Come One, Come All to the 2nd Annual Main Street Candle Light Stroll. Tonight from 5-7:30pm, join Main St. businesses, artists, shoppers and the community as we stroll up and down Main St. enjoying and spreading Holiday cheer. There will be ice sculpting, a gingerbread house contest, business specials, a Winter Wonderland Marketplace and a raffle, among many ways to have holiday fun. So please come out and support Main St and stroll with us!

The RiverzEdge crew jumping for joy over our National award

December 2nd, 5-7pm
68 S. Main St, Woonsocket >

Activites include:

• - potluck dinner
• - cheesy holiday outfit contest
• - dessert contest
• - raffle with awesome prizes
• - ornament making
• - DIY screen-printing
• - holiday fun photobooth
• - toy and food drive

RSVP on Facebook >

Please join the board, staff, youth and families of RiverzEdge for our holiday extravaganza and celebrate RiverzEdge being named one of the top 15 youth arts programs in the U.S.

Parallel Lines on a Slow Decline is an exhibition of new work by Brad Fesmire on view at the Providence and Worcester Depot. The 11 paintings in the show take its inspiration from train imagery and post-modernist painting. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, November 18th from 6-8pm. The exhibition will be open to the public Monday through Friday from 9am-5pm and will be on view through February 28th, 2011. The Providence and Worcester Depot is located at One Depot Square in Woonsocket and is also the offices of the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor.

Dunn Park Mural Revised

Proposed design for the 8' by 200' Dunn Park Mural

In an effort to curb the graffiti and vandalism in Dunn Park, The Our Neighborhoods Project through NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley and the Woonsocket Police Department have teamed up with RiverzEdge Arts Project to design and paint an 8ft by 200ft mural to be completed in the Spring of 2010. With resident input and ideas, the youth artists and designers at RiverzEdge created a design that incorporated many of the residents great ideas into a mural that will promote the responsible use of the park and deter graffiti and other undesirable behaviors in the park. We hope to include the residents of the neighborhood in the actual painting of mural in the Spring and create a renewed sense of pride and accomplishment in the park and their home.

Ainsley Morriseau prints her own "Woonsocket Rocket" t-shirt with the help of Niko Aponte

From the mural on Main St., to the new art bike racks around the City, Woonsocket is quickly becoming a destination, not only for it’s rich cultural history, but for it’s contemporary contributions to art and design as well.

On Friday October 22nd, from 5-7pm at the beautifully restored Providence & Worcester Depot we hosted a party for the arts featuring DIY screen printing, a photo booth, face painting, jewelery, and DIY funny digital image editing. We also be honored NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley for their immense contributions to the community, the arts and the betterment of Woonsocket. There was something for everyone!

Chosen from a pool of more than 450 nominations and 50 finalists, RiverzEdge was one of 15 after-school and out-of-school programs across the country to receive the 2010 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award (formerly, the Coming Up Taller Award), the highest honor such programs can receive in the United States. The awards are administered by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The award honors community-based arts and humanities programs that make a marked difference in the lives of their participants by improving academic scores and graduation rates, enhancing life skills, and developing positive relationships with peers and adults.

RiverzEdge Arts Project was recognized by Mrs. Obama for using engagement in the arts and the humanities to ensure youth stay out of trouble, stay in school, graduate, and apply to and gain acceptance to college. Since 2004, 100 percent of the program’s seniors have been accepted into college, including some of the nation’s leading art schools. Founded in 2002, RiverzEdge was created to provide underserved youth in one of the poorest cities in RI with paid employment in the arts and a voice in their community. Over the past 8 years, the program has engaged more than 700 young people from Northern RI in arts & business entrepreneurship, workforce development and environmental design programs.

Accepting the award from Mrs. Obama on behalf of RiverzEdge Arts Project was Jamel Williams, a 17 year-old participant in the program from the RiverzEdge screen printing studio, who was accompanied to the White House by Rebekah Greenwald Speck, the Executive Director.

“Standing with the First Lady of the United States in the White House and accepting this award was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I’ll never forget,” said Williams “It showed me people recognize and value the arts and their power to change kids’ lives. RiverzEdge is where I work, where I enhance my future and where I make my life as an artist happen right now. I am really proud to be part of RiverzEdge and that RiverzEdge has won this award.“

Welcome to the Woonsocket section of www.thinkartslifelearning.com/woonsocket!

This page will inform you about all that is going on in and about Woonsocket in the arts community!

Check back often for updates, events and featured artwork.