A Post on POST (Philadelphia Open Studio Tours)

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, Studio set up, , , , 2 Comments on A Post on POST (Philadelphia Open Studio Tours)

One of the best times you can have that’s legal and for all ages (except maybe the very young who tend to run, grab things and knock stuff over) is visiting working studios of Philadelphia Artists during the two weekends of the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours. Most artists love to talk about their work and the Open Studio Tour is a great way for them to reach out to the public.

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This year I went with some friends to visit the artists in the studios at the 915 Spring Garden Street Building.  It’s an old factory with light filled spaces,  old beaten down wooden floors and an old industrial cage elevator that is very steampunk.

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Janell Wysock‘s fiber art hangs in the hall.

 

imageA peek into Janell Wysock’s studio

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Emily Squires Levine   (foreground, polymer vases) was showing in ceramic artist Peter Cunicelli’s studio (see his work in the background.)

 

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Jorge Caligiuri‘s work is worth a trip to his studio.  He traveled to Italy to study the art of fresco making and is one of the few artists in the US currently using this technique in his work.

 

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imageRachel Constantine

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imageRobert Sampson

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imageRobert McNellis

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I didn’t try to take pictures of the artwork because most of these artists have web sites which display it much better than I could.   Press here for a directory of artists in the building.    And be sure to check out the web sites of Susan O’Reilly and Nari Kim, two artists whose work I especially enjoyed.

Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia Craft Show, Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, , , , Leave a Comment on Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts

More than 1500 visual and performing artists will participate in the first Philadelphia International Arts Festival which takes place from April 7 to May 1, 2011.  To get a schedule of events,  click here.  What’s special about the Festival is that it partners local artists with artists from across the globe and  offers events for every age group and area of interest.   It even has a two week science festival within the main festival with collaborators as diverse as the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Monell Chemical Senses Center,.  There really is something for everyone.

I trolled through the PIFA website and  pulled a few things that looked interesting to me.  In no particular order,   they are an April 8 Couture fashion show at the Kimmel Center showcasing local designers and student   designers from local colleges and universities. The evening will culminate with Temple grad Ralph Rucci receiving the Visionary Award for Fashion.

And if you’ve always wanted to see what goes on  behind the scenes at the Kimmel Center, treat yourself to a tour.

Gallery night on April 15 showcases galleries all over the city with exhibits prepared specially for PIFA.   If you’re interested in pottery, visit The Clay Studio.   You can see cutting edge crafts at the Snyderman-Works Gallery. The Seraphin Gallery will offer artist talks, music and a video.    For a map with the locations of all participating galleries, click here.

I could not begin to list all the festival has to offer.  Please be sure to visit the web site and see for yourself.

Ars Medendi

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Design, Gross Clinic, Jim Sanborn, Kryptos, Medical Arts, Metal, Metal Work, Metal Working, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Symbolism, Thomas Jeffersun University Medical College, Urban, , , 3 Comments on 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


Inspiration is Everywhere

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Frank Furness, inspiration, Personal Growth, Personal History, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia City Hall, Photography, Rust, Thomas Jefferson University, Urban, Urban Artifacts, , , , , Leave a Comment on Inspiration is Everywhere

I find inspiration in the strangest places. I spent a day in a boring seminar at the Philadelphia Convention Center staring at the patterns in the carpet and spent the night making geometric canes. The outside light sconces on a neighborhood apartment building are evolving into a pair of earrings in my brain. Patinas on weathered metal gates and fixtures make me think of new ways to finish metal. Bark on a tree can look like nubby raw silk fabric. Plaster ornamentation on old buildings makes me wonder about the workers who put it there and what their lives were like. I like to roam around taking pictures of odd bits of Philadelphia. I see something new whenever I look. I love to travel, but there’s plenty of inspiration in my own back yard. Maybe these pictures will inspire you to start looking more closely at your everyday surroundings.

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