Alan Powell’s artistic collaborator and wife of nearly thirty years, Connie Coleman, worked for the Rhode Island Council on the Arts as craftsman-in-residence from 1975 to 1976. Coleman’s background in textile artistry and new forays into video art in collaboration with Powell led to Coleman being commissioned by a local PBS affiliate, and Magic Carpet documents this process, and encapsulates the spirit of Coleman and Powell’s long partnership. The play and experimentation; cutting-edge technology matched against the elements of nature; and fragments of everyday life turned into performance art are all captured in the 1976 short. In Magic Carpet, Coleman weaves recycled NASA computer tape into a three-dimensional structure, working with it as she would a loom. The structure was to be tethered to a dozen weather balloons and stakes, then launched, sent off to float over Roger Williams Park. During installation, the wind speed was so powerful that the three-dimensional carpet pulled loose, chartering its own course into East Providence.
