–artist/clown
Providence, Rhode Island
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Top image: Ricky Katowicz on set. Photo by J.R. Uretsky.

The post Clowning Around in Providence appeared first on Take Magazine.

If you can imagine a world that manages to creep you out while being simultaneously outrageously adorable, then you’ve landed smack in the middle of Mimi Chrzanowski’s brain—a mythical land of cleaner-shrimp dentists, post-death anxiety, and Mother’s Day in hell. Like her work, she possesses an air of absolute magic and a dark force of weird. “Mimi is a national treasure,” says artist and friend J.R. Uretsky. “Her work is fresh and unassuming. A mixture of joy and play with a touch of queer rage. Mimi’s gifs and comics make me want to keep making art in the wake of an uninspired political landscape. She’s a real gift.”

Born in Chicago, but raised in the small town of Tomah, Wisconsin, Chrzanowski made her way to Providence, Rhode Island on a whim after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire where she studied illustration. In Providence, Chrzanowski has been a part of the Dirt Palace and AS220, both artist-run collectives committed to the unabashed and uncensored production of art across all mediums. “I have been incredibly lucky to be in a city where there are so many beautiful weirdos doing incredible work,” she says. “I have a crush on everything everyone is doing, and I feel super inspired all of the time.”

Mimi Chrzanowski, Shrimp Cleaners, pen and marker, from The Providence Sunday Wipeout #3

Chrzanowski’s first love has always been illustration. Inspired early by anime such as Pokémon and Sailor Moon, she finds drawing a natural extension of her brain. “Drawing feels so pure; it is just pen or pencil and a piece of paper,” she says. “I love watching what other people can create out of such a simple medium, building these entire weird worlds that just feel like a pure form of expression, a place where people can get out whatever they want to say.” She also engages with other mediums such as screen printing, video, and animation, but feels most at home with the flexibility of just a pen and paper.

In 2016, Chrzanowski was invited to create her own LeyLines comic, a quarterly publication co-published by Grindstone Comics and Czap Books. Made with Love in Hell is a Heironymus Bosch-inspired extravaganza set on Mother’s Day in Hell. Clad in a single burnt orange tone, the comic unleashes a cast of iconic hell imagery with a sadistic and adorable undertone featuring familiar characters from her previous comics. Writer John Seven described this work as filled with “…oogly, creepy monsters in lots of gruesome crowd scenes in which atrocities, or at least ugliness, are smashed together like sardines, only this is all cute instead of horribly nightmarish.”

Mimi Chrzanowski, LeyLines Interior

Fresh from the QTZ Zine Fest at AS220, she is currently working on a children’s illustration for Cicada Magazine, a small batch publishing company that focuses on illustrated books for adults and children. In the fall she will showing work in an exhibition at Hoof Print in Chicago. “I have been lucky enough that I can make art for a living,” she says. “I just want to live a life where I can be in nature, be at home, be at the beach, and continue to be inspired and make things that make other people happy as well.”

Mimi Chrzanowski–illustrator
Providence, Rhode Island
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Top image, two of Mimi’s Shellies, illustration courtesy of Mimi Chrzanowski

The post Made with Love in Hell appeared first on Take Magazine.

Recently, it’s been the cultural trend to rope off the beginning of the year to catch up on all the moments, movies, music, and writings we missed last year. So, once you’ve caught up with Moonlight and/or finally get around to listening to the newest And The Kids album (released summer ’16), consider looking ahead to our Artists to Watch for 2017.

Though we do have favorites of our own, we could not adequately survey the region for artists to watch without consulting a few of our many trusted curators and friends: Abigail Ogilvy, Owner of Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston’s South End; Randi Hopkins, Director of Visual Arts at Boston Center for the Arts; and Ian Alden Russell, Curator at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery.

All of these artists sculpt, paint, record, and perform works worth following, especially considering our current social and political climate. Since we’ve recently been reminded that we cannot rely on the centralized leadership of our democracy to defend our integrity as human beings, or the integrity of thought through the defense of facts and mutual respect, we look to artists like these as our true cultural gatekeepers. The artists on our list are people we can trust to use bold expression, tenderness, and knowing imagery to question the status quo. Sometimes they hold up a mirror to our culture. Other times, they hold up a loudspeaker or a puppet mask, a paintbrush, a bouncy ball, or a digital camera.

These cathartic, sarcastic, pointed, paradoxical, and, most of all, inimitable artists are who we’re watching in 2017.

Nabeela Vega, Visiting Thahab (series, ongoing) | Photo courtesy Robin Allen LaPlante

Nabeela Vega | Boston, MA

Using photography, performance, and video, Boston-based artist Nabeela Vega creates immersive works that examine elements of our individual experiences of the social world as it intersects with identity, personal politics, and queerness. Oftentimes, the work calls into question our taken-for-granted notions about bodies, media, and gender. As Hopkins points out, “Vega’s rich exploration of the contemporary presence and experience of the Muslim femme takes forms that are performative, collaborative, generous, vulnerable, and exquisitely beautiful. The artist takes risks with their own body to think about our greater body as citizens and humans, work that feels vital and particularly brave today.”

Tanja Hollander | Auburn, ME

“This month sees the premiere of the entirety of Tanja Hollander‘s Are you really my friend? at MASS MoCA, the Maine-based photographer’s epic endeavor to photograph all 626 of her Facebook friends,” says Russell. “Bringing her across the nation and around the globe, the work probes the issue of friendship and connection in our digitally mediated age. Questioning the boundaries between personal, public, and online life, the project presents us with intimate portraits she took of the personal spaces and environments of the people she is connected to via social media.”

Teatime, 2016, Acrylic and mixed media on steel 18 x 12 in. | Photo courtesy Abigail Ogilvy

Katie Wild | Pawtucket, RI

“Wild’s striking, cinematic paintings transform the tradition of figure and portraiture to achieve a contemporary understanding of the human condition,” says Ogilvy. “In her most recent series, Steampunk, Wild references photographs she took of real people at a steampunk festivals. In 2016 she was a recipient of the Fay Chandler Emerging Artist Award in Boston, MA.”

Kai Franz | Providence, RI

“Originally from Cologne, Germany, Kai Franz makes sculptures and drawings that confront and complicate the relationships between process and artifact,” says Russell. “Testing and questioning the potential of computer-aided design while appearing as formal aesthetic statements in their own rights, Franz’s works and projects are strong examples of the tradition of critically and technologically-engaged art making in Providence.”

Mutsu Crispin, Mapping the Day, 2015, bouncy balls, plexiglass, stainless steel, 41″h x 41″w x 2.25″d | Photo courtesy Mitchell Giddings Fine Arts

Mutsu Crispin | Brattleboro, VT

Atlanta, Georgia transplant turned Southern Vermonter mutsu crispin (aka John DiGeorge) is a performance artist, filmmaker and. . .bouncy-ball sculptor? Last year, DiGeorge found a way to make those familiar, seemingly childish forms simultaneously fun and subversive. We’re sure we can find some comfort in these delightfully bright pieces as the year turns potentially darker. “. . . the balls float forward and back within their designs or wanderings, rhyming with their cast shadows, ghostly glows, nearby hardware and reflections,” says the artist. “These dear objects from our childhood are animated and transmogrified, speaking in a chorus at once lighthearted, humorous, mysterious, and ecstatic.

Matt Neckers, Crash Site, 2015, 72 H x 24 W x 24 in | Photo courtesy the artist

Matt Neckers | Eden, VT

“Neckers’ Portals hidden in forests, a rocket in a tree, a parachute caught in branches—Matt Neckers’ installations interrupt the serenity of the woods,” says Russell. “Fascinated by the impact of mechanization on our imagination, Neckers opens up earnest, generous, and sustained conversations about the world we inhabit, the others that may exist, and the precarious journeys between.”

Arien Wilkerson | Hartford, CT

“I am Arien aka TNMOT AZTRO aka ARI AZTRO.”

Wilkerson is one of Hartford’s many young Renaissance Men. His list of current projects is too long to add here; suffice it to say that Wilkerson, at age 25, is an uber-accomplished dancer, film artist, activist, artistic director, and overall creative mastermind. In the words of our dear friends at Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, “He’s too black, too vocal, and too flagrant. He’s also one of the few indispensable figures in Hartford’s ever-continuous push to art and cultural prominence. Say hello to the city’s new brash monarch.”

Toby Sisson, 2015 Black Tears, Ink and beeswax on paper 7″x5.5″ each, approx. 6.5’x16′ overall | Photo courtesy the artist

Toby Sisson | Providence, RI

“Toby Sisson‘s encaustic paintings and drawings rigorously explore the metaphoric potential of abstract form,” points out Russell. “Often contrasting shades of black with shades of white, Sisson’s works are informed by personal narrative and her mixed race heritage. Her images and forms offer open-ended prompts for poetic reflection on the assumed oppositions and conflicts with which we struggle—personally, emotionally, and socially.”

Michael Stasiuk, Marco the Magician, 2012, 25″ x 24″ x 10″ metal crumber pan, darning egg, rhythm stick fragments, assorted wood fragments | Photo courtesy Abigail Ogilvy

Michael Stasiuk | Portsmouth, NH

“His multimedia sculptures assemble found objects into playfully illustrated characters,” says Ogilvy, “each with a unique personality. His choice of material imparts a sense of nostalgia and memory, imaginatively re-purposing everyday objects that accompany us throughout our lives.”

J.R. Uretsky and Scott the cat | Photo courtesy the artist

J.R. Uretsky | Providence, RI

If you read Take, you already know we’ve had a crush on J.R.’s awkwardly signature brand of brave, big-feeling, truth-telling performance for a long time. Yet it’s not only her magically strange, emo-queer performances to watch out for in 2017. Specifically, it’s J.R.’s puppets that will lend you space to emote and bring us all solace as 2017’s social and political climate sags and twists. “The characters that emerge through her performances are relatable yet also alien and non-specific,” says Hopkins, “forging an ambiguous space where emotion is the remaining constant.”

Titus Kaphar, Space to Forget, 2014, oil on canvas, 64 x 64 x 2 3/4 inches | Photo courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery

Titus Kaphar | New Haven, CT

Kaphar creates new histories with each work he paints and sculpts. It’s through his careful reinterpretation of the past, mixed with artful exclusion and deconstruction of specific images that makes his work powerful, “In my work I explore the materiality of reconstructive history. I paint and I sculpt, often borrowing from the historical canon, and then alter the work in some way.” says Kaphar “I cut, crumple, shroud, shred, stitch, tar, twist, bind, erase, break, tear, and turn the paintings and sculptures I create, reconfiguring them into works that nod to hidden narratives and begin to reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history.”

Inside shot of Love Shack instillation featuring video loop of “Waking Up And Getting Up Has Never Been Easy”, instillation and video by Coe Lapossy | Photo courtesy the artist’s website

Coe Lapossy | Boston, MA

Ever wonder what it’d be like to wake up in a super-cozy, literally endless bed? Well, Lapossy has theorized it, and has many more other immersive, speculative works ready for the upcoming year. “Lapossy brings feminist sass and romantic charm to smart sculptural and installation work,” says Hopkins. “Pop culture seeps into her artistic vocabulary with ease, for example weaving 20th-century art history together with early 90s romantic-fantasy film in a setting that evokes the vaudeville vibe of the magician’s trick.”

Nabeela Vega – Boston, Massachusetts
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Tanja Hollander – Auburn, Maine
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Katie Wild – Pawtucket, Rhode Island
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Kai Franz – Providence, Rhode Island
Website

Mutsu Crispin – Brattleboro, Vermont
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Matt Neckers – Eden, Vermont
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Instagram

Arien Wilkerson – Hartford, Connecticut
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Toby Sisson – Providence, Rhode Island
Website

Michael Stasiuk – Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Website

J.R. Uretsky – Providence, Rhode Island
Website
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Titus Kaphar – New Haven, Connecticut
Website

Coe Lapossy – Boston, Massachusetts
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VISITING THAHAB AT SUPERNOVA PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL | PHOTO COURTESY THE ARTIST

The post Artists to Watch 2017 appeared first on Take Magazine.

Professional and personal challenges aside, I knew my 2016 was bust when Bowie died. As a cultural influencer he was unparalleled; the depth to which his death had an effect on my friends was unlike anything I had experienced from the passing of any other cultural figure in my life.

2016 went on to claim many more amazing creative people. All news was just generally shitty, and the U.S. election left the entire world with a sense of unease, at best, and utter dread, at worst.

What on earth could possibly be “Best of” from a year like this?

When times seem bleak, it seems trite to say something along the lines of “Look! Good stuff happened, too!” But our work at Take is about bringing you the best of the creative communities of New England. When times are trying, it bears remembering that art rejuvenates the mind and the heart.

To that end, we looked back at all the stories we covered this year and are presenting a list comprised of our favorites, our most read, and some stories we think not enough readers had a chance to see. We hope you enjoy giving them a read, perhaps for the first time, maybe for the second or third.

As Take Magazine heads into 2017, we’re going to continue to look for stories about creative people and ideas that shape where we live, and pass them on to you. The year ahead is full of uncertainty; as our creative neighbors continue to make art and culture in response to it, we will be there to both report on, and celebrate, the extraordinary things they do.

Wishing you a very safe and Happy New Year from all of us at Take.

Michael Kusek
Publisher

Connecticut

Red Color Story Fall/Winter 2017 | Photo courtesy of American Woolen Company

Paris, Milan, London, and New York have long been the fashion capitals of the world. Now add Stafford Springs, Connecticut.

Massachusetts

Noel’le Longhaul’s unique style and approach to the centuries-old practice of tattooing transcends our narrow, worldly expectations. 

Maine

Illustration by Rob Kimmel

It doesn’t matter whether you think I look like I’m from Maine.

New Hampshire

Iron & Air

Iron & Air Magazine will quell your motorcycle-ride-through-the-mountains wanderlust when the weather don’t play.

Rhode Island

A tender glance into J.R’s world of big queer feelings, Star Trek Next Gen, and laying on the floor with Scott the cat.

Vermont

Photo by Jewellea Photography | Courtesy of the Wexler Gallery

Roberto Lugo’s pottery will blow your damn mind, mixing classic Royal Worcester forms, graffiti, and some Ghostface Killah.

Top image Nick Cave “Until” | Photo courtesy MASSMoCA / Photography by James Prinz

NICK CAVE, UNTIL, 2016
MASS MOCA, NORTH ADAMS, MA
OPEN THROUGH EARLY SEPTEMBER 2017

The post Take Magazine – Best of 2016 appeared first on Take Magazine.

On June 3rd, 2016, J.R. and her band Feminist Conference got the ball rolling at the Boston Center for the Arts Gala with a stage full of raucous. The unsuspecting crowd of movers and shakers of the Boston arts scene faced a barrage of discomfort and amazement as J.R. Urestsky crooned sappy 80’s ballads at full blast, eventually stripping off the majority of her floral print outfit to reveal red briefs and bare legs.

Feminist Conference performing at the BCA Ball | Photo by Michael Blanchard Photography

The response was a mixed bag of surprise and uncomfortable wonderment. Uretsky notes, “I like to set up all of my performances to be failures…where the ego or whatever you want to call it, the Leo in me, feels really bad about the fact that I worked my ass off for that performance and no one wanted to listen to me sing, you know, karaoke in my underwear. Like, why? This tension makes embarrassment function as the root of the performances, the almost disaster, the performer falling to pieces in front of you, that’s where the work really hits – for me anyway. ”

Much of J.R.’s work centralizes around what she calls “expressive confessions”, powerful performances that weave a messy ensemble of narrative arcs such as heartbreak, loneliness, and grief. “The characters that emerge through these performances are relatable yet also alien and non-specific, forging an ambiguous space where emotion is the remaining constant,” says Uretsky. “In short, I make ‘feelings porn’. Like pornography, pleasure is the main pursuit of my work. I want to make work that is entertaining, that feels good and that provides space for people—for me—to emote.”

Photo courtesy of the artist

Despite her emotionally charged subject matter (endearingly referred to as “sad bro art”), Uretsky creates an absurdist dreamworld of feelings through bright colors and character expressions frozen in time. Hailed in by the not-so-threatening nature of these gloriously fluorescent puppets, J.R. creates a sense of intrigue, while also suspending viewers in a space of discomfort. “I am sort of always feeling sort of weird about bodies and I think that manifests in the sculptures…the gestures are sort of folding in on themselves a little bit…they are bright and still kind of noisy. To me, they feel like they are not noisy on purpose. I think they look that way just because they do, not because they have a big personality”.

Uretsky utilizes performance, sculpture, music and puppetry to expose the messiness of human emotion that decentralizes the polite nature of our expected social selves; a composite and affective production that visualizes the internal struggle to be human, to be alive. Her puppets and sculptures are often constructed to be worn, so that their life is found in collaboration with body movement and sound. Her current exhibition “What I Found Out there” resides at the Boston University College of Fine Arts at the Annex. Leaning into scholar Sarah Ahmed’s writing on queer grief, Uretsky has constructed a series of visual art that integrates video, audio, and puppetry to examine pain and melancholia. With new music by Feminist Conference and intricately constructed puppets made of new and found small objects, Uretsky explores how the process of grief and mourning alter the body.

Still from J.R. Uresky’s video “Bromance”

J.R. currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island and spends most of her time laying on the floor with Scott the Cat while watching Star Trek Next Generation and feeling feelings. After dropping out of bible school for Christian Education at BIOLA University in Los Angeles, she received her BFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Practice and an MFA in Sculpture and Video from the University of Connecticut.  As a self-proclaimed masculine-of-center dyke, Uretsky spends a lot of time contemplating larger conversations about masculinity, visibility, queerness, and feminism. “I am trying to figure out if the layering of familiar objects, sounds, and environments mixed with the abstract and monstrous nature of my work can illustrate the emotional experience of other. What if everyone experienced what it felt like to be other? To be queer? Would we then feel less alone?”

J.R. Uretsky is a multi-media artist  living in Providence, Rhode Island. Her work is currently on exhibition at Boston University College of Fine Arts through December 11th. Be sure to follow J.R. on Twitter. 

Top photo courtesy the artist

The post ART/Crush: J.R. Uretsky appeared first on Take Magazine.