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

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 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 Restorations @ 1241 Carpenter Street.

Amze Emmons @ 1241 Carpenter in South Philly.

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 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.