Lydia Stein

From my review of Providence artist Lydia Stein's "Love Songs, Hobos & Other Spirits" at AS220's Project Space and her mural as part of the Smith Hill Community Development Corporation's "HousEARt" project:

Horses break loose from carnival carousels and run free, a horse-headed naked woman cuddles a rabbit as blue birds circle, and an escaped carousel horse visits the grave of a flower in Providence artist Lydia Stein's exhibit "Love Songs, Hobos & Other Spirits" at AS220's Project Space (93 Mathewson Street, Providence, through September 26). The paintings and relief prints seem to be allegories of imprisonment, love, desperation, escape, craving solace, and peace.

Stein has painted murals in her hometown of Worcester, performed with Vermont's Bread and Puppet Theater in the early 2000s, moved to Providence to study at Brown, helped organize the Honk! radical marching band festivals around Boston, and performed in marching bands there and in Providence. She recently worked with the Smith Hill Community Development Corporation's "HousEARt" project, which invites artists to enliven vacant foreclosed Providence housing before it transforms the structures into affordable rentals. Stein rounded up neighbors to help her paint horses breaking free from a carousel and a horse-headed naked lady with a hole in her chest where her heart should be across the front and side of a house at 16 Bernon Street.

Read the rest here.

Lydia Stein, "Love Songs, Hobos & Other Spirits" at AS220's Project Space, 93 Mathewson Street, Providence, through September 26, 2009. An opening party for her "HousEARt" mural is scheduled for Sept. 15, 2009, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at 16 Bernon St., Providence.