The gallery at Block Island Airport, a partnership between the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) and the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC), announced the opening of its winter exhibit featuring works by Providence’s Heather McMordie. The exhibition runs through mid-May.
Heather McMordie is an artist, educator and curator based in Providence. Through prints, puzzles, artistic books and interactive installations, her work explores the complexities of soil science and environmental restoration.
With this collection of works, McMordie suggests that understanding complex ecosystems like salt marshes necessitates constant shifts in our perspective. The different perspectives presented here are just a fraction of the ways we can approach a landscape. How can you reposition yourself to see new aspects of your surroundings?
GREEN SPACE Gallery at TF Green International Airport, a partnership between the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) and the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC), announced the opening of its winter exhibit featuring works by John Chamberlin, Rafael Medina and Masha Ryskin, all are from Providence. The exhibit runs through mid-May.
John Chamberlin taught for 31 years at RISD in the Department of Teaching and Learning in Art + Design, retiring in 2019. Around 2014, John began taking lessons in quilt making and has since made more than 120 quilts. He has traded several, sold a few, and donated to both St. Mary’s Home for Children, and the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Foundation. The remainder have been donated to Rhode Island Child Family Services, who distributes them to foster children.
Rafael Medinais a Dominican-American street photographer whose work seeks to see past skylines and popular buildings to explore the crevices of the city, finding those brief moments and overlooked spaces that reveal the narrative of a place. Rafael is also a well-known portrait, event and concert photographer.
Masha Ryskin is a Russian-born immigrant artist. She received an academic art education in painting in Moscow, Soviet Union, followed by a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the University of Michigan. Her recent projects, both individual and collaborative, focus on the ambiguity of a sense of place and displacement through landscape, and its elements and the direct experience of the environment.
The 2023 exhibitors for the Block Island Gallery were chosen by panelists Lois Harada, Providence, and Jon Baylor, Wakefield.
Congratulations to our Todd Trebour, acting deputy director of RISCA, who was just named as a Fellow to the highly competitive Professionals Learning About Community, Equity and Sustainability (PLACES) Fellowship, a program of The Funders Network (TFN).
Todd, selected from a national pool of experienced leaders, joins 15 other fellows who together will hone the leadership skills needed to better incorporate equity and social justice into grant making and community engagement practices.
The PLACES curriculum includes coaching, learning and discussions on structural racism, community empowerment and equitable grant-making practices. In addition to a year-long of study, Todd’s participation will include four site visits to key communities throughout the United States and Canada. The sites are immersed in social justice work.
“On behalf of the selection committee, comprised entirely of PLACES alumni, and TFN’s PLACES team, including Equity Programs Manager Talissa Lahaliyed and the PLACES Advisory Board, join me in congratulating these outstanding 2023 PLACES Fellows,” said Dion Cartwright, Senior Director of Equity Initiatives and Leadership Development at The Funders Network.
“We are grateful to The Funders Network PLACES program for recognizing Todd as a leader in equitable grantmaking and including him in this class of amazing practitioners. The new relationships he will build and strategies for implementing positive and systematic improvements that he will learn, will not only propel him forward as a leader, but have impact on how we as an agency, and as a community, continue to build an arts and cultural ecosystem of belonging.” said Lynne McCormack, Executive Director.
“I can’t wait for this opportunity as a 2023 PLACES fellow to embed the values of racial, social and economic equity more deeply into our work at RISCA” Todd said.
The Funders Network vision is to cultivate generations of courageous philanthropic leaders who are engaged, emboldened, and equipped to bring about a just society. For the past two decades, The Funders Network has helped members advance shared learning, develop best practices, create policy agendas, support policy reforms and improve outcomes in communities across the U.S. and Canada — addressing issues of deep relevance to people and place.
Todd’s bio
Todd Trebour is the acting Deputy Director of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA). Todd started at RISCA in 2018 and currently manages the agency’s support for organizations, including grants, programs and services. His prior arts management positions include working as the Program Coordinator for the Arts Extension Service at UMass, Amherst, a national arts service organization and the arts management program at the University; and managing director at Chester Theatre Company in Chester, Mass. Before transitioning into arts management, Todd worked as a freelance operatic performer in Texas, Massachusetts, Halifax, NS, and many points in between.
Todd received his bachelor’s in Music Performance from Whitman College, his master’s in music in Voice from Rice University, and his Core Certificate in Arts Management from the Arts Extension Service at UMass, Amherst. Currently, Todd is an Americans for the Arts’ State Arts Advocacy Captain for Rhode Island, and a member and volunteer with the West Broadway Neighborhood Association. He is also an adjunct faculty member with Goucher University’s master’s in arts administration program.
About PLACES
PLACES — which stands for Professionals Learning About Community, Equity and Sustainability — uses learning, coaching and reflections to explore structural racism, community engagement and equitable grantmaking practices.
We envision that all graduates will have a deep understanding of the following concepts:
Personal leadership development
Equity, inclusiveness and smart growth principles
Understanding the constructs of race and racialization
Collaborative grantmaking and community engagement to increase equity in philanthropy.
Influencing the field and encouraging change in culture and equitable practices through leadership and action
