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Village Voices
Village Voices is the showcase of creativity by the members and volunteers of The Village Common of Rhode Island. We welcome submissions in all media: 2- and 3-dimensional art, creative writing, transformative ideas, crafting, and art collections. As important is the personal stories that accompany each submission.

Roberta Segal

This illustration by Norman Rockwell represents me as a harried artist. Roberta Segal.
Biography
Below is the transcript of my conversation with Roberta in her home. Roberta’s artwork will be exhibited in a group show at the Providence Art Club, May 12 through 30. Also, visit her website RobertaSegal.com. - John Harkey
I’ve been doing art since I was 3, 4, 5. I was always doing something.

I went to Simmons in their School of Publication, which had a combined program with the Boston Museum School. So I took that program. Six of us started, two finished and I was one of them. It opened my eyes. The contrast between Simmons’s white-glove teas and the Boston Museum School was extreme, but I loved it. I got all the normal courses that you get at RISD plus I was in the School of Publications at Simmons and neither school cared that I attended another. I could do my art all night long, then I’d go to school and crash. It was amazing but I loved it. I always wanted to do art but now I was trained in it. I studied with Bill Bagnall when he was a first-year teacher at BMS and he later became the director of the school. He basically changed my life because of the way he made me see the world through a sense of design. I graduated and took my portfolio to New York.

And…this sounds wonderful but I’ll tell you the real story…I got a job at Art News Magazine. Somebody had walked out, and I walked in. They never looked at my portfolio They sat me down at a desk, and I was working in the Department of Design. The person I was working under was from the magazine world and had been the Art Director of Esquire at one point. It was the most incredible time. It opened my eyes and I just loved it.

My husband-to-be was at Fort Dix and he would not stay in New York. And he was right. We never could have afforded to live as we wanted. We were Bostonians so we moved back to Boston. I got a job at Dickie Raymond, a direct-mail house, the largest in the country. I was nothing but a glorified secretary. Everything was farmed out. I wasn’t particularly happy there. I don’t watch [the TV series] Madmen, but that’s what it was. I was there until we got married and my husband’s job took him to New Bedford. His work didn’t need a hotshot designer so I got my teaching certificate and taught, first in regular classes then enrichment classes, and then as an art supervisor. But that was for just a short time.

Then we moved to Barrington and I formed my own creative agency. It was during Reaganomics when the non-profit world became important and they could afford me. I was equally trained to either write or design so I was the director of everything. I had a staff of six or seven, both men and women working for me. I did that for about twenty years. I was doing very well. I put my kids through college with my husband’s help. I think I burned out. Everything was on me. I couldn’t keep up that pace any longer.

I decided to “retire.” I think I don’t know what that means. I started doing work on my own. I loved working in glass, which was something I didn’t know much about. Somebody dared me to apply to Pilchuck [Glass School]. So I applied and went. I never saw Dale Chihuly! There were two of us in our sixties, the oldest there. They introduced us the first night saying, “I want you to meet the oldest person here, Roberta Segal. She’s sixty.” It didn’t bother me but I guess other people thought, “Uh oh.” I learned so much there. I was in a pod with two others doing “kiln-formed,” or fused-glass, and Pilchuck changed the way I looked at everything. I loved it. It was sixteen very intense days.

So what do I consider myself? I don’t like to be defined, I think you noticed. I consider myself an excellent person with an eye for design and color, which was the training from the Museum School. I don’t care what the medium is, as you can see from my work, whether it’s glass or paint or construction or whatever it is. I’ll adjust to whatever the medium is. I took a group of women and taught Japanese painting. Whatever it was, I had to keep my hand in it. You might call it fragmented but it’s different every day. I don’t stay with one material, so…a little out of the box?

I’ve had some very big commissions, I believe. Just how they come to me, I’m not sure. I don’t promote my work. They seem to know me. One of the biggest commissions was for a very big waterfront home in Rumford. I was on a board with this gentleman, a big, rough executive. I guess I didn’t take well to being talked to by a big, rough executive. I thought he hated me, but he called me for the commission. I designed the piece so that when the light comes in off the water, it hits it and lights it up.

I’m all alone in this large house but I can’t move. I’ve got my kiln and studio in the basement. Let’s tour the upstairs first, then I’ll take you downstairs.
Artist's Statment, quoted from RobertaSegal.com

Design brings order to my world. My love of color brings life. My expression incorporates my passion.
I resist definition, for I work in oils, acrylics, encaustics, printmaking, and often in combination.
But my love of the use of light, has introduced me to glass and all of its mysteries. Glass may be fragile and show strength; it can appear solid, yet in reality be in motion; it can be without color or be vibrant. The medium of glass holds limitless possibilities for the creator.
And all of the above is my statement, my non-verbal communication, my visual conversation, my connection to you, the viewer.

Place your cursor over any picture, below, to enlarge it.

This is called “9/11.” That day changed our world in every sphere. The devastation was not only the buildings, but also our economy and our ability to communicate. The Statue of Liberty is crying glass tears for our freedoms lost.
In this collage, I incorporated broken glass, stock market pages from the New York Times as well as telephone wire.
Those are my two grandchildren as 4- and 6-year-olds and who are now in their 30s. I wanted to show their different personalities. He’s very funny. She, Leann, is very serious. Her portrait says, “Welcome to the world, Leann. It’s not a kind place.” Here she is clutching her dolls for comfort. She’s a social worker dealing with the most difficult homicidal, suicidal teenagers. But that’s her personality and she’ll handle it. Her world is more grey and white, although she is the warmest, most caring individual.
This is a free form glass piece. I wanted to make the glass a much softer medium than rigid. The glass was laid over a mold. I’ve done many free forms with different colors and inclusions in them. I wanted to show how fluid the medium is, as well as the content.
This is another freeform. It won “Best of Show” in Bristol.
Through my creative agency, I worked with the Black community a lot. The Urban League was one of my clients for many years. The quilt is from Kentucky, which I thought was very appropriate. Hung from is are tribal cloths of the peoples who came to this area.
There are about a hundred individual names of people who should be honored for their work.
This is of a nun picking kale in Jerusalem. When I retired from my agency, I wanted to get into the fine arts so I took an evening class at RISD. This is oil paint mixed with wax to get the texture in it. I wanted the yellow environment, the sun beating down on her labor, contrasting with the green of the kale.
This one was an experiment — a watercolor background and glass inclusions. It took many steps to get this feeling.
As you walk by it, the image changes as though it’s moving with you. This is one my favorites.
Another glass construction.
This is a fun one, it’s upbeat, done during Covid when I was in an online art group. Nothing in my house is safe. I still have a whole pile of CDs to use in different pieces. Here again, the color and reflections change as you move by it.
This was right outside my window in a snowstorm. I wanted to show how form changes under snow, how the snow interrupts the rigidity of the landscape.
There was done in an emotional moment. Not a death moment. I’ve done those too. But this piece shows that I felt very conflicted. It is a print with many layers.
I have my grandmother’s sewing machine. I never knew her, she died when I was little. I looked through the cabinet’s drawers where I found her buttons and fabrics. I call it “Grandma’s Sewing Machine.”
This is a collage. I took a whole pile of prints and cut them into strips then added glass pieces and…I don’t recall all the stuff put in there. I had been taking Printshop at the Providence Art Club. I loved doing things on the printing press.
When we moved into this house, I didn’t want to use regular drawer pulls for the cabinets and drawers. Nothing is safe from me.
The basement workshop.
This is my very neat workshop.
These are prints that I will probably cut up and do something with. You see that design is my medium, not any particular material. Whatever floats my boat at the moment.
This is a pile of prints that I’m working on.
Glass jewelry, at first made from scraps, and later with glass that I purchased. I’ve sold probably 300 to 400 of those pieces. I don’t promote them but people will come up to me and ask for them. These are all I have left.
These are works in progress. I don’t know what yet but something will be done with them, you can be sure.