Philadelphia Open Studio Tours

Diane and Patty at Post

By: ornamento.blog January 6, 2022January 5, 2022

Art, Art clothing, Fiber Art, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, Polymer ClayDiane Litten, Fiber Arts, Patty Pickup, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, Polymer ClayLeave a Comment

January and February are the bleakest months of the year on my calendar. That’s why I’m happy to be able to reach back into the pile of pictures I took, and interviews I conducted last year, and bring a little color a bleary January. A highlight was Diane Litten and Patty Pickup’s stop on last years’ Philadelphia Open Studio Tour

I met Diane years ago and knew her primarily as an artist who fashioned sophisticated and unique earrings out of silver wire that she knitted on tiny needles. Alas, don’t have any pictures of these remarkable pieces.

I have learned since then that Diane considers herself to be primarily a fiber artist. She’s self taught, unrestrained by tradition, and influenced by whatever she finds interesting. Her work looks complex, but is deceptively simple, polished, inventive, and fun. This is no happy accident; Diane is not afraid to play with her materials to see how far she can push them. Something more of us should do. Here are some pictures.

Here’s some links and info on Diane. Take a look at her Facebook page here. Follow Diane on Instagram here. Take a look at some work she did with Group Motion , here.

Patty Pickup is no stranger to my little blog. Her last appearance on the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours was with polymer artist Terri Powell (ArtSci designs.). This year, Patty was able to make it in person to Donna Kato’s Atlantic Clay Escape, and come home with some new skills and ideas. Here are some pictures of the results.

It looks like the Atlantic City Escape is going to be one of the last live polymer events we’re going to have for awhile. But a bunch of us, including Patty, are working hard to make Virtual Clayathon 2022 a reality.

POST at Bok 1

By: ornamento.blog November 15, 2018November 14, 2018

Art, creativity, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, South Philadelphia, South PhillyBok, Makerspace, South Philadelphia2 Comments

Last month I visited the Bok Makerspace which was on the South Philly list of participants in the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST).

Bok Technical High School was a vocational school that opened in South Philadelphia in 1938. Thousands of students passed through Bok’s doors learning trades like brick laying, plastering, plumbing, machine building, tailoring, and hairdressing until the school closed its doors in 2013.

The Bok building is massive. That’s a cardboard model in the above picture. It takes up an entire city block and the interior is 340,000 square feet. The surrounding neighborhood is made up of mostly residential row houses. The residents were understandably concerned about what would happen to the building.

They need not have worried. In 2014, a developer named Lindsey Scannapieco proposed converting the former high school into a space for creative entrepreneurs. The neighborhood liked her ideas and her efforts were lauded by Inge Saffron, the Architectural Critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Read more articles about the transformation of Bok here and here.

While Bok is thought of as a space for artists, it is really so much more as I learned on my visit for the POST tours. All of the artists I talked to came from the surrounding neighborhood and almost all of them were business people in creative fields.

I hope to profile some of the artists I met during the tour and show you some pictures of their spaces.

Another Post on Post (Philadelphia Open Studio Tours)

By: ornamento.blog October 8, 2015October 8, 2015

Art, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours1241 Carpenter Street Studios, 915 Spring Garden Studios, Art, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours6 Comments

I posted last year about attending the Philadelphia Open Studio Tour of 915 Spring Garden Street. This huge building used to be owned by the Reading Railroad. For the past thirty years, however, it has housed around 100 artists and their studios.

No more. After a minor fire at 915 Spring Garden in early September of this year, and the City Department of License and Inspections conducted a post-fire examination and found numerous City code violations-so many that L&I ordered the artists to evacuate and to stay out of the building until the code violations are corrected. The building has been closed indefinitely. For more information, press here, here and here.

Unless the artists have binding contracts with the owners/managers of the building, which I doubt, my guess is that the building will be sold to a developer and turned into condos or apartments leaving most of the artists in an untenable position. Inquirer columnist Inga Saffron wrote an excellent article on the closing of 915 Spring Garden Street and the difficulty artists face finding studio space in a tight real estate market. You can read her article here.

For this year’s open studio tours I headed to 1241 Carpenter Street– a big old factory building right in my neighborhood. When I walked into Stella Untalan’s studio, (Be sure to click on the links to her incredible art. There was a reason I was hanging out in her studio! ) she was having a lively discussion with Steven Krupnick who bought the building forty years ago and operates a business there. It turns out that he is determined to maintain this building as affordable space for artist studios. This is not how these things usually go. The neighborhood was pretty bad 40 years ago and for someone to buy property in an area like 12th and Carpenter, maintain it (which is what you do when you are not a speculator), pay it off and not sell it to developers so artists can have studio space is a tremendous contribution to the City. I cannot fault people who buy property and sell it at a profit, but I greatly admire people like Steve Krupnick who give back to the community. The City of Philadelphia owes him a debt.

1241 Carpenter Street is a big old factory building. Some artists from the Spring Garden Studios were able to find space in 1241 Carpenter, but by no means all of them. There is now a waiting list.

Hall2

Tim McFarlane’s cards outside his tiny studio. Click the links below to see his work.

PD Packard5

PD Packard is a print maker, watercolorist and book artist from Brooklyn, NY. She led a hands-on shibori dying workshop. Check out this post about her on Seth Apter’s Blog.