Thursday – Shoshana, DoN, Katy and Doofie walked the path around Valley Green Park; the dogs ran around like puppies through the underbrush and dove into the Wissahickon to cool off and chase ducks. Walking the trail takes about 2 hours with many beautiful, quiet vistas and Jody Pinto’s Finger Span Bridge with it’s precipitous span and dramatic shape. Katy runs’s back and forth over the perforated metal bridge but Doofie, DoN‘s adopted St. Bernard/Chihuahua mix, is afraid of heights, preferring to swim around the rock outcrops. Picturesque Valley Green Inn, a favorite landscape for Philadelphia painters, ends the walk. Henry Martin has giclee and lithograph printsof the iconic scene for sale on his website, Henry will paint you and your family sitting in the restaurant if you want – more about Henry later.
Shoshana on Jody Pinto’s FingerSpan Bridge in Valley Green Park.
Doofie’s afraid of the bridge, so she swims around!
Sunday afternoon was the opening of Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Artists and Poets: Image and Word show. The concept of the show is to get painters to create a painting based on a poem and have poets create poems based on paintings and vice versa. The opening, organized by Richard Beldyk, featured many of the poets reading poems which are displayed along side the paintings. There are many outstanding paintings and poems by Laura Jean Zito, Don Meyers, Doris Peltzman, Pete Quarracino and many more. Reading the poems while viewing the paintings is a rare experience but hearing the poets and other readers perform the works aloud is soul stirring. DoN‘s painting is based on Henry Martin‘s anti-war rock song “Column of Light” which Henry sang accompanied by his guitar.
Henry Martin on Forbidden Drive
After Artists and Poets, Shoshka and DoN moseyed on over to Chestnut Hill to videotape a performance in the park by the afore mentioned singer/songwriter Henry Martin. Without any amplification, Henry rocked out his original compostions which filled the Wissahickon Creek valley with songs of love, unity, peace and a strange little ditty called “Stranded in Albequerque with a Corvair“, with a group of enthusiastic fans cheering him on including artist Charles Cushing, artist Jed Williams, ceramics artist Alyson Bartle (Henry’s wife) and many of Henry’s painting students, Henry sang more than an hours worth of original songs. The music played until the sun went down and the fire-flys came out, a truly magical time celebrating the Summer Solstice. Watch for announcements of videos on YouTube and MySpace.
Enter Digital @ Off the Wall Gallery @ Dirty Frank’s Bar
DoN reminds you that the Enter Digital Show is continuing at Dirty Frank’s @ 13th & Pine Streets. Rick Wright won an award for most avant garde for his cell phone photos. The gallery is taking orders for prints of varying sizes for all the artists pieces including DoN‘s “light beings (Dora & Pablo)” which previously won first prize in Philadelphia Sketch Club‘s Absolutely Abstract 2007 show, view a video of juror Bill Scott‘s comments on abstract art and DoN‘s winning piece on YouTube and DoNShOp.
Bill Scott @ Philadelphia Sketch Club’s Absolutely Abstract 2007