The Agenda

October 31, 2006

Dear Mayor Cicilline,

Thank you for recognizing Firehouse 13 as vital to Providence’s creative economy in The Providence Journal’s article “The Politics of Art” (Van Siclen 10/22/06). This article only begins to touch on the complexity of issues that artists and art organizations are experiencing in this city. I write to you today to call attention to the crisis of emerging artist-run developments and organizations in Providence.

Suspending the role of gender and violence on the biggest knitting needles you've ever seen

by Anna Shapiro

Wednesday, Sept 6, 2006:

I walked in to the Anderson Auditorium at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts for the first of their Fall 2006 lectures, which also served as the kick-off of a tour extraordinaire for our very own backwoods down-home artist Dave Cole. To my delight, the first image projected on the big screen was The Knitting Machine: two huge excavators with two aluminum utility poles attached with a MacGyver contraption, supporting a huge loosely knit felt object resembling the American flag. This is not an unfamiliar sight to me. I have seen many of these ridiculously large knit sculptures since I stumbled upon Cole's pink fiberglass teddy bear in the Decordova Museum's annual a few years ago, and have become a groupie ever since.