13 Highlights of 2023

Archival Work

This spring I began my first real archiving project since getting my master’s degree: processing the institutional records of Providence Public Library in advance of its 150th anniversary. This was a surprisingly big project that allowed me to work with paper records as well as photographs, architectural drawings, publications, and other ephemera dating back to the 1870s that had been stored but never really organized. 

In November, I began work as an Archival Field Fellow for the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board. I’m currently working part-time in the town of Lincoln, processing and arranging approximately two centuries worth of records relating to one of the town’s founding families. This is a short-term project running through the end of January, and I’m excited to see what happens next. 

Scandalous Conduct

In February I was awarded a Mini Grant from Rhode Island Council for the Humanities to travel to the National Archives in Washington, DC. The Archives holds several thousand pages related to the 1919 Newport Navy Sex Scandal, a homophobic and strange sting operation that my partner Jason Tranchida and I have been researching for four years now. The grant afforded us the opportunity to visit Washington in August–the heat was not unbearable!–and finally complete our research into the scandal, with Jason photographing nearly 2000 pages of material during our visit. 

In June I traveled to Prince Edward Island to present at the annual meeting of the Association of Canadian Archivists. This year’s theme was Belonging, and I was part of a panel called Artists in the Archives. I walked through our four-year, pandemic-interrupted research process and highlighted the unspoken disconnect between archives and artists who lack the archival literacy to effectively conduct research. Jason and I also presented our research process to a class of RISD students in April.

In September Jason and I spent a week living in eighteenth century barracks as part of the inaugural Rose Island Artist Residency. We made cyanotypes, read reports, and met nightly by the fire with five other artists on an island in Narragansett Bay that actually served as a torpedo filling station during World War I.

Probably the biggest highlight of my year was presenting Scandalous Conduct: Punks & Pogues, a staged reading at The Wilbury Theatre Group here in Providence. We used material collected this summer in Washington to develop a 90-minute primary source narrative about the Newport scandal, and spent the following two days to record our actors in the studio. 

Writing

In January, before I began the archiving project, Providence Public Library hired me to create a timeline of queer history in Rhode Island. I went through records in the Library’s LGBTQ+ Community Archive (where I’m also an advisory board member) and pulled together a timeline dating back to 1947, when the queer nightclub Mirabar first opened its doors in the city of Woonsocket.

In March I wrote for the archivist journal Archivaria, reviewing the artist trio General Idea’s expansive 2022 exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada.  It’s my first publishing credit in an academic journal so I’m pretty excited that it was accepted, and also that the journal still exists in print form. (PDF)

I only got to write a bit about art this year. Aside from the Archivaria article, I interviewed Providence artist hernán dario jourdan about their installation in the storefront window of the Dirt Palace in Olneyville.

Headmaster

Jason and I kept busy with our queer art publication Headmaster this year, and in mid-December we received artwork for the final project for our upcoming tenth issue, which will be released in early spring 2024. In November we presented once again at the Boston Art Book Fair, where we released a new suite of six prints. 

Miscellaneous

I continued to do some side marketing and PR work for local nonprofits. What Cheer Flower Farm’s Bouquet-a-thon appeared on local news in February, and in May the Farm’s ambitious expansion efforts made the front page of the Providence Journal. That above-the-fold story actually appeared on my birthday, which was a great gift. 

I spent very little time on stage this year, but artist J.R. Uretsky was nice enough to invite me (twice!) to assist with their performance Good Grief, first at Providence Public Library and later at the RISD Museum. 

My other stage moment came in November, when I spoke with writer Joanne McNeil about her new novel Wrong Way at the Providence bookstore Riffraff. 

If you read this far, thank you! If you’re a Spotify user, here’s a playlist of my favorite tracks of the year.