Category Archives: Philadelphia Art

Art in Philadelphia, PA.

Lighten Up! An invitational lamp exhibition curated by Michelle Post @ Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville, NJ

Michelle Post @ Lighten Up! An invitational lamp exhibition curated by Michelle Post @ Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville, NJ.

Michelle Post has curated an outstanding exhibition of art lamps with an astonishing array of Philadelphia region artists who each use electric light to enhance their creations and bring them life. The gallery was dark except for the art lamps, each piece softly illuminating it’s own carefully chosen space, the warm glow of golden shadows around the room is enticing. Michelle Post and Dave Carrow recently exhibited @ Da Vinci Art Alliance, see the photo below, where DoN had the opportunity to meet Michelle and talk about art.

Phil Vinson created each part of this lamp by hand from the carved finial to the metal base, truly a tour de force in craftsmanship, style and design; like a dreamy pod of a luminescent night blooming flower, this lamp is entrancing, drawing gallery goers like moths. Lighten Up! An invitational lamp exhibition curated by Michelle Post @ Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville, NJ

Charmaine Caire @ Lighten Up! An invitational lamp exhibition curated by Michelle Post @ Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville, NJ.

Dave Carrow creates heavy metal, industrial strength art, building lamps of welded chunks of metal like cyber-punk set pieces for the star-ship Serenity. Carrow’s lamps are large, substantial, ambitious constructions, creating a transmuted modernist environment all on their own with clever connections and thought provoking problem solving.

Alden Cole is showing a cluster of his signature glowing objects, the lamps are more night-light than reading lamp, each subtly changing color, energizing the shadow patterns flowing across the walls. With his lamps groups together, DoN noticed gallery goers having difficulty not touching the orbs, curiously drawn to the light.

Sarah Stengle – Genius!

Wayne Russell, Streamliner, lamp @ Lighten Up! An invitational lamp exhibition curated by Michelle Post @ Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, Millville, NJ.

Lighten Up! has so much more that DoN wants to share but if I were you, I’d take a drive down to Millville and check out the art center, the RRCA is a model of a multi-purpose art space.

“Lighten Up!” curated by artist, Michelle Post, exhibits uniquely constructed lamps sure to “lighten up” your night. Michelle gave the eleven artists included one stipulation- their lamps must plug into an outlet and actually light up. Beyond that, artists: Harry Anderson, Charmaine Caire, Dave Carrow, Alden Cole, Pam Lethbridge, Ted Simon, Michelle Post, Wayne Russell, Eric Schultz, Sarah Stengle, Carole Sivin and Sally Willobee were left to create their illuminated treasures. The exhibition offers stellar examples of the creativity artists have when looking at ordinary objects many of us take for granted. Michelle explains, “Rising to the challenge of bursting through and penetrating darkness come artists whose wit and imagination show us not to take life too seriously. With laughter comes healing, and with illumination comes peace.”

Michelle Post & Dave Carrow @ Da Vinci Art Alliance, Autumn 2010.

Photos by DoN.

Deja Vu – 6th Annual Juried Competition @ Off the Wall Gallery

Bruce Garrity, Recent Work @ Crestmont Gallery, Collingswood, NJ

1 Reply

Bruce Garrity, Double Boulder in Recent Work @ Crestmont Gallery, 495 Haddon Avenue, Collingswood, NJ.

Bruce Garrity is a professor at Rutgers Camden and is the curator of the Hopkins House Gallery on the banks of the Cooper River as well as a fine artist and painter in his own right. His large canvases are atmospheric, the clear, bright colors of the paint telling stories packed with myth and mystery, each painting taking the viewer deep into the artist’s introspection. The new Crestmont Gallery on Haddon Avenue occupies a grand old house with the first floor now dedicated to art, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry and more, the space looks so elegant with Bruce’s paintings accompanied by beautiful ceramics and cases filled with desirable objects.

Owner Gary is planning exciting exhibitions to coordinate with the car shows, street fairs, art scene and cultural events that have become the calling card of Collingswood. The Second Saturday art crawl in Collingwood is really fun with fine art, good food and a great small town atmosphere that is optimistic and forward looking with the arts being a driving force.

Bruce Garrity, @ Crestmont Gallery, Collingswood, NJ.

Dr. Deb Miller, a friend and colleague of Garrity’s said his paintings are, “Asian in perspective“, a Zen-like feeling of contemplation and respect for nature is infused in the compositions.

Bruce Garrity, Black Sea Bass @ Crestmont Gallery, Collingswood, NJ.

Photos by DoN.

Decameron, Da Vinci Art Alliance @ Smile Gallery

1 Reply

Carla Lombardi, Gavaciolli, high fire stoneware, Shinoglaze, @ Decameron, Da Vinci Art Alliance @ Smile Gallery on 22nd Street. Decameron is presented in conjunction with the world premier of Karen Saillant‘s new opera of the same name presented by the International Opera Theater and inspired by Il Decamerone by Giovanni Boccaccio. The stories of the ten people who escaped the Black Plague to a country estate is operatic in scope with so much source material from the tens of tens of stories told while the world collapsed around them that the tales of love, lust, morality and sin still ring true and wise in the modern age. The artists reached deep to connect the dots of our common deep past with our futuristic present through drawing, painting, sculpture, collage and photography.

Ona Kalstein, Lisbetta Weeps, 4th day, 5th tale, ink & colored pencil on vellum.

Rosalind Bloom, Danse Macabre – The Black Death, watercolor, acrylic, collage.

Ted Warchal, Tale 5 – 2, Gastanza Sails to Tunis, assemblage, Decameron, Da Vinci Art Alliance @ Smile Gallery.

Ted Warchal @ Decameron, Da Vinci Art Alliance @ Smile Gallery. Tale 6-1o – The Relic of Archangel Gabriel reminds us of a time when zealots professed to own bits of Saints which could be viewed at a price, Warchal’s magical assemblage holds a golden feather and a bone.

Rachel Citrino @ Decameron, Da Vinci Art Alliance @ Smile Gallery. Citrino created a 100 block grid of images relating to Italy and the hundred tales of the Decameron, printed on canvas, the digital collage pops with hits of color amidst the stark black and white memories of a distant world.

Rosalind Bloom, The Embrace..., oil & mixed media collage and DoN Brewer, Heliotrope, digital photograph, digital print. Roz’s painting refers to the boils caused by the Black Plague called Caviciolli like some pasta, but when you got a boil you’re dead in 3 days. DoN‘s Heliotrope does not refer to the color but the magic stone offering the power of invisibility.

Alden Cole‘s painting depicts the rise of humanism and the lesson of living in the moment filled with love.

Sadly, this is the last Da Vinci Art Alliance show at Smile Gallery, Ken Tutjamnong‘s restaurant has become so popular that he needs the room for diners he has been turning away and he can show his own outstanding artwork as he does in the dining room at street level. Admittedly the art drew people to the restaurant and the gallery offered DVAA space outside the club’s gallery to do theme show’s like Decameron.

Photos by DoN.