UPCOMING EVENTS:

Online Course with POCOSIN ARTS

Brush-On Mold Making for Experimental Casting

As a material, wax can be manipulated in a variety of ways to produce castable models for one-of-a-kind or production jewelry. In this online course, students will learn about brush-on mold making techniques and materials that can be used as a starting point for creating original models. Students will be introduced to brush-on rubber molds, mother molds, and encouraged to explore texture, surface, and form, through prompts for engaging in their own studio-based experimentation and play.

Online Class Dates: November 6 & 13, 2023 | 11am - 1pm

Information & Course Registration: https://pocosinarts.org/product/brush-on-mold-making-for-experimental-casting/

CURRENT EVENTS:

KORU8

Exhibition Dates: The KORU8 exhibition will be on display in two different museums in Finland in 2024 - 2025

May 17 - December 1, 2024 at The Finnish Forest Museum Lusto in Punkaharju, Finland

Winter 2025 at The Oulu Art Museum in Oulu, Finland

“KORU8 invites artists to think about forests. Forests play a crucial role in climate change and the sixth mass extinction. Globally forests cover almost one-third of the land, and their cultural and social meaning varies between cultures and context. Forests are multispecies, and home to human and non-human animals. They are also meaningful places for relaxing, camping and foraging both in urban and rural environments.

What is a forest in the context of contemporary jewellery? Is it a material, colors or textures, feelings, words, experiences? How forests relate to you and your culture?

In Finland forest is an important part of national narratives and can act as a symbol of timelessness and immemorial, for instance. The theme of the KORU8 Exhibition is discussed with the KORU8 Exhibition venue, Lusto – The Finnish Forest Museum. As Lusto is a specialist in forest culture, it offers a cohesive surrounding for the forest-themed artwork and also a space for questions of forest use and protection.”

Jurors: Kalkidan Hoex, Reeta Karhunkorva, Terhi Tolvanen, & Selina Väliheikki

More Information: https://www.koru8.fi/

PAST EVENTS:

Desire Paths

“Desire Paths”, a new, landscape focused exhibition, featuring polaroid photographs and paintings by Rhode Island artists Andrea Cacase and Kevin Calisto, will be open July through September at Kendall Reiss Gallery & Studio in Bristol, R.I.

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 25, 2024, 5:00PM - 9:00PM

On View: July 20 – September 15, 2024

Exhibition Location: Kendall Reiss Gallery & Studio, 469 Wood Street, Bristol, RI 02809

Exhibition Statement:

Desire paths are created through interaction. They are indicative of an unmarked trail, one that is created by humans or animals. A furrowed footpath worn lovingly into the earth. Desire paths are clearly visible in the landscape, often emerging as a shortcut across a park, meadow, or urban space. They are deliberate, intentional, and recognizable.

Desire Paths are about familiarity, a sense of knowing, revisitation, and habitual movement. Artists Andrea Cacase and Kevin Calisto each approach familiar landscapes with a sense of care and awe. Sharing their delicate attunement to shifts in temperature and the quality of light as seasons progress, Cacase and Calisto are deep observers. These are sceneries they have visited and revisited over and over again throughout the course of their lifetimes, carving their own desire paths in the process. Identifying changes and shifts in tides and weather, and grieving for the loss of the once known. Marshes and trees, stones and shorelines, polaroid’s and paintings as microclimates, love letters to an unknown future. 

Andrea Cacase

Andrea Cacase is a New England based artist and designer. She has been documenting life with one “photo” a day since the beginning of the pandemic. Her work explores themes of loss, grief, healing and recovery.

Website

Kevin Calisto

Kevin Calisto’s current practice is concerned with exploring the changing environment of the Mill Gut Salt Marshes at Colt State Park in Bristol, RI. The dramatic landscapes created by erosion and tides are evidence of an evolving ecosystem. These works document elements of loss, memories and resilience. Calisto creates a relationship with this space and continues to learn and research more about its existence. 

Website

Learning from Trees: Artists & Climate Solutions

College Art Association (CAA) Annual Conference

*SHiNY THiNGS*

*SHiNY THiNGS*, a somewhat annual PoP-Up at Kendall Reiss Gallery & Studio

Featuring the works of 30 contemporary jewelers and artists, *SHiNY THiNGS* returns in 2023 to Kendall Reiss Gallery & Studio in Bristol, RI for the first time since 2019!

Opening Reception: Saturday, December 9, 2023 | 5pm - 8pm

Exhibition Dates : December 8, 2023 - January 14, 2024

Gallery Hours for SHiNY THiNGS : *Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 12-5pm for the run of the exhibition + we’re taking virtual and in-person appointments this year! Please email: kendallreiss@gmail.com to schedule.

Information & Updates Announced on Instagram: @kendall.a.reiss

Online Course with POCOSIN ARTS

Mold Making & Experimental Wax Techniques

As a material, wax can be manipulated in a variety of ways to produce castable models for one-of-a-kind or production jewelry. In this online course, students will learn about a variety of mold making techniques and materials that can be used as a starting point for creating original wax models. Students will be introduced to both alginate and silicone molds, and encouraged to explore texture, surface, and form, through prompts for engaging in their own studio-based experimentation and play.

Online Class Dates: November 10 & 17, 2023 | 12pm - 2pm

Information & Course Registration: https://pocosinarts.org/product/mold-making-experimental-wax-techniques/

Rising Seas: Envisioning the Future Ocean State

Juried by Chris Sancomb, this exhibit will feature artworks that address the current and future impacts of sea-level rise in Rhode Island. Two 2D works-on-paper by Kendall Reiss were selected for exhibition at the Imago Foundation for the Arts in Warren, R.I.

On View: April 21 - May 29, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 23, 2022 | 5pm - 8pm
Imago Foundation for the Arts | 36 Market Street, Warren, RI 02885

The Secret Life of Jewelry

Showcasing the work of students and faculty of the Metalsmithing and Jewelry Program at Rhode Island College, The Secret Life of Jewelry is an invitation to explore the hidden significance and symbology embedded within objects of adornment.

Featuring work by: Jazmine Arboleda, Hannah Bostrom, Madeleine Duffin, John Gabriel, Vanessa Gonzalez, Heather Oliver, Dianne Reilly, Catherine Rubery, Kasey Sparadeo, Sarah Wheaton, Zach Zavorskas, Liping Zhang

On View: May 2 - June 4, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 7, 2022 | 5pm - 8pm
Kendall Reiss Gallery & Studio | 469 Wood Street, Bristol, RI 02809
Gallery Hours:
5/7 | 12 - 8pm
5/8 | 12 - 5pm
5/14 | 12 - 6pm
5/15 | 12 - 5pm
5/28 | 12 - 6pm
5/29 | 12 - 5pm
6/3 | 12 - 6pm
6/4 | 12 - 6pm

To the Surface: Film Screening & Panel Discussion

Thursday, May 26, 2022 | 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Bristol Art Museum | 10 Wardwell Street, Bristol, RI 02809
Modality: Hybrid Event (In-person + Zoom)

A public screening featuring To the Surface, a film by Bristol native Tyler Murgo who raises questions around the global impact of Narragansett Bay's seafood industry, and addresses ongoing sustainability efforts by local fishermen. Following the film, Tyler Murgo will join Dr. Skylar Bayer, Assistant Professor of Biology and Aquaculture and Extension Specialist at Roger Williams University in a panel discussion moderated by Kendall Reiss. What is the role of art in the face of climate change? How can artists address public advocacy and civic responsibility in their work?

For more information visit the Bristol Art Museum website.

Bristol Waterfront Story Project

Funded by a Community Grant from the Rhode Island Foundation, the Bristol Waterfront Story Project invites individuals to record reminiscences and local lore related to the Bristol, R.I. waterfront.

The project seeks to engage the Bristol community in an opportunity for individual storytelling, and as a way to form a collective archive of memory.

• How does the waterfront make Bristol a community for you?

• Do you have memories of the waterfront? From childhood? Or otherwise? What stories would you want to pass on to your kids or grandkids?

• If you had to predict the future for Bristol and the waterfront, what would that look like? What are you hoping for? What worries you for our future?

All will be welcome to participate using one of the following recording options:

• Call-in local phone number & recording via voicemail

• Scheduled recording sessions hosted on Zoom

• In-person recording sessions hosted in Bristol, RI

Stories collected between May 27 - July 10, 2022 will be made available for public listening after the story collection period is over.
For more information visit the Bristol Art Museum website.

Meeting Points: Community Engagement

The Society of North American Goldsmiths annual conference is coming to Providence!

Join gallerist and Educator Kendall Reiss and Associate Director of the Steel Yard and Jeweler Islay Taylor in conversation about how an engaged creative practice can strengthen community bonds, challenge societal views, and foster learning and understanding. They will address ways in which an artist can locate their work in the public realm, how to listen and learn from your community, how organizations might hold space for community members, and how artistic practice can act as a catalyst for community-centered initiatives.

Thursday, June 2, 2022 | 4pm - 5pm
For more information | Conference registration

Tincal Lab Challenge 2021: Jewelry & Nature

Curatorial Statement:

“It’s not difficult to think that nature can inspire any artistic creation.

Beautiful in form and rich in content, it represents an unlimited universe of fauna, flora and landscape. From the most microscopic scale to the most universal context, it includes natural phenomena unable to tame, sources of life (and death) and essential resources. Colors, materials, textures. Shapes, sounds, movements. It generally excludes the human creation and the built environment, but nowadays, it may be difficult to know a corner of the planet that has not been affected by humankind in any way.

Even though it is something that exists long before and beyond us, its conservation is constantly being menaced by human growth and technological innovation, in an ironic struggle in which human beings seem to be able to destroy the very basis of their livelihood.

As usual, we don't want to restrict and we challenge jewelers to go further: why not explore the contrast between the natural and artificial world? Study the ramifications of Natural Sciences, ranging from Biology to Geology or Chemistry? Why not question the action of humankind and appeal to sustainability and ecological awareness? Reflect on the current situation and human vulnerability to natural causes greater than us?

A challenge that demands to a look inside, as well as to the world around us.”

• Read Press Release courtesy of Bristol Art Museum

• Local Artist's Unique Style Earns International Acclaim, East Bay Newspaper, December 23, 2021 | Article by Christy Nadalin, Photos by Rich Dionne Jr.

• Tincal Lab Challenge 2021: Jewelry & Nature | Shop Online through July, 2022

EMERGENT

2D, Sculptural + Installation Works by Andy Pepper & Kristin Street

When considered in proximity to the landscape, EMERGENT can summon visions of spring; verdant sprigs and buds bursting forth – on the cusp, full of potential. Yet EMERGENT can equally represent that which is timely, of the moment, in crisis. Artists ANDY PEPPER & KRISTIN STREET both actively work within the conceptual framework of the environmentally EMERGENT.

For Kristin Street, emergence occurs through her intuitive, symbiotic relationship to material. Her work represents a lifelong investigation of form, structure, systems and connections. In this series, her two dimensional works reference bodies of water – estuarine atmospheres serve as harbingers of sea-level rise spurred by our warming climate.  

In Andy Pepper’s work, emergence takes on a distinctly different tone in terms of materiality, yet one that communicates conceptually with Kristin’s examination of the Anthropocene environment. Andy’s sculptures emote an air of science fiction, natural history and queer ecology. Images of natural landscapes are digitally rendered, and woven with recycled materials to create hyperreal, site-specific installations that simultaneously conjure concepts of growth and decay.

July 3rd - August 27th, 2020.

Kendall Reiss Gallery & Studio | 469 Wood Street, Bristol, RI 02809