Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Cosmos Contributes: FirstWorks Festival 2012


Hello and Happy Tuesday Friends! Today I'm happy to share some photos with you, from an event I participated in over the weekend. This past Saturday, downtown Providence was a hub of art, music, dance and performance thanks to the FirstWorks Festival. If you've never attended, or heard about this event, be sure to visit their website to learn all about it.


At this year's festival, my good friend Yarrow Thorne, of the Avenue Concept, was contracted by the city to build a 150-foot wall in the middle of Kennedy Plaza’s trolley lane. Where a group of artists, including myself, painted the wall while passer bye's looked on. Each artist was allotted a 4' x 8' panel and six cans of spray paint and the results were amazing. The art was varied and the spectators were intrigued…overall, it was a really fun and exciting way to spend a Saturday. I'm thrilled that Yarrow asked me to be apart of it.

In the pictures I've posted here, you can see the wall with all of the participating artists and their respective panels. My panel is the one on the very end with the black and white pattern. For those of you who are familiar with my patterns, you might recognize this one. I've made notebooks, tote bags and pillow cases all adorned with it in the past, but this is the first time that I've ever executed it in spray paint.



In order to successfully loop the pattern across such a large surface, I used a stencil. Although it may not look like much, this stencil took quite a bit of planning to make. Luckily, I had access to a laser cutter and didn't have to hand-cut the thing…which would have probably taken me an entire day, or more to cut. 


Working in a new medium is always a stressful process, especially when you only have one crack at it to make a finished piece…never mind, when people are watching over your shoulder. But overall, I'm very pleased with how the pattern turned out and totally enjoyed the full experience. Maybe next time, I'll experiment more with color and texture…until then, stay tuned and stay inspired!