Arts

Interview: Oil Can Boyd on playing the game

Baseball ‘takes away a lot of hurt’
This week, I had an hour long chat with Oil Can Boyd.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 23, 2012

They call me Oil Can

Baseball, drugs, and life on the edge
Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, a Mississippi native who lives in East Providence with his wife and two children, is one of the most complex, controversial players ever to don a Red Sox uniform.

By: EXCERPTED FROM THE BOOK BY DENNIS "OIL CAN" BOYD AND MIKE SHALIN | May 23, 2012

The ‘2012 RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition’

Stars on parade
The star, literally, of the "2012 RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition," the school's annual showcase of its graduating graduate student talent at the Rhode Island Convention Center is James Franco.

By: GREG COOK | May 23, 2012

Courthouse dusts off Nunsense

Old habits
Nuns, the ones dressed to look like they belong to some Antarctic bird-worshiping cult, are still considered cute.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 15, 2012

‘Quigley’s Magic Show’; and Marguerite Keyes’s miniatures

Brain storms
"Quigley's Magic Show" at Buonaccorsi + Agniel (1 Sims Ave, unit 102, Providence, through June 9) is a psychedelic creature double feature by Providence wife and husband team Kyla and James (Gunsho) Quigley.

By: GREG COOK | May 15, 2012

Interview: Rory O’Connor digs social media

News trust
Rory O'Connor has been thinking about trust and the media for a long time.

By: DAN KENNEDY | May 14, 2012

The McMillans’ video installatons are open to interpretation

Some assembly required
Megan and Murray McMillan's videos unfold with dream logic.

By: GREG COOK | May 08, 2012

Brown/Trinity Rep MFA’s revolutionary Tango

Old World order
A totalitarian regime can persist for many reasons: widespread timidity, complacency, political expediency, fear, and so on.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 08, 2012

Interview: Aziz Ansari is on the fly

Jet setter
It's been a good few months for Aziz Ansari.

By: MIKE MILIARD | May 09, 2012

Making the RISD Museum sizzle

Can new director John W. Smith polish Providence's hidden gem?
The Rhode Island School of Design Museum is one of New England's — and America's — most underappreciated and underperforming cultural treasures.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 02, 2012

Daria Tessler at Craftland; AS220’s ‘Delicate Shudder’

‘Realm’ of wonder
The realm of Daria Tessler's "In the Realm of the Seedkeepers," an exhibit of drawings at Craftland, seems to be an often hushed, mystical place.

By: GREG COOK | May 01, 2012

The mind is the battleground in the Gamm’s 1984

Reality check
"War Is Peace" and "Freedom Is Slavery" were government slogans in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four , his dystopian fever dream.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 02, 2012

2nd Story’s uproarious Sister act

Divine comedy
Pity the poor nun. The hours are terrible, she's the butt of penguin jokes, and most people have gotten their impression of her from old movies.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 02, 2012

Are Rhode Islanders finally ready to recognize Providence-born H.P. Lovecraft's legacy as a horror writing hero?

Loving embrace?
Brett Rutherford was walking down College Street on an overcast day in the late 1990s when a car with Oregon license plates pulled up next to him.

By: PHILIP EIL | April 25, 2012

Fusionworks presents the Next Generation

Youth movement
Hopping on the theme of local resources, Fusionworks Dance Company has spotlighted homegrown dancers and Rhode Island-based choreographers in recent spring concerts.

By: JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | April 24, 2012

Trinity’s Boeing-Boeing

Come fly with me . . . and me and me
Oh, what a tangled web they weave.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 24, 2012

Everett whips up a stunning Brain Storm

Sensory overload
Just when you think that the members of Everett's company couldn't possibly come up with anything more jaw-dropping than previous productions, they reach into a vast realm of thoughts, perceptions, delusions, and clarifications on yet another oft-debated topic.

By: JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | April 18, 2012

‘Distillation’ at RIC; Salvatore Mancini at Candita Clayton

The purity of paint
At first, the approaches of abstract painters Lisa Russell and Mary Bucci McCoy can appear opposite.

By: GREG COOK | April 17, 2012

Lucas Foglia’s ‘A Natural Order’ looks at self-sufficiency

Of humans and nature
In 2006, after finishing undergraduate studies at Brown University and photographing a series on community gardens managed by Providence's Southside Community Land Trust, Lucas Foglia bought a minivan, put a bed in the back, and drove south "to photograph people who had responded to current day events ..."

By: GREG COOK | April 10, 2012

Mirthful morbidity

“Penguins, Zombies, and Nudes” at Craftland
Greenville painter Greg Stones writes that he sketches a basic landscape or figure study, "then I try to think of what would make the painting especially awesome. Penguins, zombies, and nudes are invariably the answer."

By: GREG COOK | April 03, 2012