New Benches Welcome You
to 891 Broad Street
If you’ve walked by 891 Broad Street in Providence RI recently,
you’ll have noticed three new benches jeweled with birds, beasts, fish and
flowers.
The benches, which flank our doors and are adorned with dozens
of ceramic tiles, represent the talents of four years of ¡CityArts! young
artists from Deb DeMarco’s Art and Nature classes. Earlier this month, Deb led
a team of Bryant University students in installing the tiles, and she and
staff have been hard at work to complete the installation.
Deb agreed to tell me about the project – so long as I helped
grout and polish, too. Crouched on the ground, using her fingers to rub
grout in gaps between tiles, Deb told me about the love, work, and wildlife
that went into these benches.
Could you give our readers an overview of the project and how
our Art and Nature classes came to work on these tiles?
Art and Nature has been a big part of learning at ¡CityArts!
because we’re an urban arts group. Stewardship and responsibility kind of
follows nature and order, but a lot of these kids haven’t had a good amount of
experience with nature. So any opportunity to get them on a bus and travel to
places like wildlife refuges here in RI, places where they can go, see it, be
in it, learn how to process it, are welcomed. So we started – when I got here,
I guess four years ago – we were collaborating with the Ninegret Wildlife
Refuge in Charlestown, so we had a lot of kids visit and we did a mural here
that mirrored all of that learning.
Then we decided to design panels, these panels …The first nature
mural we did was inside of the building, but this mural we wanted to be outside
and to share a natural space and again to allow the kids an opportunity to
study the animals and plants they might encounter on any given day in our
wildlife refuges. Then, I thought it would be wise to – wise, as in wise old
owl (laughs) – wise to follow the seasons in order so that looking out
the window could suggest to the artist a different response at different times
of the year. We brought a lot of natural materials into the clay studio at
different times of the year, so what you have here then is kind of a visit in
time and place with Rhode Island’s wildlife at night, during the winter, fall, spring,
and certainly in the summer.
Do you have any favorite tiles?
Each panel represents a class. Each class is anywhere from 8 to
12 weeks in length, and these tiles don’t take a very long time so we had the
luxury of really being able to expand on the topic. The panel we’re working on
together – this is the winter panel – I really like it because winter is a
quiet time. It’s a cold time. It’s not a time that you associate with studying
nature, and so we did. We made observations outside the window of the clay
studio to the trees right outside our window here in South Providence.
We had studied birds, we had made bird feeders and one of the
birds was a woodpecker. One day at the sink, washing with the kids, the kids
[said], “Ms. Deb, Ms. Deb, there’s a woodpecker in the tree outside the
window!” and I didn’t believe them. You’d think I’d know better. And sure
enough, there was the woodpecker. I’ve never seen it before or since, and there
it was. Everybody wanted to mirror that on their bare trees. So that’s where
all the birds came from that are on the bare trees on these panels.
So many of these tiles focus on different birds and animals. Are
there any exceptional examples of Rhode Island wildlife?
The turtle panel – that was a really nice collaboration with the
people in Barrington. There is a land trust in Barrington that has developed
over time to protect the land and prevent overdevelopment of the waterfront…
There’s a turtle that lives only there called the Diamondback Terrapin Turtle.
They’re a protected species, an endangered species, and they live there in
Barrington. So we got to meet this really nice woman there, Charlotte
Sornberger. She was really thrilled to be able to share with kids from Broad
Street. The kids really got to see what preserving a species of turtle is all
about. You literally have to get physically involved with the life of the
turtle and protect it from being consumed by predators. The kids got to see
that firsthand, and that’s what this panel is all about: saving the Diamondback
Terrapin Turtle.
Can you tell me a little bit about the sea life tiles over there?
I can. I can go on and on. A lot of the relief on the
outside of the bench looks real because it was generated by real fish that came
into the clay studio. Where I live in East Providence, I have Archie’s Bait and
Tackle. I went in there one morning looking for some local fish that I could
bring to the kids and let them (she chuckles) play around with in the
studio. And we did… I learned a lot from Archie’s Bait and Tackle. They’re all
about how to catch fish because that’s their livelihood, and that’s the
livelihood of a lot of Rhode Islanders. Our economy is somewhat based on the
quality of what lives in the bay and what it gives us versus what we give
it. There are enormous messages there for kids especially.
So we learned about Atlantic Menhaden, bass fishing, salt water
and fresh water and seaweed. I brought a ton of things into the studio. We did
a scavenger hunt; I brought in a bunch of sand, and I let them go looking for
things. They drew them, molded and made clay relief from it. Then they made
these flat tiles that you’re cleaning now. Again, it’s about giving them a ton
of information they can process into clay art, and then we did take-home clay
projects, too. A lot of that relief on the outside of the mural I’m very proud
of because it was generated from real stuff!
Once I brought a crab in – it was a fresh crab from the fish
market down the street – and I didn’t realize you have to be very careful when
you handle those crabs, and the thing attached itself to my hand. (She
laughs.) It was in front of a whole bunch of kids, and it hurt very much!
It was really embarrassing. (She laughs again.) It was great – they
loved it. “Hello, look at Ms. Deb! Got a crab hanging off her hand!”
Are there any panels that people might not recognize
immediately?
The panel over there that we were talking about yesterday – the
vernal pond tiles are really interesting. A vernal pond is nothing but a
temporary pool of melted snow that occurs in the spring from a cold winter
where there’s been a lot of snow and the ground is frozen and the water sort of
collects in pools. Those are vernal ponds. They are places that support a large
amount of life that seems to go entirely unnoticed. So we studied vernal ponds
and then the kids got to make these neat little ponds made out of clay. They
had impressions of brown leaves in the bottom of them and then they got to fill
the pond with whatever they wanted—tadpole eggs, and frogs, and dragonflies and
what have you. So then I had them make tiles for the mural and it was done
before it started. It went so easily and so well because the kids had done
their learning and really enjoyed what they learned.
How about the sunflower panels?
That was a spring time class, and my goal was to have them all
plant sunflower seeds into pots made in the clay studio and then transplant
them into anyplace they wanted here in South Providence to propagate a
tremendous population of sunflowers. That was the goal.
Did that happen?
I don’t think so. (She laughs.) But we had good
intentions, and we made flower pots. The kids appreciated – these are really
young kids, 8-10 year olds – and they appreciated what was essential to growth.
They learned about light from the sun, water, the rain. All of these things you
take for granted, but when you start to think about how significant these are
in terms of the life of a plant, then there’s that stewardship and extra
responsibility that goes along with learning something that you may have taken
for granted. So again, that’s the purpose of making a tile – to talk about what
you learned, to respect nature.
Deb stands up to take a look at the tiles we’ve just polished.
This looks great. See how we polished them up? So we’re going to
mix a new batch of grout…Thank you to Deb, Annie Haftl, staff, and the
wonderful team of Bryant student volunteers who helped install our new benches.
They will be a spot for sunny lunches and after-class lounging for years to
come.
