Sunset, art, drinks, music = the ‘Troop’Top vibes at the WaterFire Arts Center on Thursdays, June 16, July 21, and August 18, this summer. Valley neighborhood favorite, Troop PVD, is bringing the drinks (+ snacks!) to the WFAC for these three summer nights, you can check them out down the street where they serve up creative eats, beats and drinks at their restaurant, 60 Valley St. The gallery, directly below the roof deck, is open every Thursday night until 9pm and curates a new arts experience each month. Aligning with the third Thursday of the month means that it’s also Gallery Night Providence (GNP), which the WFAC is a membership gallery as well as a ‘pick-up’ and ‘drop-off’ location for one of the GNP trolleys.
Come after work, ‘Troop’Top opens at 5pm, enjoy a drink on the roof deck and jump on the 6:30pm trolley tour exploring a few other gallery spaces in the city, which are different each month, and then return to tour the current exhibit in the WFAC gallery. The gallery and bar are open until 9pm.
Stars + Spirits
NEW at ‘Troop’Top Thursdays!
Skyscrapers, Inc. is a local group of amateur astronomers who want to share their love of the sky with others. After the sunsets, volunteers from Skyscrapers will be set-up with telescopes for you to observe the Providence sky and immerse yourself into the world above! (Keep in mind that Skyscrapers will be joining us on these evenings, ‘clear skies’ permitted).
Rhodium by RI Spirits, will also be supporting ‘Troop’Top nights. Starting at 6pm, they will be offering tastings of their premium gins, vodkas and liqueurs all of which are gluten free, organic and kosher. Everyone should be able to enjoy the unique and distinctive flavors that they have to offer!
What is Gallery Night Providence? GNP gives you an opportunity to experience artwork and meet artists in various galleries and museums all throughout the city. On the third Thursday of the month from March through November, these creative spaces join together to throw an arts party!
One trolley tour leaves from the WFAC, each Gallery Night, @ 6:30pm, getting back between 8-8:30pm. More trolleys are coordinated at the Graduate Providence.
Individuals are more than welcome to design their own walking tour to visit specific galleries of interest. Check out member galleries here.
Book a seat on a trolley in advance, or take a look at where the tours are going on GNP’s Upcoming Event page.
Special thanks to ‘Troop’Top sponsor, Cross Insurance, for helping to make these summer nights of art in the Valley possible.
In the Gallery
JUNE
Envision Resilience: Designs for the Living With Rising Seas + New Work from Aymar Ccopacatty
Join us this Thursday evening with WFAC and TroopPVD as we partner to bring awareness to the importance of keeping our local rivers clean. The 2022 Envision Resilience Narragansett Bay Challenge is full of adaptive proposals for sea level rise on Narragansett Bay. Explore the vibrant history of the region, and its resilient communities.
Joining this project in the gallery is Aymar Ccopacatty who uses the traditional techniques of reed boat construction to reconnect with the many essences found within by using locally invasive species Phragmites found all over the eastern seaboard, to construct his boats.
JULY
WaterFire Accelerate Artists, This Must Be the Place
WaterFire’s Accelerate Program is a year-long professional development program for artists under 30. The 2021-22 inaugural cohort: Sydney Sousa, Julio Berroa, Kiara Costa, Ysanel Torres and Jared Winslow produced as a capstone of the inaugural Accelerate program, This Must Be the Place, a month-long mixed media exhibition. The exhibition is a collection of works that celebrate the variety of perspectives of the artists, as well as a reflection of the artists’ personal voices. By intersecting their aesthetics and mediums in this exhibit, the artists hope to inspire viewers to find the beautiful connections and contradictions that create the worlds within us and around us. This Must Be the Place in total, is an honoring of storytelling through art.
Learn more
AUGUST
Ebb and Flow, a solo exhibition by Lois Harada
The exhibition features documentation from the artist’s ongoing campaign to encourage Rhode Island residents to rethink the naming of Victory Day. In 2020, Harada hired a banner towing plane to carry the message #RENAMEVICTORYDAY across the state’s beaches and the letters used in that project are displayed in the gallery alongside a lifeguard tower. The exhibition also features work from a recent residency at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado with imagery of guard towers and the shadows they cast.
Please put me on the Nov 17 Gallery Night list. Nancy
Hi Nancy,
You’ll need to sign up for the Gallery Night tour directly via their Eventbrite page. It looks like they don’t have the November tour posted yet, but you can check back with them later and/or follow their page.
https://www.eventbrite.com/o/graduate-providence-26409903233