& ART CULTURE

Building Blocks

With LEGO renderings, Andy Grover toys with long standing perceptions of which buildings are deemed worthy of reverence

Andy Grover has been getting a lot of buzz as the Rhode Island LEGO artist and for good reason. The Providence born-and-bred resident’s constructs in interlocking plastic bricks have garnered publicity, commission work, and grants, but there’s a strong message behind his playful medium: layers of classism and racism revealed in which structures are revered or neglected by the powers that be.

“Public school buildings are the most underrated part of our cultural fabric,” he says. “Why aren’t places like Cranston East considered to be landmark structures when The Breakers is?” he says. “I don’t think that question is as clear cut as it might seem. They’re both beautiful and historic. Did somebody rich have to live there, is that what you mean?”

When Alice Briney-Rockswold, literacy coach at Carl G. Lauro Elementary School, approached Grover to realize her workplace in LEGOs, it aligned with his mission perfectly. As with all projects, Grover spent much time at the expansive 1927-built school originally named Kenyon Street School, taking many dozens of photographs from each angle. “You have to decide what makes this building a building; the rest is gesture,” he explains about his process.

Grover was also treated to a tour of the school by children and notes experiencing “lovely engaged students, a school with order, and for teachers – pedagogy 101 being done at a masterful level. There was life in the building.” Sadly, honoring the building in LEGOs and even getting media attention was not enough to save the elementary school, slated to close after its funding was dramatically cut. “Part of this message is to stop looking at these buildings with classist eyes.” |

By Elyse Major

With the Emergence Oracle Deck, artist Joanna Read transforms paintings into a spiritual journey

At first, Joanna Read had modest aspirations for her Oracle Deck. “I thought maybe I’d just print 10 copies at Staples,” she remembers. “But it took on a consciousness of its own. So I went all out.”

The Emergence Oracle Deck has been a kind of spiritual apogee for Read, an artist and wellness consultant based in East Providence. Like a tarot deck, the cards bear symbolic images, which guide the user through soul-searching exercises. Unlike the 78-card tarot, Emergence contains 63 cards, which depict a wide range of living organisms, mythic creatures, and natural artifacts. There’s also no established protocol for using the Oracle Deck.

“I’ve laid out a few suggestions,” says Read. “The ultimate invitation is for these suggestions to be starting points. Go ahead and make your own! Let it be fun!”

Read grew up on a bucolic farm in Essex, Massachusetts, where she interacted daily with her family’s animals, such as peacocks and donkeys. She loved drawing and journaling, and her natural creativity led to a BFA in studio arts at UMASS Amherst. She interned at a gallery in Rockport and fell in love with silk painting, which she regularly practiced for more than 10 years. “It was more craft to me than fine art,” she says.

Since then, there have been many chapters to Read’s life: She served as a publicist for the Rockport Art Association. She worked as a membership assistant for the Providence Children’s Museum. She was a program coordinator for the Rhode Island Foundation. She managed a coworking space. She learned to rock climb and now

Read in her studio teaches others to ascend cliffs. She’s been a prolific yoga instructor since 2016.

But through it all, Read continued to paint, and her paintings gradually took on personal significance. She created a multi-hued phoenix flying overhead. During COVID, she painted a sea turtle encircled by schools of fish, then an owl, a bull, and a photorealistic hawk. Each image was saturated in color and texture, even as she expanded to mandalas, landscapes, and cosmic abstractions.

“I wanted to get back to my time in art school,” she says. “I had no idea how much I was doing things for approval. Now I was making symbols that people could relate to on a transpersonal level.”

When Read started her Kickstarter campaign, it became clear just how many people related to her Emergence project. She busted her $7,000 fundraising goal, for a total of $8,772. Now she had the capital to print and package the Oracle Deck on a large scale.

Read received her shipment of printed decks in mid-December, which she now vends from her longstanding Etsy shop as well as in local stores. Read won’t prescribe meaning to her icons; it’s up to the user to decipher the three mountain cards, the four cards of butterflies pushing out of their chrysalises, or the 26 cards showing birds in flight. Cosmology aside, Emergence is like a portable art portfolio, showcasing the full breadth of Read’s vision.

“The Oracle Deck was a reawakening for me,” says Read. “It’s like you marry different parts of your brain. I just knew that there was something ready to emerge.” Learn more at JoannaRead.com