When it rains, it falls on everybody's house.

This Sunday it rained. It rained hard, like it did most of the summer, a summer where I did not put my winter clothes away until July. One swatch of the quilt has been delayed until now, and if anyone is reading this that is not an artist, it will explain how sometimes a mundane experience can trigger an idea to be finished.

I was riding in the car a few days ago and got behind a cab which had the following vinyl lettering, "When it rains, it rains on everybody's house." I love phrases that on the one hand seem contradictory in image and different in what they mean. I think this makes the message stronger. The image of rain could be torrential, black clouds, hail pelting those huddled in houses below trying to stick it out. It can also be the same, but a hard, spiritually cleansing rain, washing away what needs to go down the drain. In both interpretations, it reflects that we are all affected by things larger than ourselves.

When I started the quilt, the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina was in the news. I listened to survivor's stories. Within the horror of the situation, there were so many who stuck together, and rose above the situation. New Orleans is in transition, but the spirit is surviving. I was not sure how to put this in a visual form, and then Sen. Kennedy died and that flooded the news, so to speak. So I put off.

So when I saw the phrase on the cab, I knew how to finish the swatch..I thought of raindrops, rooftops....all together now! It also reminded me of the acute hosuing crisis we are having in Rhode Island.

Come and see this section placed on the quilt this Thursday, Oct 1, from 11-1 p.m.

My name is...

While monitoring all of the installations for Providence Art Windows last week, a woman named Jenny stopped and helped artist David J. Delay at the 203 Westminster site, and inquired about what the project was. Jenny is an enthusiastic woman who had an interesting story herself. Jenny is an advocate for the homeless, finding shelter, transporting and giving hope to many. She asked if I could sit down for an interview for the homeless newspaper Street Sights, and talk about the project with one of the staff writers, David. I agreed, and I met her and David this past Friday outside of Tim Horton's on Westminster Street.

I work down the street from Tim Horton's, at the Arts & Business Council of RI. I had passed by David almost every day I was Downtown working, and he seemed to be a person of note, giving advice, his writing being interrupted by the many who stopped by his table trying to find Jenny. I had met David briefly last year when my husband Erik Gould started a photographic project on the economic crisis, and we had visited the tent cities that had recently cropped up in the area. I always try to pass by with a smile when I see him.

So now, last Friday, we sat down together to talk about Providence Art Windows as a free, open art project that is available for anyone to look at 24hrs a day... at least that was the premise of the original story. We had a little time before Jenny arrived so I wondered about David's story. He is living at a Vet's center, writes constantly and finds it to be his salvation to keep writing. If he is writing, that is all he needs to be content. When Jenny arrived, we started to talk about piece(work) and I think they will talk about the project as they asked for my picture in front of the last panel. Erik came along to introduce himself and talk about his project,and we were invited to attend a editorial meeting to learn more about the paper.

This meeting and interview inspired my current panel, which will go up tomorrow. I have been reading a lot of negative information about the homeless in the major papers of the region, and I decided to give the voice of my current panel to the people who come to David's table. I cut up a pair of old Carhart's (a la Gee Bend quilt style), and gave them to David to collect individual stories or positive messages from individuals he knew. Some of these requests I got to make in person(a particularly nice one is from Paul H. Botelho), but for others David carried the pieces of cloth and some Sharpie pens in his rucksack.

I will be adding these pieces tomorrow, from 11AM-12PM. This section may grow, with different colors, but for now each piece is stacked upon each other, at least 12 so far. Not all are signed, as not everyone felt comfortable to do so. I know most of these individuals by first names only. BUT-I think viewers will find some of the commentary insightful and/or hopeful.

Many thanks to David, Jenny, Dave, R.W.M., Paul, May, D', RAM, and anonymous contributors.

There is WORK to be done.

My first panel at the cornerstone of the quilt is a dedication to the late Senator Edward Kennedy. I was very moved watching his funeral, and the title of the section is , There is WORK to be done., after his famous and touching oration at his own brother Bobby's funeral many years ago. As I watched a lot of the news commentary, the phrase would not leave my mind. With all of the debates about healthcare, the economy, the world....the news seems flooded with angry Americans, spouting hateful words, and all I can think is,"Well, what are you doing about it? How are you personally going to make it a better place to live?" There is work to be done. Let's get to it. Let's work hard and be compassionate while we are at it.

The panel is 6'3" long, the height of the late Senator, and made of sailcloth, velvet, and suit material. As part of my ongoing "lottery series", I have added stars from found lottery tickets,which hang from the panel and spread across the floor in the shape of stars and words. This is the majority of the material I find in Providence and Pawtucket where I live, which says a lot about our economy at the moment. We just passed the 10.3 % mark for unemployment. Small wishes on the ground, fluttering away.

Like many Americans, I feel I have a personal connection to the Kennedy's,with all of the family's tragedies and triumphs so public. My brother Bob was born not long after Bobby Kennedy's assassination in 1968, and is named after him. My father Art Siemering, was a reporter in the 1960's, and took photos of Senator Kennedy when he stopped in Omaha, NE, on his train trip across America, campaigning to be President. One of these photos always had a prominent place in our home, where ever we moved to.

My condolences to Sen. Patrick Kennedy(my Rhode Island Senator) and his family.

piece(work)

Thank you to everyone who came to see my Cryptic Providence installation that lasted through the Winter. The group is trying to bring back this exhibition next year, so stay tuned!

My current installation is a time-based piece called piece(work). The title is a wordplay, the installation being put together piece by piece, like a quilt, the work being finding and reflecting on Providence itself, and making a visual commentary.


piece(work) is part of the Fall installation for series for Providence Art Windows(of which I am Director), and contains artists invited by me that reflect intensive labor, obsession for materials or passion for subject matter. Several artists and collectives within this round of Art Windows have an intense enthusiasm for making Providence a better place to live and work. My “crazy” quilt, with pieces culled from the streets of Providence and the news of the day, will be a reflection of the time from September 1-December 1, 2009, the duration of the show, and a new section of the quilt will be added every week. Since a window reflects the viewer and the city, the installation as a finished piece of art will also reflect the City of Providence. The city is a work in progress, and this quilt is a hopeful, demonstration piece.

Come back to this blog as I document the process, and go to providenceartwindows.blogspot.com to see the other fantastic artists!

Bells in Winter

The Bells Ring for Thee has been enjoying an extended stay in the North Burial Ground. Even the tough winter weather has not kept the Bells from tinkling away, and the recent blanket of snow has created a new landscape of sound. Drop by and enjoy if you are in the neighborhood.

Rain Date!

Same time, same place, next weekend, October 4. The monsoon rains have pushed events to next weekend.

Curtains for Cryptic Providence

September 27th is the last day to view all art installations for Cryptic Providence. Please join me and fellow artists Robert O Jones, Nancy Austin and Caroline Woolard for special art and history tours, and performances. I will be leading a special tour that will end at the Bells Ring for Thee (Take Away If You Please), where visitors will be able to take away parts of my installation. I hope that this will provide a way for my installation to live on, and when anybody asks about the "Bells" in someone's yard or a vase, they can tell the story of the Potter's Field, and everyone buried there will be remembered again and again...thank you to everyone who helped, inspired,visited and cheered me on to make this installation.

Read below for more information. Please join us!
Saturday, September 27th, 2008, Noon-6-PM North Burial Ground, Branch Ave. & No. Main St., Providence, R.I.
Enter at the intersection of Branch Ave. and N. Main St., 1/3 mile north of Whole Foods Market. All tours begin at the Welcome Tent at the cemetery entrance.

1:00-2:30 PM
Final Passage/Final Repose
A Historical and Artistic Walking Tour
by Cryptic contributor & architectural historian Robert O. Jones

Explore the North Burial Ground (founded 1700), one of Providence's oldest surviving Euro-American artifacts and the city's oldest municipal facility. This tour will examine the complex interweave of natural and man-made elements in NBG, the cemetery's evolution in response to changing attitudes toward death and burial practices, and select historical and artistic features, including the graves of the famous and those-who-should-be-famous, and the aesthetic character and symbolism of funerary art. The latest edition of the self-guided tour flyer that Jones created for Cryptic Providence and NBG will be available for distribution. The tour will end at the Jones family plot in time for the Tea Party.


3-5 PM
Footnotes: a tribute to Albert J. Jones
the forgotten founder of R.I.'s first Art Museum
A Performance and Installation by
Historian Nancy Austin (Newport, R.I.) and
Artist Caroline Woolard (Brooklyn, N.Y.)

At the Jones Family Plot in the North Burial Ground
Linden Avenue near Central Avenue
directions at the Welcome Tent, or follow the tea cup signs

Join us for this event, planned in dialogue with the opening of the new wing of the RISD Museum of Art. The RISD Museum, Rhode Island’s first, was founded as a direct result of a bequest to the people of Providence by native Albert J. Jones, the New York Times's neoclassical and public sculpture critic in Italy for twenty years. This still-timely, but sadly forgotten story of the Jones Bequest illuminates much about the ecology of culture in R.I., from past to present day.

Beginning at Noon, a cast sugar "neoclassical" bust of Albert J. Jones will be installed on a pedestal at the Jones Family plot in the North Burial Ground, amidst a "room" of mirrored tea tables spiked into the ground and at various heights, from 2-4 feet. Nineteenth-century shoes will be thrown into the tree branches spreading over the site, to mark the territory for Albert J. Jones, who started out as a shoe salesman at the Arcade. From 3-5pm we will conduct a tea party, in homage to RISD founder Helen Rowe Metcalf. The tea is the kind that was served at the bookstore/tea cafe run by Helen Rowe and her orphaned siblings after they moved to R.I. from N.Y. around 1850. A tea party was the first fundraiser of the women who put up the seed money to fund RISD. One of Mrs. Metcalf's teacups is buried in the cornerstone of a RISD building. These are a few of the associations we draw on for the collective performance of a tea party at the Jones site.

Between 3-5pm on Sept 27th, join us for a tea party among the graves. We invite you to add sugar to your tea from the cast sugar bust of Albert Jones. Thus, over the course of this performance, we will consume him in our tea.

For more information, see: www.EcologyofCultureRI.com. An exhibition catalogue with essays written by historian Nancy Austin will be available for sale.



4-5 PM
Cryptic Providence Art Site Walking Tour/
The Bells Ring for Thee (Take Away If You Please)
by participating artist Rebecca Siemering

Tour the Cryptic Providence art sites as Siemering discusses the installations, living in the neighborhood of the North Burial Ground, and the experience of making public and site-specific work. The tour will end at her installation, "The Bells Ring for Thee," where visitors will have the opportunity to take a piece of this installation with them on this closing day of Cryptic Providence. A suggested donation will go to the North Burial Ground.