Monthly Archives: October 2010

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 – Fishtown & Kensington

Rachel Citrino - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Rachel CitrinoPhiladelphia Open Studio Tours 2010DoN called Karen McDonnell, the Queen of Hip-Hop Graffiti, to ask where she recommended to start on the last day of the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, 2010, West of Broad and she immediately replied, “Rachel Citrino!”  lola & DoN drove out Girard Ave,. past Frankfort Ave. to the east end where Rachel has a studio in a beautiful old Philadelphia row-house.  The long, narrow interior is filled with Rachel’s mono-prints, paintings, photographs and prints, her brazen color and appealing compositions look great on her pumpkin colored walls; chatting at Rachel’s kitchen island about her process and projects is a memorable highlight from an art saturated weekend.

Rachel Citrino - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Rachel Citrino‘s studio in Fishtown, a short walk from Girard Ave., is filled with bright color wall-to-wall.

Piety Choi @ Highwire Gallery - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Piety Choi @ Highwire Gallery

Kensington was our next art stop, a short drive up Frankord Ave, to a cool cluster of galleries and studios on a warm afternoon.  Highwire Gallery is showing a group show called Exploring Invisible Piety Choi, Maria DiMauro, & Karen Steenwhich,  a totally entrancing collection of enigmatic paintings, Choi’s recognizable style is so calm and thoughtful, her multiples are dreamy, the symbolism drawing DoN into her creative world with ease.

Piety Choi @ Highwire Gallery - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Piety Choi, Encountering Beauty @ Highwire Gallery in Kensington.

BYO Prints - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

David Stanley Aponte @ BYOPrint.

According to co-founder Lauren Fischer, Aponte is a master print-making guru with a wealth of knowledge to contribute to this unique operation – a community print-making shop you can rent by the hour or the day, be a full-time member or just hang out when you’re in the mood.  The BYOPrint team will help you realize your dream of an intaglio, woodcut, silkscreen, monotype, collograph and more; Lauren told DoN, “We’re about making prints happen.”  The space in a loft overlooking a motorcycle repair shop is cool bonus.

BYO Prints - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Lauren Fischer‘s workspace @ BYOPrints in Kensington.

BYO Prints - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

BYOPrints, the DIY all-purpose print shop in Kensington participated in this year’s Philadelphia Open Studio Tour.

Extra Extra - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Extra Extra bookshop & gallery showcased A Diamond is ForeverAlexandr Skarlinski, Daniel G Baird, Dave Murray, Jordan Tate & Michelle Ceja – above in the corner is 85% of All the Art I Made Turned into A Diamond by Dave Murray, a glamorously spare presentation of an en-cased diamond with a story. “Extra Extra is an artist-run space dedicated to the exposure of under-represented artists challenging the limits of the visual and performing arts.”  The multi-media and light art is enthralling, this space is one to re-visit and be rejuvenated.

Extra Extra - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Abbey Lee Sarver @ Extra Extra bookshop & gallery in Kensington – her website is groovy, too.  Sarver’s mixed media pieces in the loft bookshop is awesomely engrossing, playing mind games with generic archetypes transmuted into futuristic artifacts.  The bookshop sells handmade and special edition books, curator Derek French told lola & DoN that the artist collective, a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization, set up shop in Philly instead of their hometown Baltimore because it’s not as combative here.

VWVOFFKA

Part Time Studios in Kensington featuring recent work by in-house studio artists.  The cluster of art spaces in Kensington allows young artists to work at their art by teaming together and re-imagining the old world work spaces into new millennium intellectual outposts in Philly’s north-east.

Stopping for coffee at Rocket Cat Cafe across from the Warlocks Motorcycle Club made a cool continuum of the art smart vibe we’d been experiencing all day, sitting and watching hipsters pet their beards is a fun past-time, too.

Ellen Abraham - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Our final stop of the day was the Studios at 2424 East York, where we met two fine artists that the fine people at POST had arranged to display their art in the halls of the terrific arts building anchored by the uber-cool Skybox GalleryEllen Abraham and Marge Feldman took full advantage of the long hall showing a large collection of paintings; Ellen Abraham‘s style is cartoon expressionistic and Marge Feldman‘s God’s-eye view paintings are other-worldly yet familiar.  As it turns out Abraham is a fellow member of Da Vinci Art Alliance, DoN encouraged her to enter the upcoming Decameron show.  It’s so great that POST helped artists to find great new spaces to make them part of the famous art crawl, if only there was more time (and energy) to explore all the hidden art treasures to be found throughout all of Philly’s neighborhoods.

Ellen Abraham - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Ellen Abraham @ Studios @ 2424 York Street during the annual Philadelphia Open Studio Tour.

Marge Feldman - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - Fishtown & Kensington

Marge Feldman @ Studios @ 2424 York Street during the annual Philadelphia Open Studio Tour.

Thank you so much to the Center for Emerging Visual Artists and Philadelphia Open Studio Tours for creating such a wonderful experience design, the catalog with maps is a keeper, the posters around town were divine especially when DoN spotted an artist he knows in the picture, the advertising and promotion was probably the best ever by a local arts organization with a terrific web resource, inviting all of the city to come out and support their local artists.

 

 

Photos by DoN.

 

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 – 1241 Carpenter Street

Katie Murken Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - 1241 Carpenter Street

Katie Murkens studio @ 1241 Carpenter Street.  Katie’s shish-kabob-like  sculptures were installed at the Fringe Night Club during the Festival, in her studio they compliment her paintings with Brancusi-like forever-ness.

Katie Murken Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - 1241 Carpenter Street

Katie Murken makes beautiful books, each piece a perfect little world of conceptual nuggets from puns to memes and back.

Katie Murken Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - 1241 Carpenter Street

Katie Murken is working on a book project involving a mathematical formula of color preparation for simple house paint then applied to each page of a phone book.  The translucent paint dries curling the pages, deforming the book into a sculptural element to hang on the wall. Murken shared her code book with lola & DoN, a complicated method of color mixing involving weighing pigment assuring a satisfying tonal transition.

David Donahue Book Restorations Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - 1241 Carpenter Street

David Donahue Book Restoration is just down the hall from Katie Murken‘s studio, his space is a restoration laboratory reviving old and rare books.  The gregarious Donahue explained how his work is not just technical but requires ingenuity, artistic skill and research in order to match bindings and liners, David’s stories about book hunting would make a great TV show.

David Donahue Book Restorations Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - 1241 Carpenter Street

David Donahue Restorations @ 1241 Carpenter Street.

Amze Emmons

Amze Emmons @ 1241 Carpenter in South Philly.

Amze Emmons Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - 1241 Carpenter Street

Amze Emmons body of work describes refugee architecture like the edge cities of Beijing where stalled development is retrofitted by clever scavengers.  Like a William Gibson scenario, Emmons spare paintings with the drawings showing through like pentimenti highlight the refuse and refuge of civilization as communities are built where they don’t belong.

Amze Emmons Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - 1241 Carpenter Street

Amze Emmons prints for sale @ the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010, East of Broad Street weekend.  Our final stop of the day @ 1241 reminded DoN of his first show with POST, the opening party was held in the same space when Monica Turtle, a beautiful person & talented designer, curated Art @ Sophi, it’s gratifying to know the 3rd floor walk-up in South Philly is still operating as a creative space for fine artists.

 

 

Photos by DoN.

 

Karen S. Davies, Recent Work @ Twenty-Two Gallery

Karen S. Davies, Recent Work @ Twenty-Two Gallery

Karen S. Davies, Buddha’s Tears, mixed media, 26 x42″ @ Twenty-Two Gallery.

Karen S. Davies, Recent Work @ Twenty-Two Gallery

Karen S. Davies like cities but she likes the country better, she’s obsessed with patterns of foliage, light & darkness, the movement of water like in the back bays and marshlands of the Jersey Shore. To Davies the winding paths through the deep grasses have their own personalities, she emphasizes aspects of the natural world on the surface of her mixed media pieces.

Karen S. Davies, Recent Work @ Twenty-Two Gallery

The large works incorporate unusual yet common materials to create what Paul DuSold called a “…cosmic suggestiveness that comes through as very satisfying.”  Stop in Twenty-Two and ask Karen what the secret ingredients are that make the heroic pieces glow.

Karen S Davies, Recent Work @ Twenty-Two Gallery through 11/7/2010.

 

 

Photos by DoN.

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 – South Philly

Dan Welch Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - South Philly

Dan Welch Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - South Philly

Collage walls by Dan Welch @ OCDan on Fitzwater Street.  The handy-dandy POST guide says,”surreal, alchemical, flux.”  Yup!  The first stop on a beautiful Saturday was a third floor walk-up to OCDan’s trippy studio he shares with Emily Smith, their art resonates on different vibes but the space has room for both.

Emily Smith Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - South Philly

Emily Smith, watercolors.  Smith says she does a lot of self-portraits because no one will pose for her. she likes to mix beauty and the grotesque because people are monsters yet beautiful. “I like it when people hate my work, take away what you want.”

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - South Philly

Mosaic mural near South Street – we tried to get into the Magic Garden but it was crowded, this little diversion helped satisfy the urge.

Nangelini - Nancy - Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - South Philly

Nancy @ Nangellini on South Street makes Dream-Catchers from hand pulled, hand died yarn; the shop carries artisanal yarns made from exotic threads from near and far.  Although not part of the POST tour, Nangellini is a welcome stop on South Street to take in a heady mix of art and fashion.

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - South Philly

Studios @ The Purl, 1138 South 9th Street – jewelry, clever scarves, photography created by a five artist collective in that strip along the Italian Market waiting to become cool, on the other side of Washington Ave.

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2010 - South Philly

Studios @ The Purl is a good example of how many smaller galleries and collectives participated in this years art crawl, in this tough economy we have to band together to keep the dream alive.  Philly has a rich heritage of art and culture requiring support if we are to survive as a hub of the regional creative economy.  Studios @ The Purl includes Jurgita Centuke, Zivile Pupinyte & SoulPurl 77 Design.

DoN is working on a separate story about 1241 Carpenter Street and his Sunday tour of Kensington area studios and galleries.

 

Photos by DoN.

Embodiment of Desire – Ted Warchal & Nicole Eiland @ Smile Gallery

Nicole Eiland @ Smile Gallery

Nicole Eiland @ Smile Gallery.  Nicole told DoN she likes the smell of burning paper and she is inspired by the wonder of nature.  Eiland uses a lot of book forms symbolizing human symbiosis destroying and creating.

Ted Warchal @ Smile Gallery

Ted Warchal, Rotterdam at Low Tide, collage.

Ted Warchal @ Smile Gallery

Ted Warchal, Mig Alley, collage @ Smile Gallery, Embodiment of Desire through 11/8/2010.

Ted Warchal @ Smile Gallery

Ted Warchal, All Through the Censures, She Wears Her Cool Like Perfume, collage, acrylic, wood panel.

Ted Warchal explained to DoN that late Winter, early Spring he started to work small, a diversion from his found object sculptures he is so well known for.  He began creating meticulously tiny collages that look like little paintings, clustered together the pieces are subtle but on closer inspection each collage is a deep, secretive introspection on life, love and desire.

 

Photos by DoN.