August 2010 Archives

We will be offering a smaller roster of classes in the month of October due to the pending move in the Mercantile Block Building right next door. To sign up, just click on the name of the class below.

Intro to Letterpress: 3 Weeks
Wednesdays, October 6th, 13th and 20th, 5pm-9pm
This course provides a quick, basic introduction to letterpress. Participants learn to ink the press, adjust pressure, adjust roller height, register and feed a sheet of paper, make an impression and then clean the press. Creating and using plastic plates in combination with metal movable type to create your own vision in letterpressed embossment

Intro to Silkscreen: 2 weeks
Thursdays, October 7th and 14th : 5-9pm
This course provides a two week introduction to silkscreen. Participants will learn the basics of the photo-emulsion process, a variety of making ways to make positives, in addition to ink mixing, how to troubleshoot the process, registration and printing methods. Please bring all supplies listed below to the first class. If preferred, bring some drawings, or computer generated designs to the first class.

Check back for November classes soon.

Maker Faire came to Rhode Island this saturday, and filled downtown providence with all sorts of creative makers and hackers. Maker Faire is a family friendly festival to celebrate makers, creators, engineers, artists, science, technology, and all things related. The festival featured hands on building workshops, beer brewing, creative innovations, robots, and lots of maker bots.

I was there on behalf of the AS220 labs, accompanied by AS220 Cottage Industries Coordinator, Krystal Grow, and celebrity hacker, Jimmie Rodgers. Our station featured soldering workshops, where people came to assemble various electronics kits. TV-B-Gone, Mintyboost, Open Heart, Atari Punk Console, and Drawdio were among some of the kits available to the public.

There were quite a few makerbots hanging out on saturday. The one below is a makerbot that maker, Forest Crossman, assembled.

John Sarik displayed his Nixie Sudoku, which used 81 retro Nixie Tubes to create a electronic sudoku game that people can use and solve. Really cool!

Check out a complete list of all the makers that attended - here.

A huge thanks to Kipp Bradford and Brain Jepson, and all the Maker Faire crew that helped put of the festivities. It was a very exciting and interesting day.

"Cleave" by Peter Lutz, 2010, styrofoam and piano wire.

No, not the last days of summer, we have at least 26 official days of summer left, but only FOUR more day of our current exhibitions at AS220. Currently on view at the AS220 Main Gallery is Brooke Goldstein's brilliant "Coloring Book" series of drawings and prints, "Traveling Asia" photographs by Scott Baker, and new paintings by Joshua Harriman.

Peter Lutz's exhibition, "Staring at the Sun" is at the AS220 Project Space. Peter is giving an artist talk on Friday, August 27 at 5:30 pm followed by a closing reception. The AS220 Project Space is located at 93 Mathewson St. Talk and reception are free.

&

UPCOMING!

In September...AS220 Printapolloza!!!! All manner of print wonders from around the world! September 3-25, 2010, opening reception Sunday, September 12, 4-7pm. PRINTLOTTERY on Saturday September 25, 7-10pm!

In the Main Gallery
AS220's Community PrintShop's 2nd Biennial Print Lottery!!!

Youth Gallery

Prints & T-shirts from the AS220 Youth Studios!

AS220 Project Space (93 Mathewson St.)

Welcome Back to the Twentieth Century! New Prints by Dan Wood

and in the reading room;

DWRI + TS = Three years of collaborative prints by Dan Wood and Tiny Showcase

Dan Wood will give an artist talk on Thursday September 16th at 6pm with Shea'la Finch of Tiny Showcase and artist Alec Thibodeau. Dan will talk about his current work and his collaborative projects with Tiny Showcase and with Alec, and the magical wonders of Providence Printmaking!

Speaking of magical printmaking,The AS220 Community Printshop is proud to announce the newest print from the Editions Project, Hex Drawing by Providence artist Pippi Zornoza. To celebrate the occasion and chat about her latest work Pippi and Guggenheim Curator Lauren Hinkson, will have a public conversation on Friday September 17th, at the AS220 Performance Space from 5:30 pm- 6:30 pm, free!

"Inauguration" by Dan Wood, 2010, 4 color letterpress

AS220 at the Mercantile Block Open House
Tuesday, Aug. 24th
5:30-7PM
131 Washington Street

General Contractor Pezzuco Construction and their subs Cumplido Painting and Renovations and Control Hardwood Floors are putting the finishing touches on two floors of new maple flooring for the 22 residential studios at AS220's latest development: the Mercantile Block.

Located in the heart of historic downtown Providence, the century-old Mercantile boasts numerous architectural features with historical significance that are being restored to a high quality, including original cast iron columns that can be found in many of the building's residential studios on floors 3 and 4.

Studios range in size from 690 to 880 square feet, and are priced from $640 to $1,125 per month! Rent includes internet access, gas, water and sewer. Building offers laundry room, elevator, bicycle storage.

Come see for yourself!
AS220 at the Mercantile Block Open Houses
Every Tuesday evening now through September 15th
5:30-7PM
Enter at 131 Washington Street

The Paul Krot Community Darkroom is proud to report that we have been awarded a grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities to support a public exhibition of prints from the revered and magical glass negative collection!!!



These images have been hidden for decades and now, with the help of the Providence Public Library, our dedicated darkroom members and RICH, we will be able to bring a selection of these incredible images to the public with an October show in the gallery at Providence City Hall!



When Rick RIng at the Special Collections in the Providence Public Library asked us to help him save these rare photographic plates we couldn't resist! Now, close to one year later, we've digitally documented, archivally stored and cataloged over 1,200 glass negatives and are preparing for not only a gallery show at City Hall, but to launch an online visual database so that the ENTIRE collection is available to the public.



Stay tuned for more information and announcements about the upcoming show and other events scheduled for the unveiling of this collection! Check here for more info and updates!

A lot of info is up on the Foo Fest Website, which hopefully you have had time to check out already. Tons of cool stuff is going on this Friday as well as this Saturday. If you aren't yet 100% in the know, then get on over there and take a look!

The Foo Fest 2010 Program book just arrived from the printers today! We have 2,000 free copies to give away to Foo goers. You can also download a PDF (a medium-sized 9.4MB file) of the booklet right now and learn more about this year's artists and bands BEFORE you even get downtown. You never know, Its possible that we'll run out.....

Foo-2010-Program-Book.pdf

The Fabratory was invited to participate in this year's Maker Faire by our friends at the Big Picture Company. Held in Detroit, Michigan, the faire proved to be a great place where creative minds could work together and make an idea come to life. At the faire we met fellow thinkers and makers and saw incredibly strange and unique inventions from people all around the country, including a machinist who fabricated his own 3d "cupcake" printers, a farmer who built a combined lumber mill/laser cutter/shop bot/3d printer (that was portable!), and a community group that made multiple seated bikes for more than one person enjoy. What really interested us about all of the different inventions was the mix of things both useful and totally useless. The faire proved to be a place for these off-beat people to explore their ideas with style, such as a guy who converted a Volvo into a robotic choir using animatronic fish, crabs, lobsters, and sharks, or a team that built a life-size mouse trap game, or even a metal singing skeleton.  These inventions have no place in a household, but the fact that the ideas are so different and the makers thought outside the box is what makes these things even more special.

The Fabratory wasn't in Detroit to just enjoy this gathering of inventors. We were also lucky enough to participate in an education symposium put on by the Big Picture Company. People from around the world came to think about a high school for people who learn with their hands and discuss what a school of makers would look like. We showed the group our own personal projects that we are working on in the Fabratory and spoke to them about how we learn using the tools in a Fab Lab. We were really excited to be able to help them out. Take a look at some of the photos that we took both at the Maker Faire and at the symposium.

-Brian Melo

Oh dear lord. Its T-minus Foo O'clock, readers, and you know what that means: pinatas in the office, party-metal on the mega-mix, hand-stand contests by the water cooler, and girl-talk style "which member of ESG am I" fortune cookie origami games preceding every show. My life is a Cathy meets Dilbert meets Metalocalypse cartoon. Thank god this is going to culminate into its apex soon- the madness has to end sometime. OR DOES IT?!

Saddle up tonight for an ever-festive B Sharp situation: MOGA will be celebrating their cd release, and we're rolling out the red carpet. Sunday night gets metalcore, but ain't too cool to dance, with Divets, No One and The Somebodies, Turbosleaze, and Private Public. What does that even mean?!?! Daniel Chase is going to cool things out mellow groove style on Tuesday alongside The Tower & The Fool and The Rachels. I'll be real, readers. If the tsunami-like spiral out of madness has already begun, Wednesday night is giving me cause for concern: Ceremony is coming though town, and I heard a rumor about mesh tops being involved. Is that punk? Soul Control, Vaccine, and a little outfit called Wet Friend have personally assured me that this will be one of the most disgusting nights of my life. (You've obviously forgotten Freedom Winter 99!) Ok, and here's where it really gets wild: Friday evening we are basking in the warm glow of Shepard Fairey, who will be here at 5 screening his short-but-not-too-short Andre The Giant Has A Posse, as well as sitting on a panel for a very special Action Speaks alongside Bert Crenca, pioneer of free culture activism and scholarship Lawrence Lessig, and our very own resident super genius/wizard of computer engineering/conceiver and fabricator of magic/all around cool guy Brandon Edens. It's free of charge, and might actually change your life. Who loves open source software? This guy!

Okok. Enough about me. I'm off to get my rain slicker dry cleaned for the 11th. For a full rundown of our happs, get thee to our calendar. Until the rock show, away!

This week in Kennedy Plaza, the public got a glimpse of the talent here at the AS220 Youth Studio! We set up a station selling screen printed tees, laser cut wooden postcards, etched tumblers, pins, jewelry and more - all designed and crafted by our youth.

Come check out our booth next month!

Featuring: AK Press, Lucy Parsons Center, Wooden Shoe, PM Press, North East Federation of Anarchist Communists, Anarchist Black Cross, Just Seeds, Farmacy Herbs and much more!