Artwork created through Providence Public Library’s Creative Fellowship Program
The Summer Queen
Creative Research Fellow, 2017
Since 2015, each Creative Research Fellow at Providence Public Library has had the opportunity to create new work informed by materials in PPL Special Collections. In 2017, I generated a mural in response to PPL’s Spring exhibition theme, On the Table, which explored changes in American foodways over nearly 200 years of table settings.
I set out to create an illustrative mural that would celebrate the cross-section of eras in American foodways explored in PPL's Spring Exhibition; I arrived at a party scene in which families from a variety of eras are coming together to picnic. Inspired by, and created using materials in PPL's collections, I folded together imagery, color palettes, and media textures from a broad range of time periods and sources. My research included domestic periodicals, wartime propaganda posters, and turn-of-the-century children's books. The final image came together through a playful and rigorous investigation of analogue and digital collage/drawing processes.
Original 12” x 12” piece created for large-scale reproduction
While looking at materials in which food played a prominent role, I found myself thinking about food as fantasy: whether featured in an anecdote to housewives, a party of cavorting animals, or a patriotic victory garden, food embodies an idea of ourselves that we realize through a self-actualizing, often theatrical performance. By the food we serve and the way we serve it, we say so much about what we value, who we love, and especially who we want to be.
The decision to create an al fresco summertime dining scene was fairly personal, motivated by childhood recollections of family picnics at Colt State Park and more recent memories of feasting at a friends’ wedding lakeside in Exeter. Thoughts of eating outdoors open up some of my warmest and most evocative experiences of dining. By illustrating a singular narrative on a theatrical scale and tilting the table toward the viewer, I hope to invite each library visitor into this wild party!
The Summer Queen
Mural installed in its permanent home, next to the Donald J. Farish Auditorium and down the hallway from Special Collections
Dimensions: 8’ x 8’
Media: archival digital print mounted on luan panel
As part of the original display, I collaborated with PPL Web Developer John Bent to imagine an interactive experience for library visitors. Through a dynamic web page accessible by an iPad kiosk displayed near the final artwork, visitors could select an area of the mural that they were curious about and discover corresponding resources in Special Collections.
All mural photos taken by Erin X. Smithers
Read artist reflections on the research process in PPL Alum
Discover On the Table exhibition highlights and catalogue at PPL Programs and Exhibitions