Monthly Archives: April 2017

Assembled

Philadelphia AssembledCity is Stage for Philadelphia Assembled

April through December 2017

Beginning in late April, a project entitled Philadelphia Assembled will manifest in a series of activities and actions throughout the city to illuminate and amplify a broad set of hopes, visions, and questions about Philadelphia’s future. Initiated by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk, working alongside an extensive network of collaborators—among them artists, writers, builders, storytellers, gardeners, healers, and activists—Philadelphia Assembled aims to shape a collective narrative about our city and some of the most urgent issues it faces at a time of heightened transformation. Deeply integrated into the fabric of the Museum, the project also questions the place of this institution in the midst of this change.

Philadelphia Assembled

Following this spring season of city-wide programs, the project will culminate in an exhibition opening in September at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This participatory installation, September 10 through December 10, 2017, will transform the Perelman Building’s ground floor galleries, café, and store into spaces that will celebrate the people, sights, sounds, and tastes of a resilient city’s multi-faceted identity. Admission will be Pay What You Wish.

Evocatively referred to as “atmospheres of democracy”, Philadelphia Assembled addresses a number of issues that are central to the future the city by focusing on key themes such as reconstructions—how we deal with questions of social displacement and reentry into society; sovereignty—how we define self-determination and autonomy; sanctuary—how we understand self-care, asylum, and refuge; futures—how to re-imagine our tomorrow; and movement—how we facilitate action and collective learning.

Philadelphia Assembled

Van Heeswijk’s work, which is often described as social practice or socially engaged art, combines art and activism. In this spirit, the project brings together voices of those who care about the changing landscape of Philadelphia and who, in life and work, seek to champion and secure a prosperous and equitable future for all of its citizens.

Timothy Rub, The George D. Widener Director and CEO, stated, “Some of the most interesting work being done by artists today straddles the boundary between art and life.  In 2013, we invited the Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk to consider what an artist might do in engaging Philadelphia’s many neighborhoods and diverse communities. What began as a conversation has grown, and it has been fascinating—and rewarding—to watch Philadelphia Assembled take on a life of its own. We are looking forward to the moment when our galleries are appropriated to become a stage for the city itself. It promises to be exciting and full of surprises and presents an opportunity to consider how we might define the roles and responsibilities that the Philadelphia Museum of Art can play as a civic institution in a changing city in the 21st century.”

Denise Valentine, a collaborator and Philadelphia storyteller, reflected on this process: “We intend to re-imagine the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a place to unearth stories hidden deep in the soil of Philadelphia. We envision a place where narratives of the enslaved, the incarcerated, the displaced, and the disenfranchised are held in as high esteem as Eurocentric ideas about art, history, and culture.”

Philadelphia Assembled

The project’s five “atmospheres” are described below:

Reconstructions

This atmosphere will assemble personal and collective narratives of mass incarceration and gentrification. Its first site, in the Nicetown/Tioga neighborhood, will be realized in close collaboration with Reconstructions, Inc. and the Alumni Ex Offenders Association. This group will offer programs exploring concepts of home, healing and trauma in relationship to imprisonment and reentry, including a teach-in and a neighborhood-wide procession. At a second site, in South Kensington/Olde Kensington, collaborators are examining the impact of gentrification and displacement, working with the Women’s Community Revitalization Project and Healthy Rowhouse Project to re-imagine a community garden at 4th and Master Streets as a dynamic space for discussion.

Philadelphia Assembled

Sovereignty

Exploring the concepts of self-determination and autonomy, this working group is addressing land sovereignty and cooperative forms of commerce and cultural exchange. Philadelphia Assembled will create a “sovereignty room” at the African Cultural Art Forum on 52nd Street, which will serve as a dedicated space in West Philadelphia for creating unity and cultivating economic sovereignty. Established in 1969, ACAF is a community-based organization that manufactures and sells products by entrepreneurs throughout the African diaspora. In the “sovereignty room” ACAF will host skill trainings and exchanges in preparation for a large public “Sovereignty Marketplace” in June. The second site is envisioned as a network of four urban gardens located in North Philadelphia. Programming and installations across these gardens will inform the ways in which plants, seeds, and land reinforce people’s connection to ancestry and serve as vehicles for nourishment, healing, and future growth. Urban gardens involved include Urban Creators, Norris Square Neighborhood Project Gardens, Fair Hill Burial Grounds, and Stretch and Fly Youth Business Garden.

Philadelphia Assembled

Futures

The Futures atmosphere is drawing from anti-colonial ideas to model different ways of exploring the future and community building. The Futures site is an active mobile project, called the Mobile Futures Institute, which involves retro-fitting a small bus into a flexible work space that will travel throughout the city, engaging in neighborhood-based programs on issues ranging from decolonization, to environmental racism, to economic justice. Collaborators are working with community members and organizations to produce events and happenings via the Mobile Futures Institute. Current partners include the Center for Returning Citizens, Black Quantum Futurism, Friends Center, Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia, Norris Square Community Alliance, Mighty Writers, and the Indigenous Peoples Day Movement, among others.

Philadelphia Assembled

Sanctuary

This group has proposed a combination of sites that will explore various models of self-care, asylum, and refuge. The larger site will be realized at a central location in Center City. The site structure is a geodesic dome inspired by temporary housing units for refugees in Europe. The space will be open for a month of summer programs, offering a layered definition of sanctuary through storytelling, advocacy, and direct action. In the months leading up to the fixed site, a portable site will host a series of activities working with identified partner organizations to address the provision of LBGTQ safe spaces, issues of immigration and migration, and harm reduction relating to drug use and sex work. Partner organizations include the Attic Youth Center, New Sanctuary Movement, Prevention Point Philadelphia, and Project Safe.

Philadelphia Assembled

Movement

The final atmosphere is one in which the various Philadelphia Assembled working groups intersect. This group is focused on the project’s production, dissemination, and communication, which is manifesting in audio recordings, a dedicated film series, project-specific graphics, an interactive web platform, and site-specific publications. Another component of the Movement atmosphere is the Youth Dream Trust, which will serve as a coalition of youth across the working groups in partnership with the Village of Arts and Humanities. Working closely with Philadelphia-based collective Amber Art and Design, the group will also orchestrate the performative movement of public sites to the Museum. Carrying objects, ideas, and conversations across the city streets, this public movement will culminate in a communal presentation along the ground floor of the Perelman Building, becoming a civic stage where the city is performed.

For Jeanne van Heeswijk, Philadelphia Assembled is a forward-moving process in which she is one among many participants imagining the city’s futures together. She stated: “My work is trying to get to the essence of aesthetics, to understand it as an engaged, inclusive, and proactive practice. This type of work is about using imagination to better understand how we live together. Rising, claiming, rooting, caring, moving – this is how we build a collective exercise of care.”

Philadelphia Assembled

Members of the public are invited to join the conversation and engage with collaborators by visiting the Philadelphia Assembled website and sharing their experiences via #phlassembled @phlassembled @philamuseum.

Program Events

For a full list of public programs and locations, please visit the dedicated website at phlassembled.net. All Philadelphia Assembled programs are free to the public unless noted otherwise.

Philadelphia Assembled

About Jeanne Van Heeswijk

Jeanne van Heeswijk is an artist who facilitates the creation of dynamic and diversified public spaces in order to “radicalize the local.” Her community-embedded projects question art’s autonomy by combining performative actions, discussions, and other forms of organizing and pedagogy in order to work alongside communities to take control of their own futures. Van Heeswijk’s work has been featured in publications and exhibitions worldwide, including the Liverpool, Shanghai, and Venice biennials. Accolades include the receipt of the 2011 Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change, the 2012 Curry Stone Prize for Social Design Pioneers, and the 2014 inaugural Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism at the Center for Curatorial Studies and Human Rights Project at Bard College. She lives and works in Rotterdam and Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Assembled

About Social Practice
Social Practice is an art medium that focuses on participation and collaboration with individuals, communities, and institutions in the collective creation of a temporary or permanent community. The process involves careful listening, thoughtful conversation, and community organizing. This is also referred to as socially engaged art, social justice art, community art and new genre public art.

Sponsors

Philadelphia Assembled is made possible by the William Penn Foundation, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Wyncote Foundation, Nancy M. Berman and Alan Bloch, Lynne and Harold Honickman, Mr. and Mrs. Milton S. Schneider, Constance and Sankey Williams, the Mondriaan Fund, and The Netherland-America Foundation.

Philadelphia Assembled

Collaborators

Philadelphia Assembled is initiated by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk and organized with Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art; Amanda Sroka, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art; Phoebe Bachman, Project Coordinator; and Sheldon Abba, Project Site Manager. Core collaborators include: Amber Art and Design, artist collective; Yana Balson, Associate Director of Exhibition Planning, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Kirtrina Baxter, community organizer and activist grower; Pascale Boucicaut, culinary artist and organizer; Maurits de Bruijn, graphic designer and web developer; Counter Narrative Society (CNS); Helen Cunningham, educator and conflict mediator; Gretchen Dykstra, Senior Marketing Editor, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Morgan Gengo, Marketing and Audience Development Manager, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Shari Hersh, Mural Arts Senior Project Manager and Founder of the Restored Spaces Initiative; Russell Hicks, entrepreneur; in•site collaborative, a research, design, and mapping collective; Nehad Khader, film curator and artist; Jason Killinger, graphic designer; Dianne Loftis, researcher and compiler; Charlotte Lowrey, Project Assistant for the Contemporary Caucus, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Zein Nakhoda, filmmaker; Michael O’Bryan, artist and youth facilitator; People’s Paper Co-op, a collaborative initiative for re-entry; Elisabeth Perez-Luna, journalist and public broadcasting producer; Damon Reaves, Associate Curator of Education, Community Engagement and Access, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Chris Rogers, educator and organizer; Kristin Schwab, community cook and organizer; 75B, design collective; Traction Company, artist collaborative studio; Denise Valentine, storyteller and activist; Phantazia Washington, LGBTQ activist and facilitator; A. M. Weaver, artist and curator; Gee Wesley, artist and curator; Jared Wood, artist; Karina Wratschko, Special Projects Librarian, Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Billy Yalowitz, playwright and community-based performance artist.

Community Partners and Program Hosts

African Cultural Art Forum, Alumni Ex-Offenders Association, The Attic Youth Center, Broad Street Ministry, The Center for Returning Citizens, Coalition for Racial Justice (CoRaJus), Community Futurisms: Time & Memory in North Philly (Community Futures Lab), The Culinary Enterprise Center, Deep Green Philly, The Enterprise Center, Experimental Farm Network, Healthy Rowhouse Project, Historic Fair Hill, Laos in the House, Mighty Writers, MOVE, Mural Arts Philadelphia, New Sanctuary Movement Philadelphia, Norris Square Neighborhood Project, North Central CDC, Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance, Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations, Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities, Prevention Point Philadelphia, Project SAFE, Reconstruction Inc., Soil Generation, Take Back the Night Philadelphia, Ulises, Urban Creators-Life Do Grow Farm, The Village of Arts and Humanities, W/N W/N, and the Women’s Community Revitalization Project.

Locations

In the City: April – July 2017

Movement to the Museum: July – August 2017

Perelman Building, ground floor: September 10–December 10, 2017

Philadelphia Assembled is a project undertaken in collaboration with stakeholders from across the city and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The views expressed by individual participants or in materials developed as part of Philadelphia Assembled are representative of the project’s collective conception and production and are not, necessarily, the views of the Museum or any other individual involved.

Social Media
Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Tumblr/YouTube: @philamuseum @phlassembled

We are Philadelphia’s art museum. We are a landmark building. A world-renowned collection. A place that welcomes everyone. We bring the arts to life, inspiring visitors—through scholarly study and creative play—to discover the spirit of imagination that lies in everyone. We connect people with the arts in rich and varied ways, making the experience of the Museum surprising, lively, and always memorable. We are committed to inviting visitors to see the world—and themselves—anew through the beauty and expressive power of the arts.

For additional information, contact the Communications Department of the Philadelphia Museum of Art phone at 215-684-7860, by fax at 215-235-0050, or by e-mail at pressroom@philamuseum.org.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street. For general information, call (215) 763-8100.

Thank you to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the content of this post.

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Marathon

Drawing Marathon. The Plastic Club

Drawing Marathon, April 23rd, The Plastic Club

Life drawing, portrait drawing and painting, short poses/croquis, still life set-ups, noir lighting, Sunday April 23rd, 10:00am – 10:00pm. $15.00 cash for come and go all day. All proceeds benefit Sunshine Arts, an artist-in-residence outreach program  encouraging neighborhood kids to learn the wonderful worlds of dance. music, literature, and art.

The Plastic Club, 245 S. Camac Street,The Avenue of the Artists, Philadelphia, PA, 19107
215-545-9324

“Since 1897, The Plastic Club has been devoted to the promotion and preservation of the visual (plastic) arts in Philadelphia. The busy gallery schedule offers several annual exhibitions for members and non-members, as well as invited artists in solo and group exhibitions. Members include well-known Philadelphia artists.

The name ” Plastic Club,” suggested by Blanche Dillaye, referred to any work of art unfinished, or in a “plastic” state. The term also refers to the changing and tactile sense of painting and sculpture.

Among the founding members of The Plastic Club were the “Red Rose Girls” — Violet Oakley, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Elizabeth Shippen Green — outstanding artists of their time. The name was given to this group of talented women by their teacher Howard Pyle.”

Sunshine Arts41 Sunshine Road, Upper Darby PA, 19082, 610.352.7968

Ms. Sheila Modglin started Sunshine Arts at 41 Sunshine Road in the summer of 2004. She invited children from the neighborhood to listen to stories as they sat around the fish pond in the front yard. The kids enjoyed helping to water the plants and feed the fish.

Since then the organization has grown significantly. Now, resident artists Mr. Patrick O’Banion, Ms. Kat Lehmer, and Mr. Fen Jeeters teach classes to children of all ages from the community. Classes are scheduled after school during the week and on Saturdays. Regardless of the listed class schedule, children come to Sunshine Arts daily to talk, do crafts or get help with homework. Often, they enjoy Mr. Patrick’s fresh baked bread, homemade soup, cookies, or other wholesome snacks when they visit.

The goal of Sunshine Arts is to enhance the education and personal growth of our future generations. Executive director, Sheila Modglin grew up with a very strong sense of community within her family; “We would do any thing for each other. I want to share the sense of community that I have in my life with all the beautiful people right here surrounding this home. The house itself is a manifestation of living art and was accomplished through hard work from my generous and creative family and friends.”

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Anahata

John Singletary - Anahata, James Oliver Galleryclick for large images

John Singletary – Anahata, James Oliver Gallery

James Oliver Gallery, 723 Chestnut Street, 4th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106

215-923-1242 (office)

267-918-7432 (mobile)

jamesolivergallery@gmail.com

May 6th – June 9th, 2017

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 6th, 6:00 -10:00 PM

Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Friday 5:00pm – 8:00pm, Saturday 12:00pm – 8:00pm

John Singletary - Anahata, James Oliver GalleryDetail of “Providence, 30′ x 5′, Photography Based OLED Installation.

Philadelphia native, John Singletary, is a fine art photographer and multi-media artist.  His educational training includes both Drexel University and The University of the Arts. He has exhibited at The Pennsylvania State Museum of Art, LG Tripp Gallery and Gallery 1401. As well, his work is represented in the permanent collections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Center for Fine Art Photography and The Free Library of Philadelphia.

Anahata is a photographic exhibition that uses its mode of presentation to transcend the limitations of the medium in a multi-disciplinary installation experience. Photographs are animated through multiple state-of-the-art organic LED panels used as electronic canvases. The technology is synchronized to create joined, large format displays, some forming 8′ x 8′ luminous squares or a 30′ Greco-Roman frieze-inspired compositions. Images materialize out of walls and recede back into darkness, as would apparitions in this oddly familiar living space. These and other works are set to original music composed by John Singletary and Matt Hollenberg. In addition, the show will feature a live performance by dancers Amber Malmstadt and Megan Hannon.

John Singletary - Anahata, James Oliver GalleryDetail of “Providence“, 30’x5′ Photography Based OLED Installation.

While the ambition in Singletary’s presentation is of distinct merit, it’s not mere technology doing the real work. The photographic quality in his highly ornamented images demonstrates a conscious and masterful use of the medium. Influenced by a production approach found in theater and cinema, Singletary and his crew built a black box studio in a Victorian house in Germantown, PA as a set for the photography in Anahata. This long term collaborative project enlisted dancers, theater performers, costume designers, make-up artists, choreographers and set technicians. And, in this black box studio, the dream-like imagery, extracted from mythology, symbolism and mysticism directs the narrative in Anahata as it explores human relationships and their connection to the divine.

John Singletary - Anahata, James Oliver Gallery“The Dance of Hades”, 5’x3′ Photography Based OLED Installation.

In John Singletary’s inventive world of Anahata, the artist commands an ancient cry from demons and gods in spear-decorated headdresses and cocoon-like webs that conquer and connect us. From there, he uses an advanced understanding of technology to take us seamlessly forward into a hyper-lit future. With his sensitivity in making this unique grand scale production personal and his exacting print work, the fantasticality in Anahata becomes very real.

John Singletary - Anahata, James Oliver Gallery“Clarise”, 8’x8′ Photography Based OLED Installation.

Thank you to John Singletary for the content of this post.

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GoBabyGo!

gobabygo! murals at UDBuddy’s Reef, acrylic on canvas, 6′ x 6′, Tracey Landmann

The Evolution of Art as a Powerful Resource: The GoBabyGo! University of Delaware Murals

by Tracey Landmann

I am at The Philadelphia Sketch Club tonight to discuss the three-dimensional environments, or “movable murals” I painted for the GoBabyGo! Program, the headquarters of which are the Pediatric Mobility Lab on the University of Delaware’s STAR Campus. These three paintings, however, are only prototypes for their future potential, which is what I am going to write about.  The idea I present is not a new one, exactly, but it is one whose fulfillment is growing increasingly more important as our culture both escalates and deteriorates, wreaking data overload havoc. I believe artists can teach the vulnerable among us to control their reactions to that cacophony.  I only realized the extent of the power art (and its creators) has in the social service sector while I was working on these murals.  I will explain.

GoBabyGo is a program that provides independent physical, and therefore social and developmental, mobility for people whose movement is limited by physical disability. There are two sides to GoBabyGo!, the pediatric part, in which toddlers receive their own battery-powered cars specially adapted to work with their abilities (while combating their disabilities) in their own homes and nearby surroundings, and there is also an portion whereby a harness system, which enables people (adults and children) to traverse pathways in buildings by means of poles bolted into ceiling from which a “harness” (supportive vest) on a pulley hangs. This is also useful in a limited physical setting. My idea was to not only put a colorful patch over the ugly, boring gray of a pediatric rehabilitation setting, but also to enlarge cognitive range with an ‘assistive technology’ that will never lose battery power or enable mobility only with a suspended framework.

What I have done so far has been has been for GBG’s pediatric side: I decided to use the unlimited mobility of imagination to enhance the restricted kind provided by the adapted cars. Theoretically, the paintings would stimulate the previously stationary children, now able to maneuver independent of an adult transporter, to go toward the murals; motivate them to reach out for the new environments (they are intended to hang at tiny person eye level), and wonder what might lie in and beyond them. They could make up stories, play pretend – in other words, imagine any number of things about the amazing new places they would see, and be able to reach. All of the animals in the murals are named and described as to species, but their stories are up to the children.  The kids are not fed pre-fab fiction from a cartoon or toy conglomerate.  My dream for the murals is that their use would both set the program apart from those of its type, giving it an extra “edge” to entice potential funders, and inspire GBG founder/director Dr. Cole Galloway to better address the cognitive development needs of the children he serves. My bigger dreams are that the dozens of chapters of GoBabyGo! world wide, the University of Delaware’s physical therapy team, and especially, the caregivers of mobility-impaired children, will see the value of my ideas and duplicate my actions. I suppose you could say I’m planting an already cultivated field to ripen my own vision, but at least the ensuing harvest is for others. Unfortunately, as far as I know, my seeds have not yet been able to sprout very well.

gobabygo! murals at UDWelcome to the Jungle, acrylic on canvas, 6′ x 6′, Tracey Landmann

Growth will be far more likely when the murals are displayed in a more visible location, exhibited in GBG workshops, shown in the program’s promotional materials, and especially, are used as  the base for  lot more sensory stimulation in GBG’s new lab-to-be. This seems like a very complex plant, I know, but it didn’t begin that way.

At first, I wanted to do this because Cole Galloway had been incredibly supportive of the art program I designed for the Brain Injury Association of Delaware.  I couldn’t do much to show my appreciation, but Cole likes my work, so I decided I would produce some of it (but more kid-friendly) for his Pediatric Mobility Lab. It took me several months to figure out the most effective way to do that; it began when he asked me simply to come in and paint stuff – do whatever I want – but told me they, of course, had no money to make it happen.  I don’t think he realized that painting with skill takes a lot of time and costly materials, and considering my commitment level to both art and to cognitive rehabilitation, I’m not one to slap on paint just for fun in a therapy environment. It needs to be beneficial, and benefit requires a lot of thought. When I finally figured out how I could best add to the program’s impact, I was sure I could convince the Delaware Division of the Arts to fund the project (and I did – in part), which would not only pay for materials for me, but introduce Cole to a new grant source for future GBG creative endeavors.  And so: the mural project started off pretty simply, but soon meant a lot more to me.

The deeper motivations behind the project idea – why I would go to such extremes for GoBabyGo! – came into sharper focus as I designed and painted.  I had a lot of time to think while working.  I realized I wanted to paint the murals because I am very conscious of the disadvantages individuals with disabilities have, and how its members are far more limited if they can’t overcompensate for those deficits and social barrier than if they have the figurative tools to do so.  Even more than the average person, most people with physical and/or mental impairments must be adaptable to the potential scenarios and circumstances that may present themselves in the future. Come to think of it, everyone facing an excess of difficulties in any sense is better off if he or she can consider many options.

A person who is flexible is one who is able to view situations from many different perspectives, as well as capable of applying learned knowledge.  That person needs to organize and prioritize life’s tasks, and be in control of his or her own existence. Flexibility of perception and imagination is vital. Although I can’t magically imbue anyone with wisdom, I am  certain creating three dimensional environments will not only stimulate children to explore physical mobility potential by providing hints of what is ’out there,’ but could conceivably enable anyone to consider the possibilities of ‘out there’ in a broader sense.

My project goals really evolved. In doing the murals for GoBabyGo!,  I set out to address what I felt to be Cole’s needs for his program – making the murals light and portable, creating a background to motivate toddlers to move –  but for the toddlers, whose future life requirements are not the main priority for a physical therapy program created  to lower a few fences for a few years, it turned out I wanted my work to reach much farther.

Right now, we who have the gift of creativity might want to think about examining the goals we have for our artistic power, and reach farther, too. The externally provided routes to resources needed to successfully guide life, always elusive (at best), are growing extremely scarce as those whom society marginalizes are shoved aside, and as their demands to raise their Quality of Life expectations grow more insistent.

Today’s service environment for members of vulnerable populations is bad and getting worse as the fundamentals of democracy. Education and social programs are shriveling, and many are becoming less concerned for their neighbors because their attention is forcibly redirected toward potential danger to their own survival. Now more than ever before, we must work together to strengthen our weakest communities, in order to keep the voting majority able to make the decisions to both maintain social stability and allow for progress.  At present, that so-called majority is being manipulated into attacking itself. The divisions between those with literal and figurative wealth and those who are resource-poor is growing, and the resource-rich – inevitably the ones in positions of power – often spur that growth by steering those of us in the middle in disorienting circles.  We need to fortify ourselves by being aware, and enlightening those in the dark.

gobabygo! murals at UDVincent on Safari, acrylic on canvas, 6′ x 8′, Tracey Landmann

As artists, we despair: we mount protest shows, we join in marches,  we use our art to tell the world of our feelings about) the current state of events BUT WHAT CAN WE DO BESIDES VOICE OUR OWN DISCONTENT?  How can we control any of it? What special quality do we have that can help keep the canyon dividing the Withs from the Withouts from widening?

We can share our self-preservation, our therapy, our own secure base –ART – with the people who see their roads to the future as dead ends. It isn’t an easy fix, but we can help.  Our most significant strength is for the youth; it is much simpler to establish a broad boulevard in an open space than it is to widen a narrow road in an overpopulated city.  We can literally expand environments and alter thought patterns for the juvenile members of disadvantaged groups before mental pathways become set. The self-awareness, ability to balance composition and prioritize focus that our own creativity brings to us can be shared with others in the form of – not just art instruction, but – sensory environments.  We can create worlds in empty spaces – worlds that provoke thought, imagination, and a million different possibilities.  We can bring brightness, light, refreshing sounds, pleasing textures, delicious tastes and aroma, or at least the suggestions of all those, via visual stimulation to people who’ve given up on looking for pathways, or at least never were allowed the malleability of mind required to seek them. Our biggest potential contribution to society is our power to encourage mental agility.

If more of our disenfranchised groups, and especially, more children (who have largely been deprived of creative pursuits, and consequently, ability to foster analytic skill), are encouraged to think outside the boxes those who wish to retain control have created for them, perhaps the artists will be the ones who can kick-start the “Make America Great Again” process.  I don’t see anyone else doing it right now.

Thank you to Tracey Landmann for the content of this post.

Tracey.Landmann.TL@gmail.com

(302) 383-0698

For more information on GoBabyGo!http://sites.udel.edu/gobabygo/

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afterimage

Robert McNellis : afterimage | photostructures at ARTSPACE 1241

Robert McNellis : afterimage | photostructures at ARTSPACE 1241

April 8, 2017 to April 27, 2017

“The contemporary new work of Robert McNellis is a bold departure from his lit abstractions of the last year. Expanding from the previous structural solutions, he has turned to using surprising, anonymous images derived from photographs, or photographs derived from anonymous images, and combining these with precise, sleek structures. The elements that makes this possible are vague, almost anonymous, figuration and focused light. In the earlier abstract work, the image relied almost entirely on the structure. This new work is an attempt to bring image and structure onto a more equal footing. This required a movement towards limited figuration in the images, for abstraction rests almost entirely on structure. The brilliant resonances produced are sure to reward those who are able to spend time with the work.” – 1241 CARPENTER

Reception Saturday, April 8, 4 – 7 pm

1241 CARPENTER Studios / Ground Floor + @HBHQ  |  A creative community : artist studios : creative businesses : exhibition spaces.

1241 CARPENTER – Over fifty artists and craftspeople working in an awesome 19th Century factory building.

We’re in the Hawthorne neighborhood of Philadelphia. We’re often lumped in with Bella Vista to the east and South Philadelphia which officially begins south of Washington Avenue. Our building is always buzzing with our many creative businesses and art studios.

One exhibition venues is ARTSPACE 1241. It features our tenants and some guest artists each month.

Our close proximity to the Italian Market is terrific for us and our visitors. It’s an authentic taste of Philadelphia!”

Thank you to 1241 CARPENTER for the content of this post which DoN lifted in whole without permission from the press release and website.

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