The name Xander Marro pops up so frequently around town that one could be forgiven for thinking there are several Xander Marro’s who must occasionally have to get together to exchange misdirected mail. But Xander Marro — artist, community activist, performer, filmmaker, former managing director of AS220, and co-founder of feminist art collective the Dirt palace — is one person. And she has an exhibit of puppets, papier-mâché, and prints, open now through July 20 at Craftland.
Walk into “The Foot Apple Parade” and dip your toe into Marro’s fantastical world of “anthropomorphized everything” — papier-mâché clocks, puppets under proscenium arches, painted snakes and happy glittery apples — things have legs that shouldn’t have legs. Free-standing pieces feature a Pee Wee’s inferno and her Madame Von Malt Liquor, a dress laced together from liquor boxes. Greg Cook has some background in The Providence Phoenix,
Marro grew up on Long Island, where her “mom had a store that had a whole crafts zone in the basement. She taught stenciling workshops to suburban ladies. So it was something I was super-surrounded with.”
So the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, but she sprouted legs and ran far away to a foreign land. (Don’t miss the gorgeous fabric “Wallpaper” straight out of William Morris.)
Through July 20, Craftland, 235 Westminster Street