Friday, December 30, 2011

A Lively Experiment: 2011 in Review and Predictions for 2012


Panel
Dyana Koelsch – moderator
Jim Hummel – The Hummel Report executive director
Dave Layman – communications consultant, former TV news director and anchor
Maureen Moakley – University of Rhode Island political science professor
Tom Sgouros – GoLocalProv.com columnist


In a year-end review, panelists suggest their:  
  • Top Local and National Stories  
  • Best and Worst Political Moments
  • Biggest Winners and Losers
  • "Only in Rhode Island" Moments of 2011
  • People to Watch in 2012 
  • Predictions for the Coming Year



A Lively Experiment airs on WSBE Rhode Island PBS (36.1) Fridays at 8:30 p.m., with rebroadcasts on Saturdays at 7 p.m. on WSBE Learn (36.2), and Sundays at noon on WSBE Rhode Island PBS (36.1).

WSBE Rhode Island PBS transmits standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) programming over the air on digital 36.1; on Rhode Island cable: Cox 08 / 1008HD, Verizon 08 / 508HD, and Full Channel 08; in Massachusetts: Comcast 819HD; on satellite: DirecTV 36, Dish Network 7776.

WSBE Learn transmits over the air on digital 36.2; on Cox 808; Verizon 478; Full Channel 109; and Comcast 294 or 312.

Can't get to the TV? Watch the episode online anytime and anywhere on our YouTube channel. Episodes of A Lively Experiment are generally available to watch on the next business day. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and YouTube will notify you when a new episode is uploaded.

On Facebook? "Like" A Lively Experiment on Facebook

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Long-Awaited Season Two of Downton Abbey starts January 20


WSBE Rhode Island PBS is proud to announce season two of Downton Abbey will air on Masterpiece Classic on Fridays at 9 P.M., beginning January 20.

Downton Abbey's Granthams and their family of servants have already weathered scoundrels, scandals, and a momentous succession crisis. But by November 1916, the Great War has rendered everything — and everyone — changed. Even Downton Abbey itself, like its residents, has risen to the call of duty and transformed.

At the war front, life intensifies for Downton's young men in the face of untold horrors. Meanwhile, at Downton, war makes new and often unjust demands. Some rise to its call for a stiff upper lip and a useful turn, and others see change as an opportunity for either growth or exploitation. Far from the trenches, there remains no shortage of scheming, meddling, and dangerous attractions.

As other great houses crumble, a diminished Downton Abbey struggles to prevail into a new era with its residents and its honor intact.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Downton Abbey's Season Two heroes and villains, the loyalties and betrayals - all - are at least as gripping and engaging as Season One. And, of course, that gorgeous estate and those lavish costumes are as sumptuous as ever.

The first episode of Downton Abbey' second season The first episode of Downton Abbey’s second season on January 20 airs for 2 hours; the next four weekly episodes are 1 hour each. The pre-finale on February 24 and the season finale on March 2 are both 2-hour episodes.

There is also word out of the United Kingdom that we can expect a season three of Downton Abbey! More on that as details surface.

Enjoy these preview clips. I hope they help keep you satisfied until the premiere on January 20 at 9 P.M. on WSBE Rhode Island PBS.







Tuesday, December 20, 2011

NetWorks 2011


To accompany the debut of Art Rhode Island, WSBE Rhode Island PBS will re-broadcast the two-part NetWorks 2011. The video portraits of 13 artists will air on Saturday, January 7 and Saturday January 14 at 7 P.M., as part of the ongoing WSBE series, Rhode Island Stories.

These artists are profiled in NetWorks 2011:

Andrew Moon Bain

Andrew Moon Bain grew up in Seattle, WA and moved to Rhode Island to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. His paintings incorporate multi-colored screen printing and collage, as do his large scale mixed media installation pieces. Also an accomplished musician and producer, his band Boo City can be seen playing regularly around the region.


Philip Jamoulis Jameson
After retiring from practicing medicine Philip Jamoulis Jameson fully reconnected with his lifelong passion for photography. His large format, black and white images are rich with glorious detail. A master darkroom technician, he follows in the footsteps and traditions of the masters of landscape photography before him, yet his images seem to bring something fresh and vital, reviving that sense of awe and wonder in the world around us.

Nilton Cardenas
Since leaving his native Peru for the United States in his early twenties, Nilton Cardenas has embarked on a quest to recapture many aspects of his native land in paint. Drawing heavily from his ancestral past, his images are rich and vibrant "dances" of color on the canvas.

Barnaby Evans
Best known as the creator of WaterFire Providence, Barnaby Evans has had a rich and diverse career as a urban landscape photographer, an installation artist and a biologist. His intense desire to better the planet and his deep connection to it and keen civic involvement has lead him on an ever changing path of discovery which often manifests itself in mighty works of spectacle.

Nancy Friese
As a landscape painter Nancy Friese spends most of her time painting outdoors. The freshness of her canvases reflect the robust process of her connecting with nature in every stroke of her brush. The vibrant energy of her surroundings is deftly captured in both oil and in watercolor and when the paintings are finished, the viewer then gets to be an active part of the process.

Shawn Kenney
Moody night time scenes, space, and atmospheric darkness fascinated Shawn Kenney as a child. After a life altering injury as an adult, he needed to reclaim his art making abilities. During rigorous instruction and self-reflection, he embarked on a series of still life paintings of ordinary food items which began the process of reconnecting the brain to the hand. His continuation of an ongoing series of farm related scenes and animals keeps him searching for answers in the mysterious relationships arising in each new piece.


Scott Lapham
Photographer Scott Lapham searches for "reality" with every click of the shutter. Using large format studio cameras in the field allow him to connect to his subject matter in a very physical way. His sense of place and love of history mixed with intense technical ability allow him capture those fleeting moments that inform us all of who we are and where we come from.

Janet Prip
A fifth generation metal smith, Janet Prip embraces that tradition in a refreshing way. Her technical proficiency in mixing and juxtaposition of unusual materials reflects a profound and effortless design sense. Her keen eye can turn stones, pottery shards, sea shells, and sea glass into fantastic objects which defy their original form.

Andrew Raftery
The work of Andrew Raftery takes the mundane and turns it into an incredible feast for the eyes. His print series "Suit Shopping" and "Open House" are based on buying a suit and finding a house, respectively. His dutiful devotion to the techniques, methods and tools of the old masters of printmaking makes his work even more profound. His ability to create seemingly endless detail in these works is a true wonder.

Duane Slick
From the Meskwaki Nation, and a first generation Urban Indian, Duane Slick is a painter/storyteller. His subdued palette is no match for incredibly vibrant narrative images which are at once a remembrance and requiem of personal history, and a search for meaning. We see recurring characters in fields of white, darkness, and emptiness. In more recent pieces, the stark, essential qualities of line and absence of color create the sense of constant motion, resonating far beyond the visual scope of the canvas.

Esther Solondz
Esther has been working for several years with a variety of ordinary materials such as salt, water, soap, and rust to create her art. These materials each have their own special properties that allow them to transform into highly various states, (ie. solid to liquid and then back again.) She utilizes these properties to let surprising things happen as the materials interact and change. Salt mixed with water transforms into crystals, wicks and travels, forms mounds or stalactites. When salt is mixed with iron, rust forms in all its many guises and colors, sometimes eroding other materials, or leaving the accretion of marks behind. She received an MFA in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design, and has done graduate work in film at New York University. Her work has been widely exhibited and reviewed over the last 20 years in one person and group shows at museums and galleries throughout the Northeast.

Mark Taber
The sculptures of artist Mark Taber reflect his intense ability to travel without moving. The found objects and "junk" he uses to form these fantasy "vehicles", everything from the kitchen sink and wheel barrows to tractor seats and piano keys, seem like they belong more in the new places he finds for them rather than the original place and purpose they once held. A virtuoso blues and boogie-woogie piano player, Taber is as much in control behind a keyboard as he is in his studio.

Laura Travis
An artist and art educator, Laura Travis has a deep interest in accessing history through her stone carving. Her connection to the traditions of Celtic art and culture encountered while studying abroad in Ireland continues to inform the basic elements in her art. Her continuous dedication to that age old tradition and her career as an art educator combine to create a refreshing look at Celtic art and cements her place firmly within that tradition.

New Series: "Art Rhode Island" premieres January 4


On Wednesdays at 7 P.M., beginning January 4, Art Rhode Island makes its television debut. A natural next-step for the art project called NetWorks, Art Rhode Island takes the discussions to a new level, focusing on the issues facing the art community in Rhode Island.

Seeds for this most recent project were sown in 2007 when Joseph A. Chazan, M.D. partnered with AS220 Artistic Director Umberto Crenca - friends for more than two decades - to bring to fruition Chazan’s vision of making the art by local artists more widely known and accessible to the public. An art aficionado, collector, and patron of the arts for some 30 years, Dr. Chazan’s goal was to document the Rhode Island art scene through individual artists’ stories, creating an archive of this period and preserving a history of works over the past quarter century.

Dr. Chazan, producer of NetWorks and executive producer of Art Rhode Island, says there is little reason to feel the productions are regional or provincial.

“These are world-class internationally and nationally recognized artists with great careers. Their living in Rhode Island is almost incidental,” Chazan said. “The stories of these artists are universal,” he said. “There are common themes that pervade all the stories. Commitment to hard work, high quality, and an unwillingness to compromise. That has been particularly meaningful to me.”

Chazan tapped visual and performing artist Richard Goulis to be the video production manager and lead videographer for the project. Richard collaborated with several other talented filmmakers to create the first 17 profiles in NetWorks 2008. Each profile shows the artist at home and at work in the studio, and captures the philosophy, inspiration, personal history, and future vision of the chosen form of artistic expression, all in the artist’s own words. The portraits are intimate, informative, and inspire greater appreciation and deeper understanding of the artist and the art. On a macro level, the portraits also catalog the astonishing variety of art being created.

As planned, the NetWorks 2008 portraits were shown at AS220. Then a companion catalog was printed. Then a companion gallery exhibit was hosted by the Newport Art Museum. Then a companion commercial opportunity for art was developed. Then companion community and panel discussions were held. Four years later, the project continues to grow and expand in scope, in content, and in reach: NetWorks 2011 marks the addition of 13 more artists’ stories, bringing the total number to 54 profiles since NetWorks 2008. The profiles have aired on WSBE Rhode Island PBS every year. The entire collection is also available on YouTube.

“It’s a very ambitious program,” Chazan said. “We’ll see where it goes.”

Where it goes next is into the WSBE television studios, where beautifully filmed video segments and live interviews with artists, educators, and collectors combine to bring art to the public’s attention in a whole new way. The in-studio chats are at small round tables – appropriately symbolic of the series premise that art is all around us. Even the stark black set has large paintings of architectural and mechanical elements, suspended at random angles behind and around the guests. The set was designed and built by Art Rhode Island producer Richard Goulis.

The host of Art Rhode Island is Martina Windels, a critically acclaimed jeweler in her own right. Born in Germany, Martina moved to Providence to attend the Rhode Island School of Design’s Graduate School of Metalsmithing, only to go on and teach jewelry at RISD for seven more years.

As NetWorks and Art Rhode Island clearly show, Rhode Island has for decades been an irresistible magnet for artists. Fortunately for the rest of us, once they are drawn, they stay. Enjoy the stories, and love the art.

To accompany Art Rhode Island's television premiere, WSBE Rhode Island PBS will re-broadcast the two-part Networks 2011 on consecutive Saturdays, January 7 and 14 at 7 P.M. Art Rhode Island episodes in January:

January 4th - "Public Art I"
A discussion about the value and impact of public art and what the broader role of public art is.
Panel:
Barnaby Evans, artist and creator of WaterFire
Elizabeth Keithline, manager of Public Art, and Project Grants for Organizations at Rhode Island State Council on the Arts
Patricia Phillips, interim associate provost for Academic Affairs at RISD

January 11th - "Public Art II"
A continuing discussion of Public Art and its impact, focusing in part, on a public art initiative at The Wheeler School in Providence, RI
Panel:
Joseph A. Chazan, M.D., executive producer of Art Rhode Island
Jonathan Bonner, artist
Dan Miller, head of school, The Wheeler School

January 18th - "Artists Working with Artisans"
A discussion about how artists team with local artisans as a resource for development of their personal work, as well provide an engine for economic growth in the community.
Panel:
Nicole Chesney, artist
Paul Amaral, president, Amaral Custom Fabrications
Drake Patten, executive director, Steel Yard

January 25th - "Artists in Residence"
A discussion about the purpose and function of artists' residencies.
Panel:
Caitlin Strokosch, executive director, Alliance of Artist Communities
Nancy Friese, artist and RISD professor
Ellen Driscoll, artist, head of Sculpture Department at RISD

Friday, December 9, 2011

A Lively Experiment - December 9


Panel
Dyana Koelsch – moderator
Dave Layman – communications consultant, former TV news director
Maureen Moakley – political science professor, URI
Travis Rowley – columnist; GoLocalProv.com 
Representative Deborah Ruggiero (D) – state representative for Jamestown and Middletown

Topics
  • Rhode Island Cities on the Brink of State Intervention  
  • Rhode Island’s Health Benefit Exchange
  • The Condition of Our Hospital System

    A Lively Experiment airs on WSBE Rhode Island PBS (36.1) Fridays at 8:30 p.m., with rebroadcasts on Saturdays at 7 p.m. on WSBE Learn (36.2), and Sundays at noon on WSBE Rhode Island PBS (36.1).

    WSBE Rhode Island PBS transmits standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) programming over the air on digital 36.1; on Rhode Island cable: Cox 08 / 1008HD, Verizon 08 / 508HD, and Full Channel 08; in Massachusetts: Comcast 819HD; on satellite: DirecTV 36, Dish Network 7776.

    WSBE Learn transmits over the air on digital 36.2; on Cox 808; Verizon 478; Full Channel 109; and Comcast 294 or 312.

    Can't get to the TV? Watch the episode online anytime and anywhere on our YouTube channel. Episodes of A Lively Experiment are generally available to watch on the next business day. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and YouTube will notify you when a new episode is uploaded.

    On Facebook? "Like" A Lively Experiment on Facebook

    Tuesday, December 6, 2011

    The Grove: the National AIDS Memorial

    More Americans have been lost to AIDS than in all the U.S. wars since 1900, and the pandemic has killed 22 million people worldwide.

    However, few know about the existence of the National AIDS Memorial, a seven-acre grove hidden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.


    The Grove chronicles the garden’s transformation from a neglected eyesore to landscaped sanctuary to national memorial. The film shows how a community in crisis found healing and remembrance, and how the seeds of a few visionaries blossomed into something larger and more provocative than they could have imagined.

    But as the Grove’s stakeholders seek broader public recognition, a battle erupts over what constitutes an appropriate memorial for the AIDS pandemic.

    WSBE Rhode Island PBS presents The Grove on Sunday, December 11 at 11 P.M.

    Saturday, December 3, 2011

    Update on the Barrington Beach Project on This Old House

    When we announced the choice of the first-ever Rhode Island project for This Old House in the summer, we knew the episodes would air in early 2012, but not the exact date. Until now.

    WSBE Rhode Island PBS is pleased to announce the 10 episode transformation of a modest Barrington Beach home begins on Saturday, January 28 at 4:30 P.M. - our regular day and time when you can watch This Old House every week.

    Clicking this link will take you to a series of "before" pictures, with notes about the construction plans. Looks like it will be an exciting new look for this home in a picturesque location right on the water!

    Friday, December 2, 2011

    A Lively Experiment, December 2, 2011


    Panel
    Dyana Koelsch – moderator
    Donna Perry – columnist; GoLocalProv.com 
    Denise Aiken – attorney, former state representative
    Dave Layman – communications consultant, former TV news director
    Maureen Moakley – political science professor, URI

    Topics
    • City of Providence pensions 
    • Redistricting Barney Frank’s decision not to run for re-election 
    • State GOP chairman Ken McKay tenders his resignation 
    • Criticism over Governor Chafee’s use of the term “Holiday Tree”


      A Lively Experiment airs on WSBE Rhode Island PBS (36.1) Fridays at 8:30 p.m., with rebroadcasts on Saturdays at 7 p.m. on WSBE Learn (36.2), and Sundays at noon on WSBE Rhode Island PBS (36.1).

      WSBE Rhode Island PBS transmits standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) programming over the air on digital 36.1; on Rhode Island cable: Cox 08 / 1008HD, Verizon 08 / 508HD, and Full Channel 08; in Massachusetts: Comcast 819HD; on satellite: DirecTV 36, Dish Network 7776.

      WSBE Learn transmits over the air on digital 36.2; on Cox 808; Verizon 478; Full Channel 109; and Comcast 294 or 312.

      Can't get to the TV? Watch the episode online anytime and anywhere on our YouTube channel. Episodes of A Lively Experiment are generally available to watch on the next business day. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and YouTube will notify you when a new episode is uploaded.

      On Facebook? "Like" A Lively Experiment on Facebook

      Thursday, December 1, 2011

      For the Person Who Has Everything (Get It Appraised!)

      We all have at least one on our holiday shopping list: the person who has everything.


      How is this for a gift idea? Give your favorite collector a ticket to the Antiques Discovery & Appraisal Show and get one of those items appraised at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick, RI, on February 18. And if that item really is a treasure, the story could end up on TV.

      One ticket could mean fortune and fame... how generous does that make you!

      The only problem might be choosing which one item to bring. Solution: up to three tickets can be purchased per person.

      Visit the Website for details. Happy shopping!  



      The Antiques Discovery & Appraisal Show is sponsored by Estates Unlimited of Cranston, RI