News from New Urban Arts
New Urban Arts Loves Love: Heart Party 2009
Our Second Annual Heart Party was held on February 12th. Started last year, the Heart Party was conceived by former
artist mentor, Melissa Mendes who responded to students and mentors lamenting the upcoming holiday of
Valentine’s Day. This year STAB (New Urban Arts Studio Team Advisory Board) continued the new studio tradition,
with Ava, STAB member, at the helm. Fifteen people from students to staff to artist mentors participated, making
mailboxes of stapled file folders and one of kind valentines. Allot of Hershey kisses, Chex mix and Smartfood
popcorn were consumed and fun was had by all. For a look inside our Heart Party visit our blog, to view a Valentine’s
animation created by students and artist mentor Ben Fino-Radin.
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Students at New Urban Arts Create Annual Valentine’s Day Mixtape for Artist Mentors, Fellows and Staff. Check Out
the Playlist Below. Thank you, Students, for Being so Thoughtful!
And She Was, The Talking Heads: Erik Gould, artist mentor
Theme Song, Doug, The TV Show: Ben Fino-Radin, artist mentor
Shut Up and Let Me Go, The Tiny Tings: Isaac Wingfield, artist mentor
Hey Julie, Fountains of Wayne: Julia Gualtieri, artist mentor
Smile, Lily Allen: Adrienne Benz, artist mentor
Nrrd Grrl, MC Cris: Meredith Younger, artist mentor
Circus, Brittany Spears: David Colannino, artist mentor
If I Ain’t Got You, Alicia Keys: Emily Ustach, artist mentor
Across the Universe, Fiona Apple: Jennifer Rice, artist mentor
She’s a Rainbow, The Rolling Stones: Caitlin Cali, artist mentor
Head Over Heels, Tears for Fears: Morgan Fagant, artist mentor
Bicycle Race, Queen: Melissa Small, artist mentor
Rock Lobster, B52′s: David Karoff, artist mentor
Girl, Beck: Erica Palmiter, artist mentor
Blue Monday, New Order: McKenzie Burrus-Granger, artist mentor
Paris, Tokyo, Lupe Fiasco: Dionte Noble, artist mentor
Smooth Operator, Sade: Abel Hernandez, artist mentor
Walking on Sunshine, Katrina & The Waves: Zach Clark, artist mentor
Black Hole, She and Him: Lane Taplin, artist mentor
I Love to Singa, Al Jolson: Jane Androski, artist mentor
Aguanille, Marc Anthony: Jason Yoon, executive director
Wicked Little Town, Hedwig & the Angry Inch: Kian Shenfield, study buddy
SuperModel, RuPaul: Jesse Banks III, studio manager
Ob La Di Ob La Da, The Beatles: Peter Hocking, arts mentoring fellow
Pocket Full of Sunshine, Natasha Bedingfield, Tamara Kaplan, operations manager
What We Need More of Is Science, MC Hawking: Dan Schleifer, study buddy
Superhuman, Chris Brown/Keri Hilson: Sarah Meyer, program director
Anime Polka, Weird Al: Andrew Oesch, arts mentoring fellow
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Conversation with Arley-Rose Torsone of Design Providence: Wed, March 18 6-8pm
This Spring, New Urban Arts will continue to host Conversations, a series of public conversations on sustainable
creative practice. Whether they are gardeners, painters, chefs, writers or plumbers, unique individuals will discuss
how they integrate creativity into their personal and professional lives. This program is generously supported by the
National Endowment for the Arts and the Rhode Island Foundation, and is organized by the Arts Mentoring Fellows at
New Urban Arts, Andrew Oesch and Peter Hocking. Conversations are located at 743 Westminster Street in
Providence and are free and open to the public.
Mark your calendars for the first of the series, March 18, 2009 from 6-8pm with artist Arley-Rose Torsone, a local
artist who wants to make the world a better place through graphic design. She is thoroughly invested in her work at
AS220 as the in-house graphic designer and manager of the Design Providence Cottage Industry. She also teaches
design classes for young people at Broad Street Studio. Since her graduation from Parsons the New School for
Design and moving to Providence in 2004, she has dedicated her professional career to designing for causes which
have socially-responsible roots and sustainable practices. She believes that “good design is not just about profit or
beauty, but creating social value” (Patrick Butler). She also loves hanging out with hot air balloonists, typographers,
special collections librarians and offset printers who are total curmudgeons.
Stay tuned for future Conversations. A full calendar will soon be posted on our website.
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Executive Director, Jason Yoon addresses Rhode Island Scholastic Awards Winners
The Rhode Island Art Educators Association invited Executive Director, Jason Yoon to address Rhode Island’s
Scholastic Award winners. He shared a personal story of how a mentor helped him find his own creative voice and
freed him to think and learn independently. Read the speech on our blog, click here.
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Send a New Urban Arts Alumnus to Peru for a Spring Break Service Trip!
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is famous for its intense freshman foundation year program. With all that
work, it’s hard to imagine finding time to lead other initiatives. But in spite of this workload, Laura Huaranga, (New
Urban Arts graduate 2008 and a RISD freshman) is working with a team of her RISD classmates to organize a
service trip to Peru, where her family moved from before she started high school. Laura will be building houses and
painting murals with the community in Pisco. The group will also be helping with earthquake relief. She needs to
raise $800 by mid March and already has $300. They have organized bake sales, concerts and other events to meet
their goal.
Please join us in helping her by mailing a check payable to:
ASB Peru
c/o Laura Huaranga
2 College Street, Box 802
Providence, RI 02903
Or donate on paypal through http://risdperuvians.blogspot.com/ *****
Salsa Soulfood Fundraiser for Artsreach
Last Saturday night, Jason Yoon and students taking his salsa mentoring workshop, Angel Peña, Celina Santana,
Dennes Garcia, Kevin Gonsalves, Libertad Vargas, Abel Hernandez, Kedrin Frias, Maxine Kali Wright, and Maria Diaz
taught a salsa lesson at The Salsa Soulfood Fundraiser at Mathewson Street United Methodist Church. The party
supported ArtsReach, a program seeking to empower the homeless and people living with AIDS to build life skills
through the arts. We were excited to help this great cause! For more info and to support ArtReach, click here.
Salsa at New Urban Arts meets Mondays at 6PM. Come visit us!
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Honors, Openings, Fellowships, Projects, and Blogs…New Urban Arts Artist Mentors and Students Are Doing Great Things!
>>Arts Mentoring Fellow, Andrew Oesch is participating in an exhibition titled Without You I am Nothing: Cultural Democracy from Providence and Chicago. The screen printed poster he created last year for the New Urban Arts
Conversations Series is featured as part of an exhibition. Curated by Anne Elizabeth Moore, Without You I am
Nothing displays a wide collection of new, recent, and downright old works on paper that require more from the
viewer than merely reading about and attending the event described in the poster. These works contain stuff that falls
off on purpose, windows, parts that move, space for new information, dials, buttons, removable elements, or other
user-manipulated, four-dimensional aspects of awesomeness.
Without You I am Nothing: Cultural Democracy from Providence and Chicago will be held at The Green Lantern
Gallery & Press in Chicago from March 27 – April 25. The Opening Reception is March 27, 9 – 11 pm.
In Chicago, Andrew Oesch and Meg Turner are facilitating a participatory work titled, And We Drew A City Together,
which invites collaborative city building with collaged stickers of architectural components. Andrew and Meg first
tested the project at New Urban Arts, February 20, 2009. The imaginary city created by nearly 50 participants can be
seen on our gallery walls through the middle of March.
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Friends and Supporters:
Stay up to date with www.RezaRitesRI.com, which promotes the voices of Rhode Island’s ethnically, socially, and artistically diverse.We liked this music video by If’n Books.
Subscribe to New Urban Arts’ Podcast.
Thank you Sprint Systems of Photography for their donation of photochemicals.
How about the comics of former artist mentor, Fay Ryu?
Learn about exciting cultural events in Rhode Island at www.rifutures.org.And, students and families at New Urban Arts are thankful this year for College Visions.
Special thanks to White Whale Web Services, designers of www.newurbanarts.org.Thank you to Citizens Bank and NBC10 for naming us a Champion in Action!
Also, proudly supported by:
The Rhode Island Department of Education
Rhode Island Council for the Humanities
The City of Providence, Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism
Rhode Island State Council on the Arts
Workforce Solutions Providence/Cranston
Partnership Foundation
Hasbro Children’s Fund
Minerva Foundation
Otto H. York Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
Citizens Bank Foundation
Hope Foundation
The Rhode Island Foundation
And many generous individuals like you.
Feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends.
Check us out on Flickr and Blogger, for an inside look at our studio.
About New Urban Arts
New Urban Arts is a nationally recognized arts studio for high school students and emerging artists in Providence, Rhode Island. Our mission is to build a vital learning community that empowers young people, developing creative practices they can sustain throughout their lives. We serve 150 high school students and 20 emerging artists through after-school and summer programs each year.
