Adrian Muniz: This is Adrian Muniz and I am conducting an interview with Jay Critchley for Underground Rhode Island.
And, I just wanted to start off by asking you if you could tell us where you were born and a little bit about how you grew up?
Jay Critchley: Well, I was born in Connecticut, Forestville, Connecticut, which is part of Bristol, Southwest of Hartford. I’m from a large, Irish-Catholic American Family of nine children. I’m the oldest boy in the family so I have special status as being with expectations. And, um, what else did you want? Just basic about myself?
AM: yeah
JC: Ok. I had a really idyllic childhood. If I were ever to write a memoir it would be the most functionally—the most dysfunctional functional family. You know, we spent summers on an island in Long Island Sound that my aunt and uncle owned. There was no electricity or running water, it was very idyllic. I mean, we were like lower middle class, but we had aspirations and it was the fifties and, you know, it was very different. And, I went to a catholic high school, an Italian Catholic high school—I was one of the only non-Italians in high school. And, then I went to an all-male Catholic college, Fairfield University in Connecticut, at the time was all male. Majored in English Literature. Had no idea I was an artist, that came way later. Then I went—I was a VISTA volunteer for two years in Oregon. I worked with youth, set up a youth center there and just marveled at the amazing wilderness and mountains and culture of rural Oregon. And then I worked in Youth Services for a while and Human services for a while and then I moved to Provincetown, MA on Cape Cod and I’ve been there thirty years. And then I came—I was married when I came out. I have a son and I have two grandchildren. But I got divorced and I came out as a gay man and born again artist when I was 33. And I’ve been working as an artist, surviving as an artist for twenty-five years or so.
AM: And when you started doing your art, what were some of the earliest projects you were working on?
JC: Well, of course I didn’t realize I was an artist. I was working with sand, with different colors of sand. I’ve collected sand in the colored desert in Arizona and then I moved all these bags and boxes of sand with me to Connecticut and then up to Provincetown. I started collected sand in Provincetown and then I started encrusting things in sand. One of the first projects I did in 1981 was called “Just Visiting for the Weekend” which was a series of cars encrusted, filled, or different things I did with sand and then put them in the parking lot right on the waterfront so that people would pull into the parking lot and they’d see this encrusted station wagon or they’d see a sand family inside. And, you know, people would say, someone’s gonna trash the car, you should—you know, people discourage you from doing things which of course is the more reason to do it. So, for four different summers I did four different cars again each summer which is why I think of myself as a born again artist because I sort of refound myself at the age of 33. You know, I was like, I had found my calling, which was buried very deep inside me. It had been sort of buried under all these expectations bout what I was supposed to do in terms of employment and all that kind of stuff.
[00:04:58]
AM: And when did your work in Rhode Island start?
JC: Well, in 2000 I was invited to be a resident at AS220. I had met Burt years ago at a couple of New England artist conferences and he just called me out of the blue and said “we have this artist in residence program, would you like to be an artist in residence?” and I said “let me think about it.” And I decided that I wanted to do some video because I hadn’t really done any video and he said fine, so. In the meantime, in Provincetown I had rediscovered my backyard septic tank and I had turned it into a septic summer rental unit and then a theater in the ground with opera performances, drag poetry, art installations, music. So this small circular, beehive-shaped septic tank became reinvented magical space. And so, when I came to Providence, the concept of my residency was to look at the underground spaces in Providence and the underbelly of politics of the underbelly as well. And so, I began to explore and people would tell me and show me places and one of the places was the tunnel, the train tunnel, which at the time was open. Have you been in there?
AM: No.
JC: Well, you haven’t been here that long. But they just sealed it up about two years ago.
AM: And where is it?
JC: It runs from Benefit Street by the RISD museum, under Brown, to the river on Gano Street. So it runs right under the campus here. And it’s this magnificent sound chamber. It’s this arched tunnel with no columns in it and so it has a lot of, a lot of aural sensation in it. And I shot part of this little movie I did called “Providence Dirt Newsreel” which was based on black and white newsreels from the twenties to the fifties, voiceover black and white, but they were fictitious news stories. They were made up, but they were based in Providence. One of them was about Roger Williams for example. And, so anyway, I worked in the tunnel a little bit and became obsessed with it. You know, I kept coming back to Providence after my residency and I applied for a grant from the Rhode Island Foundation and was turned down and I applied again and then I got the grant. So, in the meantime, the Department of Transportation decided to seal the tunnels up so I had to come up with money for liability insurance and security and all these things to get back into the tunnel to do a project. You know, I’ll be doing a recording project with AS220, Broad Street Studio. Well, we’re in the process now of going into the tunnel and developing original material on the history of Rhode Island. That’s the concept, the people, history and places of Rhode Island. So, this, the participants, these teenagers are investigating various historical events, characters from pre-colonial, colonial, slavery issues, all the way to the present.
AM: And who are the kids you’re working with?
JC: Well, Broad Street Studio is a program for kids who have been incarcerated, kids who have been in a training school and this is a training program so it’s based on the arts. There’s four or five different projects at Broad Street Studio, one is a visual arts project; the other is called “Truth” which is a writing project which includes publishing a magazine; there’s the “Rhode Show” which is a performance based group, they all write original material; the “sisters” project which is women, young women, they’ve done a lot of interviewing projects as well. So, I’m working with the different groups at Broad Street and we’re all collaborating and generating ideas for this project which will include a DVD, a website; visuals as well as recordings.
[00:09:57]
AM: Well it sounds like you’ve got your hands in a lot down at AS220 and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you see its role is here in Providence and what kind of work is they do?
JC: What the role of AS220? Well, AS220 is very unique and amazing organization. Burt Kranka is the director and he has amazing persistence, vision, and a sense of humor about the world which helped to create this program which is expanding. I mean, it includes—they now have another building where they’re creating artists studios. But I think that AS220 is a laboratory for artists of all kind; the galleries are open to anyone, there’s not curatorial selection of artists. It’s the same with some of the performance nights; people sign up, no one has to make a judgment of how good you are or how you would define that. And, you know, I think it’s a real significant force in the city as far as providing alternative music space, space for music, a space for people to gather. And, you know, it was just renovated so now they have a little restaurant in the space—I don’t know if you’ve been down there recently. They have an expanding gallery, a larger performance space, plus they have programs for residential artists. So, as far as I can tell it’s the key to the arts district, you know, the renaissance city arts district. AS220 is the place that’s open all the time; it’s got something going on, like, every day. So, I think its sort of a key to the arts scene in Providence.
AM: And in your relationship with AS220, how much of your work now is supported by that, and supported by the organization and how much is supported by your own personal...
JC: Well, the grant from the Rhode Island Foundation is a very small grant, and that’s providing for the tunnel trade, it’s called the “Providence Tunnel Trading Post,” the idea of a training post being a place where people and different cultures and money and economics and goods forms like a crossroads. So, this is just one project that I’m doing. I just come in for a day or two every couple of weeks. I’m doing many other projects in Provincetown and other places.
AM: And, how far along are you on the trading post project?
JC: Well, we’ve been meeting since the fall. I’ve been meeting with the different groups and each of the groups within broad street is meeting with their students and coming up with ideas and I think we’re planning on going into the tunnel in July, early July, for a few days. And that will be a time to experience the tunnel, do experimental things, see what the sound is like, test the equipment out, do some technical things, get inspiration. And then there’ll be a couple of months where material will be developed and then we’ll go back in September and actually do the recordings, which will then be brought back to production studio for mixing and editing and post-production. So its, you know, a year project or more.
[00:14:11]
AM: And, how is it, working—you said that Broad Street studio—this project specifically is working with children who have been incarcerated and things like that, how much of that influences the work being done? What’s it like working with those kinds of kids?
JC: Well, I haven’t worked a lot with them yet; I’ve mostly been meeting with the staff. I have met a little with each of the groups. I can’t really say. I mean, I’ve worked with teenagers a lot in the past, but I can’t say with this particular group, what it would be like.
AM: What are some of the other projects you’ve worked with kids on?
JC: Well, I formed a youth center in Cottage Grove Oregon when I was a VISTA volunteer and a drop-in center, kind of drug counseling center in Bristol, CT, and I was a director of a youth program in Southington, Connecticut, and when I moved to Provincetown I worked on a number of youth projects there, and as an artist I worked in Hartford, CT, with a group of teenagers, actually junior high school kids, that were—and this is back, like ten years ago—they were given cameras and condoms and they went around and took pictures of their family and friends and people on the street holding condoms, and so we met each week and they brought their photos back and we made this big collage using the map of Connecticut. We collaged all the photos in, and we called it Conndom-Nation, C-O-N-N-D-O-M. And, there was a poster with information and stuff. I guess that was the last formal project I worked on with kids.
AM: What were some of the other projects you worked on at AS220 before this one?
JC: Just—I worked on the “Dirt Providence Newsreel” which I mentioned. I explored underground spaces in the city and a whole group of artists and videographers and actors met on a weekly basis and developed these stories and were shot throughout the city.
AM: What were some of the stories?
[00:16:50]
JC: There’s a story called “Foxwoods Loves Roger Williams.” You know, Foxwoods is the big casino, so this was like... it was a fictitious story that Foxwoods employed the image of Roger Williams, ironically, to boost sales, for the promotion of the casino as sort of a payback to being ripped off as Native Americans. And so, we had someone playing Roger Williams and we filmed these protests in front of the state house that Roger Williams’ name was being dragged into the mud and this was, like, outrageous that anyone would take this icon and use him as a promotion for a casino. So... And then I actually went to Foxwoods and filmed some footage there, luckily I didn’t get caught. So, that was one short. They’re all three or four minutes each. Another one—I think my favorite one‚—well, one of my favorites is called “Providence Place Mall Prison.” Providence Place Mall was built on the oldest prison in Rhode Island, and, so I had the idea that... we would, it would be a training school for people who were being incarcerated, they needed to learn how to shop. And so, the school was located in the mall itself, and the logo of the project was “cell to sell,” c-e-l-l to s-e-l-l. So, it basically was a video of all these kids going through the mall. Again, they’ll throw you out if you tape in there (in fact, I did get caught once), you know on their cell phones on the time. On their cell phones up and down the escalators and everything playing those games and, you know, the shooting games and stuff in the video gallery. And then, just, you know, teaching the teachers how to—teaching each other how to shop and then putting the logo “cell to sell” on their hats and different objects and wearing them on their foreheads and the back of the jackets and everything. So it was kind of funny and it was like a comment on surveillance and post-911 kind of issues. So, those are two of them, do you want to hear the four?
[00:20:05]
AM: Uh, yeah, yeah.
JC: Ok, the other one was called “Genius Artist at Large” and it was sort of spoof of when Cianci was mayor and this was like the renaissance city was like the city would hire an artist to make the next major artwork, the next Mona Lisa. Like, they were gonna hire this artist and make him a studio and they were gonna make the renaissance city shine. So they hire this, they select this artist and he spends weeks and weeks trying to make this master work and he unveils it at this ceremony. And, basically it’s just a round, one of those smiley faces without a smile and that’s the painting. So when it’s unveiled at this at this big ceremony—the mayor is there and all these people and everything—when it’s unveiled there’s a riot and everyone starts throwing food and charging the stage and everything. And he sneaks out and the mayor sneaks out—and he sneaks out a side entrance and disappears and it’s like, what happened to him? And we see him in underground spaces like the old Masonic building that is being—not the Masonic, but the veterans building which is being rebuilt next to the capital. So we see him in different places and thinking “what happened to the genius artist? And then we see the image on the graffiti wall on the face and we say that he lives, so he’s gone underground. And then the last one is called the “Chicken and the Chip.” The “Chicken and the Chip” is about this Rhode Island rooster—that’s the state bird—that has a chip implanted in its brain as part of an experiment at the University of Rhode Island and that the chicken starts spouting Biblical quotes and sayings from the bible and starts appearing. And so, Juanita, who was working for an advertising agency, was programming the video advertisements for gasoline pumps, those little screens on gasoline pumps? Well, they’re activated by advertisements. And so she goes to work and she fills up at the gas stations, and while she’s watching the video this chicken appears and starts quoting the bible. And so, she’s all freaked out and when she gets to work all her customers are calling and saying, “What’s going on? All our advertisements are being interrupted by this gonzo chicken.” So she sets out to try and find this chicken, so she goes around to different places and she finally goes to the butcher shop on Atwell’s street. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in there, its like, it’s filled with live chickens and rabbits and it’s a wild scene in there. People go in and pick their chickens out and then they actually, like, chop their head off and feather them and prepare them for people right on the spot. So, she goes in and just as she gets there—and by this time she’s become mesmerized by the chicken, so she’s starting to think that maybe there’s a lot of truth to what the chicken—the chicken keeps interrupting her on her handheld, like, quoting the bible and everything. So when she gets there the chicken’s head is cut off, so she’s all sad. So they go and take the chicken and they take it out and they bury it out by the drawbridge—the rusted draw bridge at the tunnel. And then she goes back to the gas station where they advertised that you get a free chicken sandwich, so she gets a free chicken sandwich and she’s eating a free chicken sandwich as she goes through the car wash. And the chicken is being quoted in the back, apparently.
AM: Funny. Well, you said that you don’t live in Rhode Island, so I was wondering if you could comment on what you see as what makes the art scene that you’ve dabbled in here, if it is, unique from anywhere else. Or what you see—if you can comment on the art scene in Rhode Island.
[00:25:20]
JC: Right, well, first of all it’s a lot expensive here than in Massachusetts, like Cape Cod or Boston, a lot less expensive. I mean, I know that that’s changing. But, I mean, even food. Like this morning I got a croissant and egg and cheese for like $1.92. That’s unbelievable, that would be four, five dollars anywhere else. And its, you know, providence is—Providence has always been from my point of view—from people that I know have always sort of laughed at Providence. It was this little run-down city you have to get through to get to Boston or the Cape or to New York or whatever. And now, it’s really establishing its identity and all the things that are going on with the downtown and the artist scene. Its so—it’s really like a small town here. I mean, I spent a lot of time in Boston, and Boston you can’t compare because it’s a much bigger city. There’s so much turf wars, and people hold on to their turf in Boston, and I know that happens here but its on a much smaller scale. I mean, you can walk into the cultural office, meet with the—people are accessible here. You know, last time I was here I met with someone I met from RISD and they said, “come on over.” This is unheard of anywhere, especially in a city, people are like booked, booked, booked, or it makes them feel important when they don’t have any time, so its much more laid back here, I’ve noticed. And there’s a big music scene. I mean, AS220 is right in the middle of it. One thing that I’ve always thought was funny, and I don’t know if they still do it here is when the bars close at night at two in the morning and the police have all of their lights, their flashing lights on downtown and they force everyone out of the city. They won’t allow anyone to hang out on the street, or to drive around or whatever. I mean, I know they’re trying to stop prostitution, they’re trying to stop cruising, they’re trying to stop whatever, but its so strange. Have you noticed that?
AM: I don’t hang out downtown much, not when everything is closing.
JC: Because I was living at AS220, so I was right downtown and they had their flashing lights on. And the cars have to go a certain way to get out of the city. Streets are blocked off so you cant drive down, its like... very strange.
AM: Do you think that there’s—does that relationship work as well with artists and—you mentioned that artists here have much more opportunities because its such a smaller city than a place like Boston or New York. Do you think that the relationship with that is changing with the greater police presence in the city?
JC: No, I don’t think—the police is just a side comment. I don’t know that much about the police department. I mean, I think obviously gentrification is happening in Providence with some of the mill buildings are being turned into commercial spaces and artists are being kicked out and that’s a problem. I mean, you know, its just that its happening here a lot later than in other places. So, I think that’s a big concern for people in the city, is what’s gonna be the future of the arts community here if it gets overpriced and the spaces, are, you know, its commercialized.
AM: What do you think will happen?
[00:29: 40]
JC: Well, money always talks. There’s a strong political will by the city to create incentives and create ways for buildings to be preserved. I mean, its happening somewhat in Boston I know, certain buildings in Port Channel are being renovated for artist’s studios. You know, it takes leadership of the city to negotiate with landlords and not push for commercial developments. You know, who has the voice? Whose voice do you listen to? So, its a political issue as well.
AM: I wanted to ask a couple of questions just about your perspective as an artist on your art. And how much of your growing up and your childhood influences what you do today?
JC: Well, I would say a lot. First of all, I was surrounded by girls and, you know, they spent a lot of time trying clothes on and talking on the phone and I was kind of like isolated—I actually had a little room of my own even though they were some of them three in a room, so I was out collecting popsicle sticks and shells and making things. Being on the island, this amazing, very small island off Niantic—my aunt and uncle owned it and they let us stay there all summer. My uncle was a very major influence on me. He worked with his hands—he could do anything with his hands, all hand tools because there was no electricity. There was this big run-down house we moved into every summer and we had to build foundations, rock walls, septic tanks, the whole, you know, all with hand tools and I was always working with him. And that was amazing, that was how I learned to work with my hands, work with materials. And, other than that, things like religion, you know, raised Catholic certainly had a major influence on my world view. You know, so music—we sang professionally, barber shop music, four-part harmony.
AM: Was this you and your siblings?
JC: Yeah, so, I was on national television on the “Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour” in 1958, two different times with my sisters singing. So we had a strong musical tradition in the family and I’ve actually incorporated music in some of my work and performances and things. I don’t think I mentioned it, but I created a CD—I produced a CD of music and sound recording in the Big Dig tunnel in Boston. I brought a whole bunch of people and musicians into the tunnel before it opened and, you know, everything from opera to folk music to just recording sounds. And then all those sounds were given to producers and there were six different producers tracks based on those sounds on the tunnel, everything from dance tracks to ambient sound. And, it was called the “Big Twig” because it had an ecological response to the Big Dig which is about honoring the automobile. So a lot of my work is ecological and I think that has a lot to do with spending time every summer on this island. I mean, back then we lived on clams and fish. Of course, there are no clams and fish left there anymore, very little. So a lot of my work really does have an ecological base to it. And that’s why I live in Provincetown. Its right on the ocean there are sand dunes...
AM: Yeah, well this big dig project is the second thing you’ve talked about that’s incorporating tunnels. So, is this a theme that you want to explore more? Or—
JC: —obsession. [Laughter] Well, I think it comes from my interest in the earth, you know. Originally, when I started working again as a born-again artist I started working with sand, you know. Encrusting sand, colored sand, earth, things in the ground. So, its logical that, I mean, that I would go underground, go into the ground. And why was my abandoned septic tank in my backyard not filled in like everyone else’s in town. I had a new title 5 environmentally system put in twenty years ago. They’re supposed to fill in so people don’t fill into them and why was mine not filled in? I discovered it twenty years later and it changed my life. I mean, it just—is that a coincidence? I don’t know. So I just like the whole idea of the underground, the underbelly, the subconscious, going into the unknown. The underground has a magical quality to it, and, so its like the idea of digging deeper underneath the surface of things and... getting to more of the truth about the world.
[00:36:14]
AM: So do you see that as being a big part of what you hope to do with the tunnel underneath Providence?
JC: The idea of the tunnel is to find some truth in the history, in some of the history that’s examined, to reclaim the truth about the stories, about what happened in a space where—in an underground space that has a history of its own. It actually could become like a sacred space, the tunnel. And it also has connections, conceptually, with the Underground Railroad. So it has the whole history of Rhode Island in the way that it dealt with slavery and free slaves and all that. So, conceptually it has a lot of resonance.
AM: And do you think that this historical perspective is something that’s lacking? Or do you see this as part of a larger trend within other things happening in the art community?
JC: I don’t, I don’t—I think Providence, in the last few years that I’ve had a connection here, has been dealing—the slavery issue has been a big deal here. Four years ago, no one was talking about it, at least from my perspective. Actually, was it six years ago? Yeah, its been six years, I keep saying four years. So, you know, I don’t know if its a trend in the art community, no. Not to my knowledge. Not anymore than just investigating an issue and finding out the source of the idea, or the source of the technology, or material and then how its been used and then how it can be manipulated. And, you know, I’ve always been interested in history, for sort of reclaiming, reinventing history, including iconic monuments and, like the Statue of Liberty and the Pilgrim monument, the American flag. All those images, all those things I’ve used or worked with as an artist, visually, sort of reclaiming, re-identifying what their significance is.
AM: And what do you think keeps you working in Providence? You live in Massachusetts, in Provincetown is a bit of a ways away, so what keeps you coming back here to AS220?
JC: Well, you could go bonkers living in Provincetown all the time, its isolated. Well, I actually like the isolation. Well, because its a workable place, and I mean, I found a little niche here. I feel a natural affinity to Burt and to AS220 and their world view, and how the world is viewed and how—the open process that it works with and how that works. There seems to be some kind of symbiotic connection there and I’m just going intuitively and working that way.
AM: You mentioned some of the changes that are happening atAS220. Do you think that its detracted from its mission at all? The fact that its opened a restaurant and artist spaces. Or do you think that this is just a continuation of a greater purpose?
JC: Well, there always was a little restaurant there run by the staff. I think they have a contract with a little restaurant to do the food. No, I don’t think the mission has changed at all. The space is larger, its more functional now, you can have a quiet space and a music space. Plus now they’re adding the—is it the Dreiser building? I mentioned there’s a building around the corner that they’re turning into artist studios so that’s expanding the creation of artist’s spaces downtown. I don’t think the mission has—its evolving, no.
AM: Do you think you could see a Providence without AS220?
[00:41:39]
JC: Oh, that would be boring.
AM: How so?
JC: Well, because its such an essential element in a lot of, you know—especially the performance—I mean, Broad Street Studios deals with a very essential issues and projects with young people. Residences provide a very inexpensive studio for artists. Plus, you’ve got the whole idea of a community. I mean, people can collaborate. The collaboration is an important thing that I haven’t even mentioned. You know, you’re looking for someone who knows something about graphic design, you need someone to do recordings, you’ve got someone whose a musician, someone’s a writer. You ask them and then, boom, there they are. Its just this network of synergy. It would definitely be missed, oh yeah.
AM: You’ve been there for six years now...
JC: Well, visiting for six years—
AM: —well, visiting. Any interesting stories you could mention? You mentioned some of the projects that sounded pretty interesting, but anything worthwhile that’s happened in the six years? Anything memorable?
JC: Things that stand out? Well, yeah, when I was living at AS220, I was across the street from the strip club the Blue—what is it? The Blue Lady?
AM: Is it the Satin Lady?
JC: Satin Lady! The Satin Lady, I was across the street from it and I was always looking out my window and it was—there was so much going on out there, especially at night. There’d be little people making connections with each other and then there was an alleyway under the building that people hung out on. I actually was down there a couple of times when one of the strippers got stuck in her car in the snow and I was helping her move. So that was kind of fun, to have that little urban element. Another really significant event was going into this underground tomb.
AM: Which tomb?
JC: Well, I cant really say where it is. But its amazing, it was for the newsreel project. And actually I have an edit for one newsreel project I have not edited, I have the footage from it. It was based on H.P. Lovecraft and there’s this amazing underground, large, very large, mortuary that’s closed. Its locked up. But someone told me about it, and I went in there and its like, wow. Its built into a hillside, and there’s two—there’s one chamber when you walk in and maybe about thirty, forty feet by twenty feet. And by either side are long rooms with stacked places for caskets. Like maybe three high, and twenty long on either side. So you’ve two on either side, and two on the other side. And then in the back there’s the most interesting space because it goes into the ground, its like a grotto area, its like dirt space that goes into the ground. So we snuck in there one night. It was all planned to do a video shoot and it was cold so we had to bring light in there and everything and we had to get in there and get out without getting caught and so we did. That space is—I actually have to go in there again, I haven’t been in a while. And the food fight was so much fun, the food fight in the video, in the “Genius Artist at Large” was fun. And I mean, I’m not a city boy, so, like, going to—having that shopping mall there, you wanna love it, you wanna hate it. That’s what inspired me to do the piece. You know, you could just walk over there and see a movie sometimes and, you know, its like, in a city like—I live in Provincetown and there’s nothing open. You can’t buy a videotape, you can’t buy underwear, there’s nothing. You have to drive to Hyannis fifty miles to get anything. So, anyway, that was part of the experience of being here, just being in a city where everything is at your fingertips.
[00:47:23]
AM: Do you think you might come back?JC: Well, I keep coming back. I mean, and some of my friends have moved here from Provincetown, actually. So, yeah, I mean, I have a real connection here and I think this project is going to involve a lot of people, this “Providence Trading Post.” So I’m looking forward to meeting new people, and bringing more artists into the project because more artists will be invited into the project once we establish the structure of the project other artists can come into the tunnel.
AM: And the stuff that’s in the tunnel, is that gonna stay up for a while? Or is the stuff there going to be documented and taken elsewhere?
JC: That’s a good question. I think both. I think some things will probably be permanent, and some things of value will probably be taken out. Yeah, I mean the whole tunnel is filled with graffiti so its not, so I’m sure some things will be pained on the wall. But we’ll use projections and performances ambient sounds and all kinds of things.
AM: And how many artists are you planning to invite?
JC: There’s about 50 participants in Broad Street with the staff and everything, so there’s about 50-60 people. And then, once we go in and do an initial creative—create some material in there then the intention is to invite other artists in and then maybe even collaborate with some Broad Street participants as phase two of the project, you know, something like that. And then we would allow other artists to come in and do something with this amazing space.
AM: And do you plan on doing anything like this with any other spaces here, because there seem to be a few like that?
JC: Oh really? Tell me.
AM: Well, you mentioned a couple already—
JC: Well, I’d love to do something in this abandoned tomb, yes. That would be an incredible idea. And, you know, the other thing is, the tunnel—there’s some potential for reuse for the tunnel. That’s sort of a larger vision for the tunnel project, is that I’m exploring the idea of redeveloping--of redevelopment plans and visionary plans for the reuse of the tunnel.
AM: Would that not take away from its artistic use as a space for the project as it is now?
JC: As it is now, yes. But that doesn’t mean that it cant evolve or that it cant—you know, the sky’s the limit. That’s a kind of long term visionary kind of exploration. It has to do with issues of what is a city, what is architecture, what is art, what does the city of the future look like? How do we reinvent and re-imagine historic structures that are within the city? Like in New York we’ve got the high-rise—the high line, do you know about the highway, the elevated highway that they’re turning into a park? New York has the high line, Providence could have the low line.
AM: That sounds like an ambitious project to undertake.
JC: Slightly.
AM: Well, I hope to see the end result of that.
JC: You’re going to be here for at least another year.
AM: Yes, I am. But I’ve got nothing else to ask you. I feel like I’ve got a good sense of what you’re doing here. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we end? Or...
[00:52:10]
AM: Or anything you haven’t mentioned yet?
JC: Oh, I bet I could think of a lot of things. No, I’m just excited about the project. I like collaborating and bringing energy together, bringing people together without having an idea of what’s going to come out of it. Its a challenge and that’s what makes it fun. You know, I don’t know what the final—I mean, who knows? That’s part of the creative process. Of course, when you’re working with lots of institutions, with the city, with the legal stuff, with the lawyers and the liability insurance its kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. I guess I like doing that, to see how the pieces will fit together. It really is ultimately about creating community, and creating interactions with people and their skills and ideas and interests. I think, ultimately, that’s what its about.