Category Archives: Philadelphia Authors

Poetry

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Art of Poetry, Philadelphia Museum of ArtThe Tony, Peabody and Emmy Award winning, six time HBO Def Poet Black Ice (pictured) and many of Def Poetry Jam’s most recognized poets will reunite for an evening of spoken artistry on April 26. (Image courtesy of the artist)

Art of Poetry at Philadelphia Museum of Art

In April and May, Philadelphia Museum of Art is celebrating the art of poetry through artist collaborations including film, performances, talks, tours, and workshops.

2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia, PA 19130
philamuseum.org

Now on View

Through June 9

  • Whitman, Alabama—Experience Walt Whitman‘s poem “Song of Myself,” brought to life through the voices of Alabama residents, to celebrate diversity and our connectedness to one another. This film by Jennifer Crandall is accompanied by photographs from the museum’s collection that suggest the complexity of American identity.This exhibition is offered in conjunction with Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy, a region-wide initiative organized by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, with major support from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

Wednesday Nights

April 3

  • Art of Poetry Opening Celebration—Heralding our two months of poetry-inspired programs, performance poets make our galleries sing with spoken word while artists blend language and art. Drink and Draw with Martha Rich—Sip while you sketch with this Philly-based artist and make zines inspired by memories, eavesdropping, and found text. Rich paints words and food with a penchant for the absurd. Her work has been featured in Rolling Stone, Bon Appétit, and Entertainment Weekly. (Materials provided; drinks available for purchase.) Poetry tours with The Philly Pigeon—Join this collective, which aims to elevate and popularize the art form of performance poetry, for a lively tour through the galleries.Gallery takeover with the museum’s Teen Ambassador Group (TAG)—This group of high school students work with curators, educators, and other museum staff to create programs especially for teens.

Slow Art Day

April 6

Slow Art Day—This annual international event encourages museum visitors to slow down with their favorite works of art and do some mindful looking.

  • Poetry Workshops with Michelle Taransky—Learn to slow down with the poetic techniques of describing and responding, and discover new ways of looking at art. 11:00 a.m. & 2:00 p.m.
  • Introspective Bookmaking with Candy Alexandra González—Explore the art of stillness and moving at a slower pace. Drop in for collaborative visual art and poetry exercises to produce a collectively made book.
  • Music in the Galleries: Lines/Patterns—Form and structure make the link between American visual artist Ellsworth Kelly and German baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Presented in partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music. 1:30, 2:15 & 3:00 p.m.
  • Spotlight Gallery Conversations—Engage in slow looking and thoughtful discussion as a different artwork takes center stage during each of five hourly gallery tours, 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m

Family Festival

April 7

  • Family Festival: Poetry Party—April is International Poetry Month, so words are our art medium during this month’s Family Festival. Read a painting, write a sculpture, draw a poem. Join artist Martha Rich and fill the Great Stair Hall with your wonderful words.

Friday Nights

April 5

April 12

April 19

  • Dawn Landes—Full of vivid storytelling, classic country themes, and eternal questions, the songwriting of this Nashville artist is as fresh as it is timeless.

April 26

  • Final Fridays: Def Poetry Reunion—Def Poetry Jam co-founder Danny Simmons invites some of Philly’s most recognized poets to gather for an evening of spoken artistry. Featuring Sonia Sanchez, Ursula Rucker, Black Ice, Vanessa German, Bonafide Rojas, and Jessica Care Moore. Hosted by Liza Jessie Peterson. A DJ set by Rich Medina with visuals by The Marksmen follows the performance. Please note that the museum will close at 5:00 p.m. before the performance, and will reopen at 6:00 p.m. for ticket holders only. Member tickets are on sale now. Public tickets go on sale March 8. Most galleries will be closed during this event, with the exception of exhibitions Whitman, Alabama, The Impressionist’s Eye, and Yoshitoshi: Spriti and Spectacle.

Talks & Tours

May 11

  • In the Artist’s Voice: Jennifer Crandall—Who is America? The filmmaker of Whitman, Alabama explores this question and more in a conversation with WHYY Executive Producer of Audio Content Elisabeth Perez-Luna. Support for this program was provided by the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation Fund for Education.

May 30

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

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Unwilling

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Unwilling: Exercises in Melancholy

EXPLORE MELANCHOLIA AT HAVERFORD’S CANTOR FITZGERALD GALLERY

HAVERFORD, Pa.- What if we saw sadness not as a giving up or giving in, but a getting out? What if, instead of being seen as a passive pain, feeling deep sorrow was understood to be an act of resistance? What if, given the current political and cultural moment in which so many feel ignored, maligned, or repudiated by the systems and people in power, mourning was not just an understandable reception, but a useful action against those systems? A new exhibit in Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, opening March 23, showcases the work of five artists from across different media to grapple with such questions of power, agency, and melancholy.

Unwilling: Exercises in Melancholy, curated by Vanessa Kwan and Kimberly Phillips, proposes a re-consideration of melancholia as defined through our contemporary condition. Resisting its historical definition as an affliction that creates disorder or inactivity, this exhibition reimagines passive sadness as a powerful refusal, a conscious (or unconscious) “standing aside,” a willful production of generative failures and resistant potencies. Each of the five contributing artists begins with the idea that outside the boundaries of “contentment” resides a potent flourishing. Unwilling is a resistance and a proposition: it responds to the profound cultural reckoning we are witnessing in this moment in time, as the boundaries and exclusions of state-defined citizenship become increasingly fraught.

The exhibition crosses disciplinary boundaries. Dance artist Justine A. Chambers explores choreographies of resistance, growing out of a studious and embodied interpretation of all the minor gestures on the way to hands raised in surrender. Sculpture- and performance-based artist Mike Bourscheid mines absurdities in relation to our cultural preoccupations with masculinist productivity, while social practice artist Ginger Brooks Takahashi works to create new networks of value in the production of food, drink, and community. (Her piece in the exhibit is a collaboratively created-and consumed-beer.) The “weeping” willow is at the center of media artist Noa Giniger‘s multi-faceted take on reversals of sadness and the refusal to succeed, and poet and critic Billy-Ray Belcourt positions mourning as a defining aspect of an active and resistant subject and proposes that the future must address this subject head on.

Unwilling: Exercises in Melancholy will be on view March 23 through April 27 at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. To celebrate the exhibit’s opening, there will be several events during its first week. On March 22, ahead of the official opening, a roundtable with four of the featured artists and the two curators will be held from 4:30 to -6:30 p.m. in the College’s new Visual Culture, Arts, and Media (VCAM) building, room 201. On March 23, Justine A. Chambers will perform an all-day, campus-wide, site-specific commission, ten thousand times and one hundred more. And later that day, at 4:30 p.m., there will be a talk with the curators followed by a reception at 5:30 p.m., featuring Ginger Brooks Takahashi’s Wyrt Blod Gruyt, a custom-made beer commissioned specifically for the exhibit and brewed in collaboration with Meredith Rebar Williams and Home Brewed Events. For further event details: exhibits.haverford.edu/unwilling.

Unwilling: Exercises in Melancholy is made possible with support from the John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities. The exhibition is organized in conjunction with the Hurford Center’s 2017-18 faculty seminar “The Arts of Melancholy,” which is led by John B. Whitehead Professor of Humanities and Professor of Music Richard Freedman.

Overseen by the John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities and located in Whitehead Campus Center, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery is open Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., and Wednesdays until 8 p.m. For more information, contact Matthew Seamus Callinan, associate director of the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery and campus exhibitions, at (610) 896-1287 or mcallina@haverford.edu, or visit the exhibitions program website: www.haverford.edu/exhibits.

Haverford College is located at 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, Pa., 19041

Thank you to Rebecca Raber for the content of this post.

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Bark!

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Bark! Bark! Bark for My Park! Dr. Jessica Dimuzio

Jessica Dimuzio, award-winning children’s author, will read from her book

Bark! Bark! Bark for My Park! at DVAA

Jessica Dimuzio, VMD, conservation educator, author and veterinarian, will read from her book Bark! Bark! Bark for My Park! on Saturday, March 24, 2018 at 10:30 AM at Da Vinci Art Alliance, 704 Catharine Street in Philadelphia. This program is presented in collaboration with the Bella Vista Neighbors Association. This reading is appropriate for children 4 and older, conservation educators, gardeners and animal lovers of all ages.

Dr. Jessica Dimuzio graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, specializing in wildlife preservation. She has conducted research on elephants, rhinos, and wild baboons and taught conservation programs in Africa, Asia, and North America. Dedicated to wildlife conservation, Dr. “D.” loves to get kids of all ages excited about wildlife and their natural habitats through her nonfiction writing, “too true” storytelling, classroom talks, and nature walks. She provides these programs through Nature Tales and Trails, LLC, the company she founded in 2011.

Dr. Dimuzio, a member of Patchwork: A Storytelling Guild uses humor and suspense to share her international experiences with audiences of any age.

Her international award-winning book Bark! Bark! Bark for My Park! recounts the real story of how her five-pound puppy, Johnny Angel, saved a 690-acre farm park from destruction and is one of the few children’s books written on saving open space. It received the Silver Medal from Mom’s Choice Awards in the Green Earth Category and a rare RECOMMENDED from the US Review of Books.

Bark! Bark! Bark for My Park! Dr. Jessica DimuzioDa Vinci Art Alliance (DVAA) provides artists with a community that fosters artistic expression and growth through our exhibitions and programs.

Da Vinci Art Alliance (DVAA) was founded in 1931 to serve the needs of local artists and artisans and to promote the edification and appreciation of the arts in the community. Our building in South Philadelphia was obtained in 1959 to provide community space and studio, and gallery spaces for our membership. DVAA members are a diverse group of creatives of all ages and backgrounds, including those with advanced degrees in their fields and those that are self-taught. Members include award-winning artists whose works are in museums and private collections across the country as well as emerging artists, showing work for their first time.

The Bella Vista Neighbors Association (BVNA) improves Bella Vista’s quality of life and strengthens community bonds. BVNA encourages civic involvement, provides a neutral and public discussion forum, preserves and augments our institutions and character, supports the delivery of government services, and promotes dialogue with elected officials.  They are an independent and nonprofit organization.

Thank you to Linda Dubin Garfield for the content of this post. For more information, contact Linda Dubin Garfield at linda@davinciartalliance.org

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Shades

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Shades and Tones, Poems at Da Vinci Art AllianceShades and Tones, Poems at an Exhibition, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Golden Forest, monotype by Linda Dubin Garfield

Shades and Tones, Poems at an Exhibition, Da Vinci Art Alliance

Da Vinci Art Alliance, 704 Catharine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147, is pleased to present SHADES & TONES: Poems at an Exhibition on Sunday, May 17, 2- 5 PM. Three fine poets will be reading their work- Rosemary Cappello, Maria Fama and David Kozinski.  In the gallery, the exhibition SURPRISE OF THE NEW, featuring local artists inspired by travel- Bobbie Adams, Rachel Citrino, Linda Dubin Garfield, Carla Lombardi and Barbara B Rosin runs through May 27, 2015 with a closing reception. All receptions and events are free and open to the public.  This event has been selected for BEST IN MAY by uwishunu!  For more information, visit www.davinciartalliance.org.

Rosemary Cappello’s poetry has appeared in Voices in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, Iconoclast, Avanti Popolo, Sweet Lemons 2, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Poetry Ink, and many other publications from 1971 to the present. She has often been the featured reader at places where poets congregate in the Philadelphia area, as well as venues in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. She was invited to read her immigrant father, John Petracca’s poetry and her own on Ellis Island in 1979, a memorable experience. Her most recent readings were at Fergie’s Pub, sponsored by the Moonstone Arts Center, and the Lansdowne Library, for the Cadence Crafters poetry group. Her poems have been translated into Italian, Spanish, and French. Rosemary’s most recent chapbook is San Paride, named for the patron saint of Teano, Italy. She is currently working on a collection of love poems. Rosemary’s most time-consuming work is that of editing and publishing the annual literary journal, Philadelphia Poets, which she founded in 1980, and planning and presiding over readings in connection with that publication. A graduate of Notre Dame High School, Moylan, Pennsylvania, she received her BA, Summa cum Laude, from Widener University in Chester. Her awards include the Nearing Prize for Literature and Widener University’s Prose and Poetry Awards.

Maria Famà has written six books of poetry, co-founded a video production company, recorded her poetry in CD compilations of music and poetry, and given readings across the United States as well as on TV, Radio, Video, and Film.  She appears in the 2007 film, “Pipes of Peace,” about the late jazz bagpipe musician, Rufus Harley, as well as in the award winning documentaries “Prisoners Among Us,” and “La Mia Strada, My Way.”  Famà was awarded the 2002 and the 2005 Aniello Lauri Award for Creative Writing.  She was the 2006 winner of the Amy Tritsch Needle Award for Poetry.   Famà’s latest book of poems, Mystics in the Family, was published by Bordighera Press in 2013.  Maria Famà lives and works in Philadelphia, where she teaches English at DeVry University.

David P. Kozinski won the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize, which included publication of his chapbook, Loopholes. He has been the featured poet in Schuylkill Valley Journal. Publications include Apiary, Fox Chase Review, glimmertrain.com, Mad Poets Review, Philadelphia Stories, Poetry Repairs, Margie, and The Rathalla Review. Kozinski was one of ten poets chosen by Robert Bly for a workshop sponsored by American Poetry Review and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice. Last November he conducted a poetry workshop for teens at the Montgomery County Youth Center and in 2012 offered a four-session workshop for adults titled “Poetry Presentation & Publication” at the Manayunk-Roxborough Art Center. He received Honorable Mention in Philadelphia Poets’ 7th Annual John & Rose Petracca & Family Award.In November 2007 he received the Dr. Eugene J. Szatkowski (“Schot-kov-ski’) Achievement Award from the Americans of Polish Descent Cultural Society (AMPOL) for his poetry and visual art. As a young child, he studied at the Delaware Art Museum. In the early 1970s he was a student at the École d’Art Americaines in Fontainebleau, France and was among the students who completed the first Art Major course offered at Tower Hill School in Wilmington, DE in 1974. Kozinski heads the publicity team for the Manayunk-Roxborough Art Center. He lives in Wilmington, DE with his wife, actress and journalist Patti Allis Mengers.

Thank you Linda Dubin Garfield, printmaker/mixed media artist/blogger, for the content of this post.
610.649.3174
www.lindadubingarfield.com
www.smARTbusinessconsulting.org
www.artsisters.org
blogs:
The ART of Travel – www.lindadubingarfield.blogspot.com
www.toooldtodieyoungblog.wordpress.com
www.smARTbusinessconsultingchats.wordpress.com

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Forward

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David Gerbstadt and NoelDavid Gerbstadt and Noel the Tripod Dog, photo by Tony Babcock

David Gerbstadt has been in my circle of influence for many years through the Philadelphia Dumpster Divers, the disabled artists scene and Philadelphia art galleries. Often people will ask me how to sell their art and I refer them to David’s facebook page to see how he gently pokes and prods people to buy his products. David has a way of asking for the sale that would make any sales manager proud. He offers a variety of products, he will do commissions, he up-cycles found objects, he makes gifts for kids and grownups and offers a variety of payment options. David Gerbstadt is an award-winning, prolific fine artist and author of One Breath At a Time. He’s handsome, funny, friendly and highly creative. And he died.

David was riding his bike one day and was run over by a tractor trailer truck and on the way to the hospital he flat-lined. Thank dog he was revived but he is haunted by PTSD nightmares and daytime memories that stop him in his tracks as the thoughts of being dragged under the truck invade his life. These intrusive memories don’t stop him from pursuing his art career and you would never know from his kid-friendly, optimistic artwork that he suffers almost everyday from the traumatic event that changed his life forever.

Noel the tripod dog changed his life, too, when he adopted her a few years ago and became his constant companion. The metaphor of Noel’s survival is sweet and sublime and offers us all hope that we can overcome adversity. David struggles to meet his expenses as you might well imagine. Let’s face it, even able bodied artists have a hard time making a living. But David is optimistic and every once in a while he will ask for help to meet his expenses through special offers and art sales.

David sent me this message:

“Hi DoN – i heard of the Rosa Pizza on 11th Street – $1 slice – you can
buy someone a slice who is in need. they put up a post its in place.
over 8,000 slices given away so far.

i am working on a similar idea. I am asking people to mail a check for $1 to my mortgage co.
if it can work for pizza and coffee – why not for mortgages — i posted on facebook and many people think it’s a great idea.

would you like to do a story on this?
let me know.
thank you
david.”

I think it’s a great idea! C’mon send a dollar and help David and Noel own a permanent home forever.

David Gerbstadt

Pay It Forward through the gift economy. Send $1.00 to Green Tree Payment Processing, PO Box 94710, Palatine, IL 60094-4710.  Make a payment note for: David Gerbstadt, 54 Aiken Road, Berwyn, PA, 19312. Make checks payable to Green Tree.

David Gerbstadt

David Gerbstadt on Etsy

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