Pennsylvania – Ornamento

Franklin Flea Holiday Market and More

By: ornamento.blog December 4, 2014November 24, 2014

Art, Holidays, Pennsylvania, Personal History, Philadelphia, Philadelphia City Hall, recycling, repurposingArt, Dilworth Park, Franklin Flea, Holiday Shopping, Love Park, Philadelphia, Strawbridge and ClothierLeave a Comment

If you come to Philadelphia to do Holiday Shopping this year, be sure to check out the Franklin Flea. They’ve set up on the first floor of the old Strawbridge and Clothier store at 8th and Market and the vendors offer a great selection of eclectic funk.

Six Saturdays, 10am – 5pm
Nov. 15, 22, 29
Dec. 6, 13, 20

Shopping under the chandeliers

The Picasso repro is in needle point. How ’70s can you get?

Lots of re purposed items including clothes

Vintage belts and look at those Coach bags

There’s some older stuff too

If you can’t come in person, most of the ever changing selection of vendors sell on line

For more information on the Franklin Flea Holiday Market press here.

But wait! There’s more. If you’re in town during the week, check out Christmas Village (also open on weekends) which pops up in Love Park every year after Thanksgiving and stays open until the last Sunday in December. You can go ice skating at Dilworth Park after you’ve finished shopping.

One Saturday in September

By: ornamento.blog September 18, 2014September 15, 2014

Art, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PhotographyArt, Philadelphia, Photography, Photoshop, South Street BridgeLeave a Comment

The last pictures I posted from South Street Bridge were taken one November at sunset before the sun had finished falling from the sky. I took the pictures in this post on Saturday afternoon in September when it was so hot I could see the heat rising in waves from the asphalt. How hot was it? It was so hot that sometimes the sun had to take refuge behind a cloud!

The images look otherworldly to me.

It’s not even cool under a bridge trestle.

These photos remind me of what a “Philadelphia of the Future” would look like circa 1950.

Sunset on the South Street Bridge

By: ornamento.blog November 15, 2012November 15, 2012

Art, inspiration, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PhotographyPhiladelphia, Photogaphy, Schuylkill, South Street Bridge1 Comment

I took these pictures one evening while crossing the South Street Bridge on the way to a friend’s house. It’s funny how the time of day and and some photo effects can make the ordinary seem magical. Even the Schuylkill at rush hour.

Philadelphia Area Jewelry Tool Suppliers

By: ornamento.blog August 18, 2011August 19, 2011

Beadfest, jewelry, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Toolsbeading, crafts, Jewelry Making ToolsLeave a Comment

Many people who are ready to graduate from bead stringing to more complex jewelry projects, and who need to pick up a few tools, often end up buying them at bead shows. I’ve done this myself, and 99.9% of the vendors at these shows charge a fair price. And if they take a little premium, that’s OK with me. I am getting the convenience of finding mostly everything in one place.

But it doesn’t always work that way. I was at a local bead show a few months ago and saw a Solderite soldering board that I bought for $8.25 from Rio Grande on sale for $22.50. The very same item, and it wasn’t a mistake. And yet, the beginning metal smith who might not realize that this price is out of line, is often too intimidated to go to Jeweler’s Row on Sansom Street in Philadelphia to buy supplies, thinking that the stores there are for “real” jewelers and not them. That’s not true.

For those of us from the Philadelphia area, Hagstoz is a treasure both for buying supplies and for selling scrap metal. I have always gotten excellent service there.

Another store I highly recommend is Pamma Jewelry Tools and Supply, located at 809 Sansom Street. It is a tool paradise and they have almost everything out where you can see it. They carry economy brand pliers like Beadsmith and Eurotool and high end brands Such as Lindstrom. They sell all types and sizes of hammers, rotary tool and flex shaft accessories, stainless steel shot, pickle, patinas, soldering supplies (and several kinds of soldering surfaces including charcoal blocks), displays, boxes and packaging. They carry used tools, too. The last time I was there I saw hole cutters, rolling mills and ring stretchers among the items they had for sale.

One of the best places to shop for everything related to jewelry making is Beadfest Philadelphia. The shopping bazaar runs from August 19 to August 21. For a list of vendors, press here. You can even download a floor plan. Just remember that the Beadfest venue has changed to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center this year. Maybe I will see you there!

Ars Medendi

Ars medendi is Latin for medical arts. Is medicine an art or a science? Some say it’s both; medical knowledge is gathered through scientific study, but the application of that knowledge is an art . That’s why they call it practicing medicine, and it is not coincidental that practicing is also the same way you get to Carnegie Hall.

But seriously folks-I live in Philadelphia and walk past a couple of fascinating sculptures almost every day. One is a tall weathered metal cylinder in which mysterious looking symbols and foreign words in several alphabets-Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese-are punched out of the metal as if the creator wanted to make a giant stencil. The other sculpture is a long trapezoid-shaped screen with the same design motif. They intrigued me from the first time I saw them, but there are no plaques indicating what they are, who the sculptor is, or why they sit on opposite ends of the plaza of Thomas Jefferson University Medical College.

People must have been asking the Jefferson administration the same questions because it appears that Jefferson recently added information to its web site about the sculptures. They are entitled Ars Medende and the artist is Jim Sanborn, known for his Kryptos sculpture at CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia. You can read more about Sanborn and his work here.

And now for the sculptures

The Medical Arts cylinder was installed on the corner of 9th and Walnut Streets in Philadelphia in 2009. It interesting by day but captivating at night.

When the cylinder is lit up at night it reflects cryptic symbols and foreign words onto the walkway and an adjacent building. What do they mean?

I got a clue one night as my husband and I walked across the plaza. He pointed to the top of the cylinder and asked me, “Do you recognize that? It’s a DNA sequence.” He should know, because he wrote a book called Corporate DNA: Learning from Life and did a lot of thinking about DNA and how it works while he was writing that book. I admitted that the letters bore a strange familiarity even though I would be hard pressed to remember anything about DNA from high school biology.

Another look at the cylinder by day. See the DNA sequence at near the top? Can you recognize anything else?

The Medical Arts screen on the other side of the plaza on 10th Street was placed there in 2008. The first time I saw it, I was transfixed. When I finally looked down, I found two rusty X shapes from the stamped out metal that lying on the sidewalk.

There is other beautiful art on the Jefferson Campus and I wish they would let the public know more about it. You might remember the controversy that ensued after TJU decided to sell Thomas Eakins’ painting “The Gross Clinic” to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2007. American surgeon Samuel Gross taught at Jefferson Medical College and the story is that Eakins took one of his anatomy classes.

There is a statue of Gross in the courtyard by Alexander Sterling Calder who was the father of Alexander Calder, known for his jewelry and better known for his mobiles. There is so much history at TJU both artistic and scientific. But that is a topic for another post.

Enjoy the video about Jim Sanborn

Twenty Five Years of Mural Art in Philadelphia

Happy Birthday to the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program which is 25 years old this month and still going strong. I feel lucky to live in a city where I can see beautiful paintings on the sides of buildings where ever I go. I get to walk past two of my favorite murals on my way to work.

The mural at Hahnemann Hospital on North Broad Street is near my workplace.

The mural of former mayor Frank Rizzo is near my home in the heart of South Philadelphia. Some people loved him and some people hated him, but he was always larger than life. And so is his mural.

Here’s to the next 25 years!

But wait, there’s more!

Wall Watching is an invitational photography exhibit of showing the murals as part of the city landscape instead big paintings. The exhibit is free to the public and runs to November 13 in the West portal hallway of City Hall in Philadelphia. You can even follow the mural program on Twitter! And check out Art in City Hall to get information about the many other interesting art exhibits scheduled there.

Bob’s Urban Garden at the End of Summer.

Fifty Years of Public Art in Philadelphia

Philadelphia is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its Public Art Program this year! It had one the first “percent for art” public art program in the United States when it passed an ordinace in 1959 that required that a percentage of construction costs for municipal projects be set aside for fine arts. Read more about the program’s history here.

The pictures below are a sampling of some the public art in Center City Philadelphia. I’m sure you’ll recognize some of them. Yes, those are huge dominoes and Monopoly pieces! One of my favorites has always been Claes Olbenburg’s Clothespin in Centre Square. That’s a reflection of City Hall in the building behind it in the picture below.

You can find out more about the great public art in Philadelphia here and here.

Fireworks and Science-Inseparable

By: ornamento.blog July 8, 2009July 9, 2009

Art, art, creativity, crafts, inspiration, Chemistry, Fireworks, Pennsylvania, Photography, PhysicsArt, creativity, Fireworks, inspiration1 Comment

What does art have to do with science? Just about everything. The art of fireworks is no exception. Fireworks get their color from chemistry. Physics plays an important role too.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be a scientist to appreciate fireworks. I took the pictures below at my friend Terri’s annual Fourth of July celebration that ends with a trek to her town park to see a beautiful fireworks show.