GATHERINGS:
The Snake Hair studio is located in the Harrison Steam building in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. Then known as the Eagle Steam Mill, the original stone structure was built in 1829, employing around 125 workers to produce cotton yarn and cloth. Throughout the years and multiple additions and partial demolitions, the building has also been known as the Providence Combing Mills, John Waterman Mills, Lawton Spinning Company, Pocassett Combing Company, and Victory Pearl Company.
Harrison Steam Building, 50 Agnes St, Providence RI.
On six dedicated open studio days, folks were invited to bring in a beloved textile, mass produced or made by hand, that holds a special memory. Each person learned how to make risograph prints of their textiles in a single color of their choosing and were invited to speak to their own experiences with labor, organizing, and work. More information about risograph printing can be found here. The archive of those textiles is available here.
Posters folks have printed of their textiles.
A vintage butcher’s apron along with it’s riso print.
Artists Mary Banas (L) and vin caponigro (R) making prints of oversized textiles on the riso scan beds.
In addition to creating risographs, a small table top loom was available during open studio sessions, demonstrating simple patterns and allowing folks to try it themselves. A small collection of zines and publications that highlight union and community organizing was also available to browse through, and a monitor alternated between the project’s opening ritual and Giovanna – a short Italian film from 1955 where women in a textile mill lock the bosses out and occupy it for 35 days, continuing to work until the proprietor cancels the plan to fire twenty workers.
The loom, zines, and Giovanna playing. Participants weaving. The completed weaving project.
In addition to open studio printing sessions, Danielle Vogel, poet and interdisciplinary artist working at the intersections of queer and feminist ecologies, somatics, and ceremony facilitated Oracular Ekphrasis, where she guided those in attendance through a writing ceremony during which they were invited to compose a text with the intelligence alive in their chosen textile.
A collection of one color riso prints that folks made of their textiles.
Riso prints of historic textiles from the Slater Mill Archive.
Also, as part of the First Strike Commemoration at the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park folks were invited to learn basic paper weaving by combining risograph prints of contemporary and historic textiles
A final open studio session will allow folks to pick up copies of the publication and experience the physical archive of submissions.
LINEAGES OF LABOR is made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.