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LifebeatÂ
For the Love of all things IrishÂ
03/17/2008 06:48 PM EDTÂ
By Laura Meade KirkÂ
Journal Staff Writer
photography Sandor
BodoÂ
Rhode Island didn’t have much
of an Irish “scene†when Laura Travis settled here more than 30
years ago, after graduating from Rhode Island College with a
degree in art education. She’d fallen in love with Irish art and culture
thanks to a family vacation to Ireland a few years
before, when she was 18. But there weren’t many
opportunities to pursue her newfound passions — nor to
share them with others.Â
So she found ways to make that
happen.Â
She became the disc jockey for
a local Irish radio program, The Celtic Realm. She took up step
dancing, then went on to teach the moves to others. She
helped found groups that sponsored local “ceilisâ€pronounced
“kay-lees†— which are gatherings that feature Irish music and
dance, first in Newport, and later around the
state.Â
She even took up the ancient
art of stone carving, a skill she now shares with students at Hope
High School, the public school in Providence where she
teaches, as well as at some of the most well-known Irish
festivals in North America.Â
“She’s one of the original
movers and shakers of anything Irish around here,†said Bob Drouin,
one of the founding members of Pendragon, the well-known
Celtic music group, and the Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland. “. . . She’s just
an amazing artist. She does it all.â€Â
And to think her family didn’t
even have corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day.Â
People in Poughkeepsie didn’t
focus as much on their heritage — Irish or otherwise — as they do
here in Rhode Island, Travis explained, not even on March
17. “It wasn’t this huge thing, like it is here in
New England,†she said. She had Irish ancestors on both sides of her
family, but it wasn’t that big of a deal to her until her
family went on a European vacation when she was 18. They
began their trip in Ireland, and Travis was immediately
smitten.Â
“I walked into the airport (in
Shannon) and there were all these people who looked like me,†she
recalled. She felt an instant connection with everything
about the country — the people and culture, the history
and traditions. “I just thought it was an
amazing, amazing place,†she said.Â
She was fascinated by the art,
especially. Even though she’d studied art through high school and,
later, in college, she’d never heard much about Irish art.
It had been around for thousands of years, yet it was virtually overlooked by
educators here.Â
She recalls going to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in the late 1970s, when
the “Treasures of Early Irish Art†exhibition was on
display. Here were truly gorgeous works, dating back thousands
of years, that she’d never before seen or read about. She felt as though her
teachers had cheated her. “I realized that there was this huge
piece of art history that no one had ever even bothered
to mention to me.â€Â
And, she loved the music, the
pure and simple, Travis said. In fact, she said, “The music led me
right back to the art.â€Â
Meanwhile, after graduating
from Rhode Island College, she went to graduate school at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst. But there were few
openings for public school art educators back then, so
she worked as a substitute teacher while waitressing
and bartending in pubs around Newport. And to promote a bit of
Ireland in this country, she helped found the Newport Folklore
Society which promoted folk concerts of all kinds — including
Irish folk music — at the Seaman’s Church Institute
there. During this time, Travis recalls, radio station
WRIU at the University of Rhode Island featured an
Irish radio program from 6 to 9 p.m. each Wednesday. It
had a loyal following, especially among people lookingÂ
for an alternative to rock, she
said. And new Irish music was emerging all the time. “This music
was happening,†she said.Â
Then, one night, the show
wasn’t on the air.Â
She immediately called the
radio station and learned that the host of the show had moved, so
she lobbied her friends to write to WRIU to say they wanted the
show back on the air. The next thing she knew, Chuck Wentworth, who’s director of
folk music for the station, was calling her, offering her the job.
She was one of two hosts of the program when she started in
1982, but has been doing it alone for years.Â
That’s how Drouin came to
know her back in the early 1980s, when he first became interested
in Irish music and started listening to her show. “She
also at the time was promoting concerts and running
coffee houses and things like that,†Drouin recalled.
She was among the first to book his newly formed band, Pendragon, now a Celtic music
heavyweight. Russell Gusetti, another founder of Pendragon
who’s also currently executive director of the
Blackstone River Theatre, recalls the thrill of hearing the
group’s first album played on WRIU. That’s all because
of Travis, who helped promote Pendragon and other
local musicians throughout the region, he said. Drouin agreed. “With her
radio show and her various activities, she certainly helped bring
people together and make more things happen . . . she’s really
been quite a force in the Celtic music community.â€Â
Around this time, she and a
friend decided they wanted to take up Irish step dancing, but there
were no classes for adults back then, Travis recalled.
They had to convince a skeptical dance teacher to let them
join a class for teens.Â
Soon, she was the one teaching
step dancing. She helped found the Providence Ceili Club, which
sponsored ceilis, or get-togethers, throughout the region,
giving musicians and dancers a chance to share their love
of the music and dance. They also sponsored the
annual Irish Festival on Smith Hill in Providence every
June, until it was eventually overshadowed by a similar
festival at nearby Stonehill College in Easton, Mass., which was scheduled around
the same time. Travis also began to travel to other well-known
Irish festivals, including one at the Augusta Heritage
Center at Davis and Elkins College in the mountains of
West Virginia. It’s a week-long celebration of Irish
music, dance, folklore and crafts.Â
That’s where she was introduced
to the ancient art of stone carving, by one of the artists there.
Once again, she was smitten. “There was just an immediate
connection there,†Travis recalled. Though she’d worked with a
variety of materials and media during her years of art
studies, “stone was special — very definitely special,†she
said.Â
She was among a dozen or so
students in the class, and when she returned home, she pursued
stone carving with a passion. “I was totally bitten by the
bug,†she said.Â
Travis took a stone-carving
course taught by Gail Whitsitt-Lynch, a well-known artist and
sculptor, offered through the Rhode Island School of Design’s
extension. Soon, she was creating her own stone
carvings. She lived in Providence at the time, and recalled
filling her tiny backyard with stone carvings. She also opened a studio at AS220 in
Providence.Â
She was teaching by then at the
Sackett Street School, a public elementary school in Providence,
and she’d been accepted into a graduate program at the
Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, where she
was to spend the next four summers working on her
master’s degree in fine arts, which she received in
2000. Travis by then was a full-time teacher in
Providence, moving from the Sackett Street School to her
current position as an art teacher at Hope High School on
the city’s East Side. She was named high school art educator of the year last
year by the Rhode Island Art Educators Association.Â
As part of her thesis for the
Maryland Institute College of Art, she created sculptures for a
garden at the Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland. Her goal
was to reflect the local history, dating to the days
when entire villages of people would immigrate here
from Ireland and Scotland and re-create their
communities here while working in mills. Those sculptures are still on
display there, in a garden called The Grove.Â
Meanwhile, a friend invited her
to the annual Celtic Roots Festival in Goderich, Ontario, where the
lakeside beach was littered with limestone rocks. She’d of
course brought her stone carving tools with her, so she carved her friend a
paperweight. And she told her friend: “You know what? I’m
going to teach here next year. I’m going to teach
people how to carve these little beach
stones.â€Â So she put together a week-long class, to expose
people to the skills, tools and materials needed for
stone carving. And she’s been doing it there and at
other festivals and events, as well as through local
continuing education programs, ever since.Â
Locally, Travis offers
stone-carving courses through the Young Artists Program at the
Rhode Island School of Design, and at the Blackstone River Theatre.
She continues to offer courses at the Celtic Roots
Festival and at the Catskills Irish Arts Week in East
Durham, N.Y., which she described as “another world —
it’s just
great.â€
Meanwhile, she teaches dancing
at ceilis around the state — includingmonthly ceilis held at the
Blackstone River Theatre on the third Sunday of each
month. “She’s got her hands — and feet — in this Irish
culture,†Gusetti said.Â
How things have changed since
Travis settled here, 30 years ago. “The area has just exploded with
what I would call traditional Irish culture,†she
said. Gone are the days when she’d have to travel to
Boston to see Irish artisans and musicians. They’re as
likely to be right here in Rhode Island, especially at
the Blackstone, she said. And the Irish arts and music
are much more mainstream than ever, thanks in part to shows like
Riverdance and Celtic Woman.Â
That’s what Travis has been
trying to do, here in Rhode Island. She said she sees herself as
being among “a large group of interesting people who have the
talent and skills necessary to bring it out and get it to a
place where people can recognize and enjoy
it.â€Â
It’s the teacher in her,
Gusetti suggested. “Whether it’s through the airwaves or going out
and doing classes . . . she’s really out there bringing it to the
people, and that’s a very important thing.â€Â
Drouin agreed. “If you have to
point to one person who put it all together in this area, to say
it’s Laura. . . . She’s certainly one of the most prominent people
responsible for having such a lively Celtic scene here
in Rhode Island.â€Radio host, event organizer,
teacher and moreÂ
•Laura Travis hosts a weekly
radio show, The Celtic Realm, on Wednesdays from 6 to 9 p.m. on
WRIU-Â FM, 90.3.Â
•She’s among a group hosting a
St. Patrick’s Day “ceili†— or gathering with music and dance — at
Local 121, 121 Washington St., Providence, tomorrow
from 5 to 9 p.m. Admission is $5.Â
•They also hold monthly ceilis
at the Blackstone River Theatre, 549 Broad St., Cumberland, which
features an outdoor display of Travis’ stone carvings in a
garden-like setting she calls The Grove.Â
Travis teaches a variety of
stone-carving classes at the Blackstone River Theatre and at Irish
festivals. See http://www.riverfolk.org for classes at the theater.
See the Web siteÂ
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