Catholic holy cards are cherished objects. I chose to use the format and style of the holy card for my Butch Heroes series because of their connection to my personal history. Even though I’m not a Catholic any longer, I…
LGBTQIA terms have always been complicated for me, primarily because their meaning and usage can change over time (both on a personal level and in the larger LGBTQIA community). And, some terms conflate gender and sexuality. Thankfully, new terms emerge…
Big Red & Shiny is pleased to welcome Boston-based artist Ria Brodell to our residency series, Inside/Out. Brodell’s painstakingly rendered gouache paintings depict pre-twentieth-century historical figures who strayed outside their assigned gender and sought alternative ways of living. “Butch Heroes” memorializes their…
“A book, or a work of art [culture] cannot by itself change the world, but by asking the questions that matter, it might attempt to be an act of articulation against violence, both the brutal and casual kinds. It might…
“A book, or a work of art [culture] cannot by itself change the world, but by asking the questions that matter, it might attempt to be an act of articulation against violence, both the brutal and casual kinds. It might…
“A book, or a work of art [culture] cannot by itself change the world, but by asking the questions that matter, it might attempt to be an act of articulation against violence, both the brutal and casual kinds. It might…
Big Red & Shiny is pleased to welcome Chanel Thervil as our next Inside/Out artist in residence. Working in sculpture, painting, installation, and public art works, Thervil balances roles of visual artist, community activist, and arts educator. Her newest body…
Enter, sit, read magazine, wait. Then—hair cut. The thought of having a conversation with a stranger while they touch my head and cut my hair has always given me anxiety. I’ve never actually had to go through that because my…
Every Saturday morning I water plants and draw cartoons. Before that I drink coffee and eat a quick breakfast, usually toast. My watering can was produced by Union Products, Inc. in Leominster, which was a major plastic manufacturing city in…
Inside/Out is Big Red & Shiny’s artist-in-residence series, offering a space for artists to write about their ideas, research, and challenges, and publish their inspirations, obsessions, creative experiences, and insights. Unlike an ‘Open Studio’ format, which is often predicated on…
“There is both capricious absurdity and poetic impossibility in the realm of the unconscious lapses of time that constitute dreams.”[1] -Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons While I reflect upon the indeterminacy of global political conditions, I continue to be buoyed by…
I shall always be grateful to Honduras, though for it has given me back myself. I am my old brash self again. -Zora Neale Hurston, Puerto Cortes, Honduras, May 20, 1947 Being a fan or scholar of Zora Neale Hurston…
You can’t have relationships with other people until you give birth to yourself -Sonia Sanchez Reflecting on my recent trip to South Africa to attend and moderate a panel discussion at the “Black Portraitures III – Reinventions: Strains of Histories and…
I recently had the opportunity to engage in a wonderful conversation with Betty Jarvis, a recent Master’s graduate from the Art History program at Rutgers University. I find that conversations outside of the studio are just as important as your…
These are glimpses of my experience and thoughts recorded in my journal from my time as an artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center (VSC) last month. While reading my journal I reflected on what I had been feeling at the time…
Today, I am in transition. My art, my home, my studio, my day jobs, and my community are all in flux. I recently moved to New Jersey from Boston and then left shortly after to come to Vermont for a…
After hiatus, Big Red & Shiny is pleased to continue Inside/Out, our artist-in-residence series. Inside/Out last ran during 2012 through 2013, and offered a space in which artists could discuss their studio practice and work. In this new iteration, a guest artist in…
Being a pack rat and a sucker for attachment to objects, I’ve put a lot of thought into the value of things if you are using memory as a currency. Recently my sister Nicole Duennebier and I were invited to participate in…
Many years ago, while living in London, I became fascinated with honey bees after reading The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. In the novel, a terrible disaster leaves only a few groups of people living in the world.…
Recently, I was thinking about the artists I look up to and who play an integral part in my art practice. What immediately popped into my head weren’t the well-renowned high-end gallery artists, but the secret artists. The artists with…