Hera Gallery

Hello all! My name is Benjamin Riley, and I am the Hera Gallery’s newest intern for the Winter/Spring time. I am a junior at the University of Rhode Island with a double major in Studio Art and Art History. I’ve lived in Rhode Island most of my life and focus my time and effort towards art and supporting the arts. If you were ever to try to me, you can find me at the beach, no matter the season. When it comes to art, my mediums vary. I work in graphite, I print-make, and I dabble in digital photography quite often. Drawing has always been an escape for me and I’ve been working at it and practicing all my life. When it comes to my drawings, I focus a lot in blending it in with other mediums, creating mixed media pieces. When it comes to my photography, I focus on model photography and turning the human body into art. After I graduate from URI, I plan on going to graduate school for my master’s degree in Museum Studies. I am very excited to be apart of the Hera Gal...

My name is Rhonda LaPorte and I am the newest intern at Hera Gallery.  I was born and raised in Rhode Island and currently reside in the beautiful town of Hopkinton.  I graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications in 1999, and worked in non-profit television and other non-profit organizations for a number of years.   My passion for photography began after receiving my first camera at the age of twelve.  After taking that first role of film, I was hooked and rarely went anywhere without my camera.  It is this passion for the medium that led me to return to the University of Rhode Island in 2011 to pursue my Bachelor of Fine Arts. Inspiration for my photographs come from the awe inspiring beauty of the natural world.  I am committed to capturing images that can provide the viewer an opportunity to witness a moment they did not experience themselves.  My work in this medium has me photographing through...

                                             Introducing Your Summer Intern                           Greetings & Salutations to the Hera Gallery Community !                My name is Meredith FitzGerald, I am recent graduated  from URI with            a  BFA  and looking forward to helping Hera in anyway I can. I was born &           raised in Rhode Island,I love the ocean and being surrounded by the beauty           that it holds.              Currently I am  interested in digital art, as it can be easily created into            propaganda.I deal  with issues of contempo...

Hello Hera Gallery Community! My name is Hannah Hebert and I am the new spring intern for Hera Gallery! I am Rhode Island native and a junior at the University of Rhode Island. I study Fine Art and am also extremely interested in my Art History classes. I am most passionate about portrait painting but I also enjoy dabbling in different kinds of printmaking. Having now discovered that my path in life truly lies in the art world, I look back on my childhood experiences with art and can’t help but smile. I always liked to doodle and draw, but I never considered myself to be especially good. I can still remember when art really clicked for me. I went out to take pictures with my friend who was especially good with photography. I didn’t expect any good photos but before I knew it I had all these great pictures. Shortly after that I discovered my knack for painting and drawing in my high school art classes.          Like every art student I aspire to go on to ...

Our new intern Casey has created and will head Hera's newest social media addition, Twitter! Please follow, tweet at and retweet us! Check out our twitter site to learn more about all things Hera!  https://twitter.com/heragallery

Hello Hera followers! My name is Casey Walsh and I am currently in my sophomore year at the University of Rhode Island studying Public Relations as well as Film Media. I am extremely excited to be interning at the Hera Gallery and am looking forward to learning more about the gallery world.  Growing up on Long Island I frequented to New York City often to observe various artworks at museums such as the MOMA and the MET. I have always had a passion for art observing as well as art making. I enjoy using mixed media in most of my pieces and have an obsession with Photoshop. Artists such as Jeff Koons and Robert Rauschenberg I find extremely inspiring and admire their works. At 19 years old I am not completely sure what it is I want to do as a career. I know what I am passionate about; art, media and film. I am hopeful that through this internship I will gain more knowledge about what it takes to run a gallery and promote shows. I believe that it is extremely imp...

Hello, my name is Jordan Collette. I'm an art student at the Newport MET and I have been making art for as long as I can remember. I draw cartoons, and I've also done a bit of costume design, animation and sculpture. I get a lot of my inspiration from animated films, video games, cartoons... etc. I'd like to work on something like that one day. Whether that means making concept art, story boarding, animating... anything! I'm hoping this internship will guide me in that direction. As far as hobbies go... I enjoy Renaissance Fairs and movies.  This is a work-in-progress of my fully wearable "mascot" head, before the fur has been applied.  Here is my first stop-motion film, which was a collaborative piece between me and two other students. The wolf was made by me. I was also the chief art director. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iQmXNvBWQg&sns=em

Hello!  My name is Lindsey Bailer and I am very excited to say that I am the new intern at the Hera Gallery!  I just graduated from the University of Rhode Island a few weeks ago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.  Ever since I was young, I knew I wanted to do something in the arts.  My dad, a RISD alumnus, was always nurturing and guiding my artistic tendencies.  Throughout my URI career, my focus was mainly in digital photography.  I love creating images that advertise ideas and/or opinions. Besides actually creating art, I have a strong desire to educate the public on the importance of art and the influence it has on our day-to-day lives.  I realized this desire during my treatment at Hasbro’s Children’s Hospital after being diagnosed with cancer during my senior year of High School. While undergoing chemotherapy, I was exposed to the healing power of art – art both displayed throughout Hasbro and art created in the comfort and security of...

Hello Hera Gallery Members, Associates, and Fans!     My name is Abigael McGuire, a born Rhode Islander who has recently returned to her native land from the sunny shores of San Diego. I was raised on Aquidneck Island, mostly in the city of Newport. In between long stretches of Rhode Island living, I have spent time living in the Southeast at various stages of my life, though I much prefer the Northeast and Southwest corners of our country.     I graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 2008 with a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Art Studio, concentrating in Photography and Digital Art, and an Art History minor on the side. Photography was always a passion of mine, and with the guidance of Zoey Stites and Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, I developed my skills and creative eye. The days spent in the ol' Fine Arts Building have a special place in my memories and working in the lab cemented my connection to the student fine art community.     After s...

Hello! I am Dylan Butler and here is a little bit about me.                     I was born in Warwick, Rhode Island where I lived for the first 11 years of my life. I then moved to Glocester, Rhode Island. From a young age, I always loved to draw and create things. When I was 12 years old my parents sent me to take cartooning and animation courses for young people at R.I.S.D. I loved seeing my ideas come to life and enjoyed group critiques; a concept unknown to me prior. By the time I graduated high school, I knew I wanted to continue learning about art.           I am now attending the University of Rhode Island and majoring in Fine Arts. On the day of my first class, I was unsure of myself and my abilities. My first class was drawing 1, and my teacher was Gary Richman. He introduced me to the medium of printmaking and completely changed the way I looked at making art. He instilled within me wi...

I'm very excited about a link Islay recommended to me: RESPONDESIGN . This definitely seems like a good resource for the exhibition I am planning (based on landscape architecture and sustainable design). It's the website of the RISD student sustainability group. Judging by what I read off their "what we do" tab, it seems like they are pretty open to exchanging ideas with others interested in sustainability and other environmental issues. Although the group focuses on the RISD/Brown community, I am hoping to bring my idea and other ideas from the URI community to their attention, and be able to network with them to gain some participants for my exhibition. I think it would be great to have the educational communities of northern and southern Rhode Island unite to promote the exchange of ideas on these important issues!

Hey everyone! What an exciting week it has been! The balls begun rolling in numerous endeavors...I have registered for some great studio and plant science courses for the fall semester, got an exciting summer job at the URI Agronomy Research Farm, gone to my first URI American Association of Landscape Architects (ASLA) meeting, AND talked to the first professional landscape architect about my intern project/show here (and may i mention....he's world renowned)! At the ASLA meeting, I met my peers in the landscape architecture program. They showed be around the studio, which is beautiful! Its on the top floor of Rodman Hall, and has gorgeous sky lights. There are individual work spaces throughout the large space, designated for each grade level. There were some great projects on the walls including some hypothetical designs for East Farm. They were so impressive! At the meeting, we discussed projects for this month, since it's National Landscape Architecture Month, and earth day ...

The children's exhibitionis an awesome show! Personally, I had never seen this show in the past, only the young adults exhibition last year. But now that I have, I absolutely love it! The gallery has been lit up for the past 2 weeks with these colorful, vibrant works on its walls. Every time I walk around the gallery and look at the pieces, I can't help but smile, which seems to be a common impact this show has on viewers, not to mention how impressed everyone is with the blossoming talents captured in these pieces! The y range from creative self portraits to still life, landscapes, and various forms of sculpture. I loved the altered book exploding with colored pi p e cleaners from Jamestown Middle School, along with their piece entitled "Earth", which was compo sed of unbelievably life-like ceramic stones made b y the schools 6th graders. I als o thought the tempera-batik technique used in some paintings from EWG were interesting, such as those by Solanna Doyle and...

Hi everybody! My name is Emily Humphrey and I am the 2012 spring intern here at Hera! I grew up in South County and attended Exeter West Greenwich High School, where, under the guiding hands of the wonderful Elizabeth Lind, my journey as an artist began. I am currently a freshman at URI studying art and soon to be landscape architecture. I love to play soccer, be outdoors, and go hiking, biking, boating, and adventuring! :) I also enjoy spending my time with my wonderful family and volunteering around my community for Save The Bay, Girl Scouts of RI, and EWG Youth Soccer. As an artist and a student I am striving to reach my full potential while pursuing what I am most passionate about: art and nature! My ultimate goal is to use my education in art and design to have a positive impact on todays world. My interest in architecture has grown from this goal, and I hope to help our culture integrate our way of life with our changing environment through the architecture of our landscapes and...

Hello everyone! My name is Karen Lewis and I'm the new intern at Hera. I'm very much looking forward to meeting all of you at the upcoming summer events. I'm a returning student at URI majoring in Art and French. I grew up in Westerly and Wakefield, moved to Boston after high school and returned to Little Rhody a few years ago. I've always had a love of languages and while in Boston taught English as a second language. Eu falo Português. Aussi, maintenant j'apprends le Français. I also studied Spanish for about 6 years, mostly with Señor at SKHS and then at UMASS Boston, and am hoping to start learning Russian this summer. I've become very interested in printmaking since taking Print One with Professor Pagh and am currently taking a monotype course with Professor Samson. This is a new medium for me and I've learned a great deal over the past several months. The number of techniques and processes used to create an image amazes me and it's always fascinati...

Stop motion has been around for a long time, but it never ceases to be cool. Especially when it contains thousands of still frames and is done creatively.  I love Oren Lavie’s Her Morning Elegance.   It is an awesome example of the way stop motion video can create a captivating visual effect. From Oren’s MySpace page: *The video was shot all stills – roughly 3225 still photos for the entire video, using one camera, hanging from the ceiling for the main body of the movie. * It took 4 weeks before shooting to create an animated computer generated storyboard for the video, with 3d dummies for the characters. * It took only 2 days of shooting for the live actors on set to re-create the 3.5 minutes computer sequence, frame by frame. * Some of the bed sheets used in the video were taken from Oren’s own bedroom and are now considered collectors items, worth at the moment not very much and therefore used as bed sheets. * Each of the wonderfully talented...

            I take a deep breath to keep my overwhelming feelings of stress down to a manageable level. I locked myself in all weekend and pretty much did nothing but work on my projects because the end of the semester is quickly looming closer and closer. How can I balance and appreciate this exciting time in my life and still take steps to organize my future plans? Being mindful and appreciative of the present moment is something that I've been working on personally for a really long time. And as hard as it is to focus on happiness in the midst of final projects, papers, and my post-graduation future, I am taking a vow (you are my witnesses!) to try to be mindful and appreciative of my life as it is this very moment. And when I take the time for it, it's not hard to think about all that I have to be appreciative of.              Here are some details of three paintin...