I’m really honored to be working with Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet again this season. Our new work EPHEMERAL is our grandest to date. Seven dancers, lighting design by Dutch artist Katinka Marac and an evocative score of environmental elements and sonic stillness.
Last month planet Earth lost one of its a greatest visionary artists of the last century: David Bowie. David’s music and style had a huge influence on me. As I tweeted the morning of his death: “He taught the world it was ok to be different, it was ok to experiment, it was ok to change.”
In two weeks I’ll be part of an all-star night of Philadelphia musicians playing Bowie’s music. I’ll be playing keyboards with some (very talented) friends. I don’t want to spoil the surprise but we’ll be playing two songs from my favorite Bowie album as well as his last epic artistic statement.
DAVID BOWIE TRIBUTE NIGHT Thursday, February 11at 8 PM The Fire
412 W Girard Ave, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19123
$8 / 21+
Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State
March 19, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. – March 20, 2016 at 7:00 a.m.
the fidget space1714 N Mascher Street Philadelphia
$10 – $20 sliding scale
This is going to be a 12-hour long concert of sleep music! Bring a sleeping bag, pillow and blanket, enjoy some dream tea and snuggle in for 12-hours of dream drones and tape loop lullabies. I’ll be performing ambient music all night with visuals from Alex Bond focusing on themes of Bardo, reincarnation, Dream Yoga and sleep (un)consciousness.
To get a taste of the kind of music you’ll hear, please check out my 2014 sleep music album, Quiescent. It’s an eight-hour mix of music for the four sleep cycles.
Objet D’ Art, Group Photography Exhibition at Church St. Art & Craft Gallery, Curator Jeff Stroud
Call to all local photographers! March Photography Exhibition Church St. Art & Craft Gallery of Mt Holly, NJ, has invited me to curate this year’s photography exhibition which will be held in March 2016. The theme this year is: Objet D’ Art: A small object that is valued because it is beautiful or interesting; an object that artist value.
The theme here is to show your creative artistic side by exhibiting small objects you find in your home, everyday object you use or collection, or any small found objects that catch your imagination while creating a single image of fine art.
Drop off dates Feb 26-28th during business hours Wednesday– Friday 11-6:00 pm, Saturday10-6:00 pm. Sunday12-4:00 pm
There is a $10 submission fee. You may submit up to 3 photographs, framed and properly wired for hanging. The show will run from March 2nd through the 26th and we will be holding a meet the artists reception on March 12th from 4:00 – 6:00 pm. Open to the public and there will be refreshments served.
I look forward to hearing from you as well as curating this exhibition. You are welcome to invite friends and share this post with other photographers.
Objet D’art: Photography Exhibition, the exhibit for the month of March at Church St. Art & Craft Gallerywill be non-juried and curated by our guest photographer Jeff Stroud.
Theme: Objet D’ Art: A small object that is valued because it is beautiful or interesting; an object that artists value.
“The theme here is to show your creative artistic side by exhibiting small objects you can find in your home, everyday object you use or collect or small found object that catch your imagination while creating a single image of fine art with blurred/bokeh background.” – Jeff Stroud
For any questions regarding the theme or medium, please contact Jeff at jeffstroud.52@gmail.com
In/Dwelling: Meditations on Built Environments as Cultural Narrative February 22 – April 14, 2016
Introducing our new location 301 High Street, Glassboro New Jersey
Artist’s talk and reception Thursday, February 25, 5 – 8 pm
Rowan University Art Gallery at High Street explores built environments, both external and internal, as emblems of a cultural past, present, and future with In/Dwelling:Meditations on Built Environments as Cultural Narrative. The exhibition is on display from February 22 to April 14, with an artist’s lecture and reception onFebruary 25 from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.
We are compelled to imagine a time when architectural spaces and objects were new representations of manufacturing, design, and aesthetic tastes and trends. The urban / suburban motifs have time and again provided artists with the perfect vehicle in which to explore universal topics such as: the complexity of infrastructure, commerce, demographics, and identity as inspiration to create new work. In this exhibition the participating artists imbue architectural structures and domestic objects with interpretations of historical experiences, social customs, and emotional memories as a cultural narrative. Artists include Philadelphia based artists: Lewis Colburn, Ben Grasso, Kay Healy, Erin Murray, and Miriam Singer. Chicago based artist Ann Toebbe, and New York based artist Brian Tolle. A work by Louise Bourgeois is included courtesy of the gallery permanent collection.
The catalyst behind the framing of this exhibition concept was the print Femme Maison, 1984, by Louise Bourgeois from the gallery collection. Femme Maison, which means both “woman-house” and “house-wife,” is one of Louise Bourgeois’s most famous motifs. For the artist, who was raised in France, the home was closely connected to female identity. By combining residential architecture and the curvaceous female body, Bourgeois portrays a woman who is obscured and entrapped by the domestic realm that she simultaneously supports.
The selected artists for this exhibition approach domesticity, architecture, and everyday objects from singular and accumulative perspectives. Brian Tolle creates a cross-wiring of reality and fiction in his sculptures and installations and blurs the border between the contemporary and historical with recurring themes of architecture, site, and technology. Lewis Colburn, of Philadelphia, sees objects as unreliable tour guides. He investigates ways in which we re-interpret and re-tell the past through the filter of our current experience. Ben Grasso, of Brooklyn, NY, presents a re-imagining of what actually exists and recasts these things in new terms creating a re-alignment of logic that makes plastic the anxiety underlying objects in the world through his painting. Miriam Singer, looks perceptually at multiple locations in Philadelphia and expresses the fragmentation of a fictional city as a collage of noise, pattern, and density.
By recounting memories of unique, collective, or habitual memories these artists investigate identity and history through interior and exterior experiences. Kay Healy, a Philadelphia based artist, creates large-scale screen printed and stuffed fabric furniture based on other people’s descriptions of their childhood homes and investigates how we relate to objects and cope with the fact that there is no way to truly return home. Ann Toebbe, a Chicago based artist, creates meticulous paintings using reconstructed memory and multiple perspectives to depict domestic and architectural spaces in cut-out paper doll fashion. Erin Murray, of Philadelphia, relates to buildings and built forms as being understood to represent our physical body, our cultural history, our economic reality, and our long-formed habits.
Brian Tolle, from New York, offers a lecture on February 25. He has completed several public art installations in New York, including the Irish Hunger Memorial in New York City. He has exhibited around the world and his work is included in numerous museum collections. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from SUNY at Albany; a B.F.A. from Parsons the New School for Design, NY; and an M.F.A. from Yale University in New Haven, CT.
The lecture will be presented at Westby Hall Room 111 beginning at 5:00 p.m. A reception follows at 301 High Street in Glassboro at 6:00 p.m.
Shuttle vans will be provided for guests traveling from Westby Hall to High Street. Return service will not be provided, but High Street is only a 15-minute walk away. Free public parking is available on High Street and neighboring streets. Municipal parking areas are available off Lake Street (behind Little Beefs Deli) and near the Barnes and Noble shopping complex between New Street and Rowan Blvd.
Images: top, Brian Tolle, Outgrown, platinum silicon rubber, toys. Courtesy the artist and CRG gallery. Bottom: Ann Toebbe, Jim’s Apartment, paper, gouache and pencil on panel.
Thank you to Rowan University Art Gallery for the content of this post.
LikeDoNArTNeWsPhiladelphia Art News Blog on facebook
“The first time I ever heard of artist Judith Schaechter was sometime back in the early 1980’s when we were both in a group show at Philadelphia’s Art Alliance. She had this small unassuming painting that I have never forgotten. Judith stopped painting and went on to excel in another medium, stained glass, and on October 17th, 2015 I went back to the Philadelphia Art Alliance to see a dazzling display of her work. Later, I spent an afternoon at Judith’s home and studio. I believe that this funny, brilliant woman is one of the world’s greatest living artists.” – John Thornton
“It seems my work is centered on the idea of transforming the wretched into the beautiful in theme as well as design. For me, this means taking what is typically negative — say, unspeakable grief, unbearable sentimentality, or nerve-wracking ambivalence, and representing it in such a way that it is inviting and safe to contemplate and captivating to observe (to avoid ending with preposition). I am at one with those who believe art is a way of feeling one’s feelings in a deeper, more poignant way.” – Judith Schaechterexcerpt artist statement
“Judith Schaechter’s work is gut-wrenchingly beautiful. “Beauty” says the artist, “is considered the most horrible crime you can commit in the modern art world. People are suspicious of anything that makes them feel as though they may lose control. Beauty forces you to confront your helplessness as well as your dark side. My work is not intended to make comfortable people unhappy, although it may make unhappy people comfortable.” – University of the Arts faculty
VISIT PHILADELPHIA’s fun, over-the-top commercial honors the city’s beloved icons while showing off the many other enjoyments that make Philadelphia such a popular place to visit and stay overnight. In these two scenes, a larger-than-life Benjamin Franklin makes his way through the city in preparation for a spat with a cheesesteak that’s just as eager for the spotlight as Ben. An outrageous tiff ensues, leaving a visitor asking, “What’s with them?,” and her taxi driver responding, “Oh those two. They’re always fighting for attention.” The tongue-in-cheek spot ends with the tagline: There’s more to a legendary city than its legends.
Credit: Photo courtesy of VISIT PHILADELPHIA®
PHILADELPHIA, January 26, 2016 – VISIT PHILADELPHIA® debuted a new television commercial today—a fun, over-the-top spot that honors the city’s beloved icons while showing off the many other enjoyments that make Philadelphia such a popular place to visit and stay overnight. Created in partnership with Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners, the commercial is part of the destination marketing organization’s With Love, Philadelphia XOXO® campaign and the first VISIT PHILADELPHIA spot to air on television since 2011. It is viewable at visitphilly.com/philazillas.
“Cheesesteaks and history are legendary in Philadelphia, and deservedly so,” said Meryl Levitz, president and CEO, VISIT PHILADELPHIA. “But we want people to realize that there’s a lot more to this city, and it’s all deserving of attention: the waterfronts, the parks, the restaurants, the bars, the culture, the walkability. Our new commercial shows off these wonders, and every one of them is a great reason to visit Philadelphia. You’ll definitely need more than a day to get it all in though.”
The Concept & Strategy Behind It:
In the spot entitled “Philazillas,” a larger-than-life Benjamin Franklin and a just-as-big cheesesteak vie for the spotlight during an outrageous tiff that leaves a visitor asking, “What’s with them?,” and her taxi driver responding, “Oh those two. They’re always fighting for attention.” The tongue-in-cheek spot ends with the tagline: There’s more to a legendary city than its legends.
Research commissioned by VISIT PHILADELPHIA in 2015 found that while most leisure travelers acknowledged Philadelphia’s iconic sites, they seek fun and authentic experiences, restaurants, nightlife, art and walkability for urban destination getaways. That’s why “Philazillas” shows off the many city features that compel travelers to visit.
“The challenge in developing a spot that broadens people’s perspectives about what makes Philly great was having a bit of fun with the two things the city is most famous for—cheesesteaks and history,” said Steve Red, president and chief creative officer, Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners. “But at the same time, it was important to acknowledge their legendary status and importance to the city.”
Why Now?:
Philadelphia has hit records and milestones in recent years, with 39.7 million total visitors in 2014 and 77% occupancy at Center City hotels and an historic visit from Pope Francis in 2015. To keep this momentum going, it’s important for Philadelphia to stay top of mind for people making decisions about their next vacation or even contemplating a new location for their home or business. That means getting the Philadelphia message out to them on all possible platforms, including on TVs and digital screens.
The Media Buy:
Video consumption across many platforms is at an all-time high, and it’s imperative for VISIT PHILADELPHIA to reach consumers in these spaces. The destination-marketing organization secured a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development grant to promote visitation to Philadelphia through video on screens of all sorts—TV, desktop, mobile and tablet devices—in 2016. This multi-screen grant helps extend the messaging of the With Love campaign to a wider audience.
There are three versions of the commercial: 60 seconds, 30 seconds and 15 seconds. The 60-second version tells the most robust story, and that iteration will appear online and on VISIT PHILADELPHIA’s websites and social media properties. Due to a limited budget, the shorter versions will run on television and online as part of the paid advertising buy.
The “Philazillas” spot will complement VISIT PHILADELPHIA’s core media buy, which will feature creative on digital and out-of-home advertising in the New York and Philadelphia DMAs. The commercial will run on broadcast and cable networks in three flights: February 1-21, July 11-31 andSeptember 5-18, 2016. In addition, it will appear online through media distribution partners such as Lin Digital, TubeMogul, Facebook and YouTube.
VISIT PHILADELPHIA® makes Philadelphia and The Countryside® a premier destination through marketing and image building that increases the number of visitors, the number of nights they stay and the number of things they do in the five-county area.
On Greater Philadelphia’s official visitor website and blog, visitphilly.com and uwishunu.com, visitors can explore things to do, upcoming events, themed itineraries and hotel packages. Compelling photography and videos, interactive maps and detailed visitor information make the sites effective trip-planning tools. Along with Visit Philly social media channels, the online platforms communicate directly with consumers. Travelers can also call and stop into the Independence Visitor Center for additional information and tickets.
LikeDoNArTNeWsPhiladelphia Art News Blog on facebook
For any questions regarding the theme or medium, please contact Jeff at 
