Category Archives: Mural Arts Program

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Save the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy

iradiophilly started this petition to Mayor of Philadelphia Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenny and 2 others

Link to Change.org petition

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney released a revised budget for fiscal year 2021 in response to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic on May 1, 2020. Businesses have been closed and workers have been off the job for weeks, reducing the city’s tax revenue significantly. The Office of the Department of Finance projects that without any changes the city would have a $649 million deficit next year. The city cannot legally operate with a deficit. We understand that hard decisions needed to be made and that cut backs and program budget reductions were inevitable. However, to completely eliminate an office that supports a vital industry in the city of Philadelphia, especially one that has been hit very hard during this crisis, is short sighted and should be reversed.

In the new budget, the Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy was budgeted $0 dollars, down from approximately $4.4 million, effectively closing the office. Most of that budgeted money goes directly to the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, which gives grants to hundreds of non-profits in the city.

The presentation of the budget by the Mayor is only the first step. It still must be approved and voted on by City Council before July 1. 

SEE: Mayor’s Operating Budget – re: page 80
SEE: Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney Delivers New Budget by Video; Jobs/Services Cuts, Tax Hikes

According to the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, the arts and cultural sector generates $4.1 billion in economic impact annually and supports 55,000 jobs. That creates $1.3 billion in household income and $224.3 million in state and local taxes.* The creative economy includes but is not limited to artists, musicians, painters, sculptors, dancers, actors, filmmakers, graphic designers, venues, theaters, museums, galleries, bartenders, waiters, chefs, box office workers, bouncers, sound engineers, tech crews, art/dance/recording studios, and all employed by those entities, as well as support industries such as accountants, lawyers, hotels, ride shares, parking, public relations, marketing, and media. On the other side there are the fans, patrons, concert goers, theater attendees, and more who support the arts and make the purchases.

Most of this industry has been shut down during this crisis and needs support now more than ever to rebound during the economic recovery.

The Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy’s mission is to close the gap in access to quality cultural experiences and creative expression through the support and promotion of arts, culture and the creative industries; connecting Philadelphians to enriching, arts-infused experiences; linking local artists and cultural organizations to resources and opportunities; and preserving the City’s public art assets. http://creativephl.org

The OACCE is also responsible for the Music Industry Task Force, the Mayor’s Cultural Advisory Council, Art in City Hall, all of Philadelphia’s public art, and funding the Philadelphia Cultural Fund which gives grants to numerous Philadelphia arts and culture non-profits.

Philadelphia is a vibrant city teeming with culture that has been driving our identity for hundreds of years. The art created in Philadelphia reaches well beyond its borders and has touched the world and helps drive our other industries through attention and attraction to our area. As we look to rebound and recover from this crisis, there are certainly sectors that are essential to our health and safety and must be prioritized. However, unless we take care to ensure our cultural health is also revived, we risk losing our spirit.

Philadelphia’s creative economy deserves proper representation in City Hall. Understandably, it is likely not possible for the OACCE to be budgeted at the same level as the original budget, however, the industry’s economic impact alone justifies that the office’s budget be more than zero. We are simply asking that the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy not be eliminated.

*https://www.philaculture.org/why-arts-culture/prosperityStart a petition of your ownThis petition starter stood up and took action. Will you do the same?Start a petition

Updates

Over 6,200 Support the Creative Economy in Philadelphia!Thank you for all your support! Let’s keep the momentum going. Artists, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, back stage, front of house, all venue/gallery workers, recording studios, producers, photographers, video…iradiophilly5 days agoMore updates

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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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Food

How Food Moves: Edible LogisticsImage: Amber Art and Design, Corner Store Project

How Food Moves: Edible Logistics

Amber Art & Design / Ryan Griffis & Sarah Ross
Brian Holmes / Otabenga Jones & Associates / Cynthia Main
Claire PentecostPhilly Stake / Stephanie Rothenberg
Candice Smith with Freedom Arts / Kristen Neville Taylor

Daniel Tucker, Guest Curator, Graduate Program Director in Social and Studio Practices at Moore College of Art and Design
March 27 – May 27, 2017
Public Program and Reception: Thursday, March 30, 2017, 6:00 – 8:30pm
Our public program begins at 6:00 pm followed by the reception
Rowan University Art Gallery, 301 High Street West, First Floor, Glassboro, NJ 08028
Admission to the gallery and reception is free and open to the public.
The public program begins at 6:00 pm, led by guest curator Daniel Tucker in dialogue on art, geography, and agricultural planning with Professor Megan Bucknum Ferrigno from Rowan University’s School of Geography and Environment, and with exhibiting artists.

Artists explore the US food supply chain and its complex patterns of distribution in between the point of origin (the farm) and its point of consumption (the plate). The exhibition aims to highlight the work of contemporary artists grappling with the complexity of this movement through multi-media, research-based, and participatory practices that focus a lens on the social and industrial impacts of migrant workers, food justice movements, immigration, multiculturalism, and economic disparities. This project builds upon Tucker’s event series, Moving Units: Where Food & Economy Converge. A companion booklet, produced by Rowan University Art Gallery, serves to provide a general overview of US food supply chains. It includes descriptions of the artist contributions to the exhibition that relate to each step on the chain. Throughout this booklet you read about an approach to geographic education that values connecting with the world outside the classroom. The booklet was researched and written by Megan Bucknum Ferrigno, part-time faculty member of Rowan University’s Department of Geography, Planning and Sustainability. Additional contributions made by Dr. Chuck McGlynn, Dr. Jennifer Kitson and Makenzie Franco.

About the Artists and Projects

With Corner Store, Amber Art & Design – a team of Philadelphia-based artists that work on public art within marginalized communities that have little or no access to art – explores the contemporary sociological and psychological intersection between pan-ethnic Black and Asian communities in Philadelphia and how relationships are shaped based on which side of the counter we stand. (image top)

Illinois-based artists Ryan Griffis and Sarah Ross are represented by Between the Bottomlands and the World, a video (combining photographs, narrative writing, and moving images) exploring the rural Midwestern town of Beardstown, IL, a place of global exchange and international mobility, inscribed by post-NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) realities.

Brian Holmes, an art and cultural critic with a Ph.D. in Romance Languages has a long-standing interest in neoliberal globalization and a taste for on-the-ground intervention. His online atlas, Living Rivers, is devoted to the Mississippi and Great Lakes watersheds and shows these fluid ecosystems as they are inhabited by a multitude of creatures and radically altered by human enterprise.

Otabenga Jones & Associates, a Houston-based educational art organization, documents a collaborative art project and public health program addressing the ongoing crisis of obesity and its related risks with “The People’s Plate.” Inspired by the Black Panther Free Breakfast for School Children Program, this art project includes a public mural in Houston and programs to kick off a year-long commitment to health education.

Cynthia Main, a multidisciplinary artist from Missouri focuses on relating to the land as part of an integral view of a more sustainable society. She shares her hand-made buckets and barrels created using traditional techniques to readdress storage as one of the current dilemmas of localizing production.

Chicago’s Claire Pentecost uses photography to show how industrial agriculture is only partly about supplying food and how it is structured to meet the problem of expense and excess capital accumulation when considering the cost of complex machinery, brand name chemical herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, fertilizers, and patented seeds.

How Food Moves: Edible Logistics

Philly Stake is a locally-sourced, recurring dinner that raises funds for creative and relevant community engaged projects that contributes to the well-being of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods through community arts, urban agriculture, social services, and activist work.

Stephanie Rothenberg’s Reversal of Fortune: The Garden of Virtual Kinship is a garden in the form of a global map that explores the question of what it means to be charitable through the click of a button and examines the cultural phenomena of online crowd-funded charity and how the flow of money impacts the project, positively and negatively.

How Food Moves: Edible LogisticsStephanie Rothenberg

Candice Smith runs Freedom Arts, an after school collaborative art program at Camden’s Freedom Prep Middle School, which is creating an installation responding to the idea that Camden is a “food desert” and examining the movement of food at their school and in their community.

Philadelphia-based Kristen Neville Taylor’s installation – a globe depicting routes of oranges and actual oranges outfitted with a QR code that links to music, articles, folk tales, and art – was inspired by a lyric from Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” (“and she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China”) which she associated with the market place and the movement of food but also romance and exotic foreign cultures.

Admission to the gallery and reception is free and open to the public. 
Free parking is now available in the parking garage on Mick Drive directly across from the gallery. For visitor information go to our website: www.rowan.edu/artgallery.

Thank you to Mary Salvante, Rowan University Art Gallery for the content of this post.

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Bamboo

BAMBOO BIRD SONG, New work by Kathryn Pannepacker

Bamboo Bird Song, New Work by Kathryn Pannepacker

May 6th– June 19th, 2015, The Samuel Lieberman Gallery –  A Partnership with Allens Lane Art CenterSatellite Gallery Director: Diane Connelly, 6128 Germantown Avenue (between Walnut and Washington Lanes) , Philadelphia, PA 19144. Monday through Thursday 10:00 AM – 9:00 PM. Closed Friday. Saturday 8:30 AM – 4:00 PM. Wheelchair accessible

Please join us for a Settlement Music School Student Recital at 2:00 pm, Followed by a reception and Meet-the-Artist event.  Sunday May 31, 2015 Free Admission.

Bamboo Bird Song, a new series of weavings by textile artist Kathryn Pannepacker.  Kathryn, classically trained in weaving pictorial tapestry, expands the weaving vernacular by incorporating materials from nature in a traditional weaving method.

Inspired by the 2 acres of natural beauty on the grounds of historical Grumblethorpe, John Wister’s Big House, in Germantown, Kathryn brings the loom out of the studio into the environment where she explores and explodes, wrapping, knotting, exposing warp and weft, utilizing bamboo, Catalpa pods, pear branches, leaves and stalks, and stones in combination with yarns, rope, and sisal to create woven pieces that talk about birds, their song, nest building, flight, and a resounding celebration of life. The early morning dawn and evening chorus by the birds hidden in the bamboo and surrounding trees accompanied Kathryn as she worked, guiding the work as it was being created.

Bamboo Bird Song is currently on exhibit at the Settlement Music School Germantown Branch, Samuel Lieberman Gallery – A Partnership with Allens Lane Art Center6128 Germantown Ave, Philadelphia, Pa. 19144

Kathryn Pannepacker is a textile/visual artist living in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA. She graduated from Penn State University with a major in English and a minor in Art. She apprenticed with 3rd generation French tapestry weaver, Jean Pierre Larochette and his partner, Yael Lurie, a painter and designer for tapestry, in Berkeley, California. Kathryn then went to Aubusson, France to continue weaving as an artist-in-resident. She also had the opportunity to be an artist-in-resident in Hachioji, Japan, through the Japan Foundation.

Though still weaving pictorial tapestry, she also weaves with unusual materials. Through the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia, Kathryn was commissioned to paint a 7′ x 500ft wide mural called Wall of Rugs: The Global Language of Textiles at Girard and Belmont Avenues featuring the textiles of 42 countries. Part 2 (another 18 panels) was completed at Broad and Lehigh Streets. As lead artist along with Josh Sarantitis, she orchestrated weaving workshops at homeless shelters around Philadelphia for FINDING HOME, a textile mural project through the Mural Arts Program, at 13th & Ludlow Streets in Philadelphia.

Her most recent painted-to-look-like-knitting & crochet-mural, Nana Blankets, can be seen at Diamond Street between 25th and 26th streets in North Philadelphia.

Kathryn exhibits locally, nationally and internationally, and has work in private and public collections. In the summers of 2010 & 2013, she was in Canada doing an outdoor textile installation for the international textile arts event at Moon Rain Center. She is committed to the transformative power of art in people’s lives and the sustainability of such by involving the community. She was a 2011 recipient of the Leeway Transformation Award.

See her featured on the cover/Spring 2009 issue of AMERICAN CRAFT.

Kathryn Pannepacker; kpannepacker@gmail.com; 267-738-0050

Thank you to jill saull, www.GtownRadio.comfor the content of this post.

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Krimes

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II

By Laura Storck

As a native Philadelphian, I’d never visited the Eastern State Penitentiary, which is attributable to my own design as well as lack of desire.  Known as America’s most historic prison, Eastern State Penitentiary was once the most famous prison in the world due to its grand architecture and strict disciplinary practices. Notions of such harsh discipline, imprisonment, and being confined to small spaces renders fear and paralysis in my mind. However, after learning about the May First Friday unveiling of several artists at the ESP, this art enthusiast felt it was a perfect time to make the guarded effort to see this well-known space.

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

I was especially intrigued after reading about the installation ofJesse Krimes, entitled Apokaluptein 16389067: II.  Jesse is a Philadelphia-based artist, who was indicted by the U.S. government on non-violent controlled substance charges, and served a 70-month federal prison term.  While serving his term, Jesse produced a breathtaking and evocative 39-panel landscape on bedsheets. His process is just as magnificent: Jesse transferred cutout images from the New York Times using a plastic spoon and hairgel he had purchased from the commissary. He used the spoon to press the sheet and hairgel onto the newspaper cutout which resulted in an inverse image on the sheet.  Lastly, the images were blended together with color pencil. With the help of prison guards who had supported his work, he was able to store the sheets in a prison locker before having each panel mailed home piece by piece upon completion. Jesse kept a running dialogue in his mind of each of the sheets, as he didn’t see the entire grouping of panels until his release.

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

In it’s original iteration, Apokaluptein16389067 is 15 feet tall and 40 feet long.  The images are a grouped according to three major sections: the bottom represents Hell, the middle portion is a depiction of Earth, and the upper portion signifies Heaven.  A facsimile of the original is on display along the interior walls of an abandoned cell at the ESP. I spoke with Jesse about his artistic process, and he explained that the current installation was made by scanning the original bedsheets onto a large scanner and making a large print. He then made a copy of the large print (to mimic the inverse images that appear on the bedsheets due to the transfer) and affixed those pieces onto the walls of the prison cell exhibition space using hand sanitizer and a sealant. Jesse feels that this project has reached it’s zenith in as it’s final iteration at the Penitentiary.

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

This installation is a brilliant collage of color, form, and text. The texture is reminiscent of decoupage or encaustic painting. In their entirety, the panels serve as an artistic time capsule.

The original title, Apokaluptein16389067, references the Greek origin of the word apocalypse which means to reveal; by definition, it is a cataclysmic event. The numbers reference the artist’s Federal Bureau of Prisons identification number. Of all the works on display at this First Friday event, I felt especially compelled to see this exhibit as I am both amazed and in awe of the power of human resilience.  Last year, I read wonderful meme that has since stuck with me:  “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity”. Jesse Krimes‘ work is the epitome and personification of this proverb. I hold much admiration for his creative self-motivation in making this impressively transcendent work of art during his own personal apocalypse.

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

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Jesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Laura StorckJesse Krimes: Apokaluptein16389067: II, Eastern State Penitentiary, photograph by Laura Storck

www.jessekrimes.com

http://www.easternstate.org

Written and photographed by Laura Storck

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