Celebrity Guided Tours

NEW THIS SEASON: Hop on an Art Bus at the Regency to take one of five tours offered each Gallery Night.
Visit Historic/Traditional Galleries, University East or West/Educational Galleries, International /Contemporary Galleries, Contemporary/Emerging Galleries, or Artisan Shops. The first bus leaves One Regency Plaza at 5:30, two leave at 6:00, one at 6:30, and one at 7:00. Enjoy a private two-hour guided tour for FREE.

Celebrity Guided Tours offer the public a chance to mix and mingle with people who care deeply about art. Guides run the gamut from the curators and academics who shape opinions about art to the artists whose life's work is giving form to their passion.

Take a tour and follow in the footsteps of someone who thinks a lot about art and enhance your personal point of view. Walking tours (unless noted otherwise) start from Regency Place at
6 pm and 6:30 pm and last about an hour. Tour will include stops at various galleries.

A typical Gallery Night tour might include a conversation with RISD president John Maeda or Channel 12 anchorwoman Karen Adams. Speak with Newport artist Robert Kalaidjian about the artists exhibiting at the Providence Art Club. Sip coffee with John Tessitore, Executive Editor of the Carnegie Council, New York City, on your way from one Wickenden Street gallery to the next. And if the latest trends in art mystify you, spend an evening with artist Nuam Panovsky talking about the social and political content of today's contemporary art. Whether you like traditional art on the wall or prefer a more contemporary interpretation, Gallery Night Celebrity Tours will expand your art horizons.

All in all, the Celebrity Tours are a lively and stimulating alternative to choosing your own route. This summer, sculptor Kenn Speiser takes you on a mid-summer walk downtown, challenging you to see the artistry, accidental and intentional, vibrating in the urban landscape. Visit with Trinity Rep's artistic director Curt Columbus or managing director of Rites and Reason theatre, Karen Allen Baxter as they bring the dramatist's perspective to the distinctive artistic offerings of the city's best galleries. Listen to historian Nancy Austin as she shares her perspective on the past, present and future of the visual arts in Providence.

Join us each and every Gallery Night for thoughtful original guides and innovative exhibits. It's fun, it's inspiring and it's free!

Sept 16: 5-9pm

Themes/times/Guides:
5:30 pm Bicycle tour led by New Urban Arts director Jason Yoon
5:30 pm  Contemp./International Gallery Tour led by painter Nilton Cardenas
6 pm University Tour led by writer and jewelry designer Martina Windels
6 pm Emerging/Contemp. Tour led by Firehouse no.13 director Anna Shea
6:30 pm  Historic/Traditional Gallery Tour led by photographer Richard Benjamin
7 pm Artisan, Folk, and Craft Gallery Tour

BICYCLE TOURS:
The tour starts from One Regency Plaza at 5:30 pm. This month's Bicycle Tour guide is graphic designer Derek Schusterbauer

CELEBRITY TOURs:
Tour times are listed above. This month’s celebrities are photographer Richard Benjamin, artist Nilton Cardenas, Firehouse no. 13 director Anna Shea, and writer/jewelry designer Martina Windels.  Art Historian Nancy Austin leads a special tour from the Providence Atheneaum.

Nancy Austin is a scholar, artist, and public history activist based in Newport, Rhode Island. Her studio, Austin Alchemy, collaborates on experimental art projects that bridge historical scholarship, site-specific installations, an expanded notion of cultural tourism as an opportunity for public discourse, and the critical exploration of new location based technology. Nancy Austin received her Ph.D. from Brown University in 2009, and has taught at RISD, Yale, and WPI.  Reach her at Nancy@AustinAlchemy.com

Richard Benjamin is native Rhode Islander, born in Woonsocket. Benjamin’s career in photography started in 1957 when he received a camera as a high school graduation gift. He spent 2 1/2 years at Brown, and joined the Army in 1960. He was an Army photographer in Germany, with work published in Stars & Stripes. He left the Army in 1964 and worked for two out-of-state newspapers for a total of five years. Benjamin started as a staff photographer at the Providence Journal in 1969, and began showing work in galleries in 1990, specializing in images of Rhode Island. He began showing work exclusively at Picture This Framing Center and Gallery in 1993, Benjamin took early retirement from the Providence Journal in 1996 to freelance, and continues till this day.

Martina Windels is an award-winning designer and former faculty member of the Rhode Island School of Design, who owned Martina + Company, a gallery for contemporary jewelry for ten years.  Living in Providence, she writes about art, design and architecture.  Her articles have appeared in Art New England, American Craft Magazine, Metalsmith Magazine, and the Providence Journal.  She writes a  monthly column about art for East Side Monthly Magazine and has worked on arts programming for WRNI, the local NPR station.

ART DEMO BY CONSTANCE ALLEN AT THE REGENCY: Peace Mobiles: paper and mixed media

Constance Allen is a woman of a certain age who lives here in Providence in elderly housing. When Bush began talking War, it triggered a passion for peace and the peace symbol and a need to share it that has rule her life since. First came huge painted cardboard peace symbols wired to chain link on highway overpasses.  Then smaller painted peace symbols on skewers for the front yard and garden. Next came a professionally applied vinyl peace symbol for the roof of the car, visible to satellite cameras and drivers in tall vehicles on the road. Fast forward to red, white and blue paper plates with peace symbols painted on them, wired to the back of stop signs.  Somewhere in there came thousands of little plastic "talking soldiers" with a heart on the bottom of their boots reading "Bring me Home" which were left randomly to be found all over Providence.  And now, the spinning 3D peace symbol which, working like a prayer wheel, spins and sends love and peace wherever it is needed.  A "Flying Peace Tree in Bloom" mobile spun in the URI Providence Summer exhibit last year.  Now you can see the peace mobiles in the PAW windows on Washington Street in the URI Providence Campus Library windows.  PEACE RULES PASS IT ON! 

For more info call (401) 490-2042.