Tag Archives: Center for Emerging Visual Artists

#POST2017

THIS OCTOBER: Explore. Discover. Connect with a vibrant artist community during Philadelphia Open Studio Tours

October 7: South | October 8: Northeast | October 14: Northwest | October 15: West | FROM NOON – 6:00 PM

PHILADELPHIA, PA – September 11, 2017. From October 7 through October 15, 2017 the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA) will present the 18th annual Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST)—a behind-the-scenes look at a day in the life of a visual artist. Discover Philadelphia’s creative gems—artist studios, house galleries, maker spaces and community workshops—as hundreds of artists throw open their doors and bring the artistic process front and center in twenty Philadelphia neighborhoods.

POST is a community building initiative designed to strengthen bonds within the visual artist sector, foster meaningful interaction between artists and the public, and promote a greater awareness for the creative minds that make Philadelphia a vibrant place to live, work, and visit. New this year, POST is four distinct quadrants: South, Northeast, Northwest and West. The program spotlights the vitality of each neighborhood’s visual arts scene and underscores the important contributions artists make to our city’s economy and civic life.

Lucas Kelly by Matthew Bender

Great for all ages, POST makes connecting with local artists easy in an approachable and easy-to-navigate, self-guided tour over two consecutive weekends. The program provides attendees with a rare glimpse at the creative process through open studio visits, hands-on demonstrations, workshops, artist discussions, receptions, guided tours, and featured exhibitions. No other open studio event in the region provides a rich and diverse cultural experience to the public, free of charge.

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours is made possible with generous support from Sonesta Hotel Philadelphia, myCIO Wealth Partners, LLC, Reed Smith LLP, University of Pennsylvania and 40ST Artist-in-Residence Program. Additional support is provided by Brandywine Realty Trust, Stifel, MJB Wealth Management, The William Penn Foundation, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and the Independence Foundation. Promotional support is provided by Fireball Printing, HeavyBubble, Metro Philadelphia, ici, and Design Philadelphia.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Rachel Constantine by Mae Belle Vargas

Featured Exhibitions and Events

Comprehensive festival information is available at philaopenstudios.org, the best source for the most up-to-date details about participating artists, venue locations, and events. Audiences can search POST participants alphabetically by last name, geographically by neighborhood, and thematically by type of work or media. Printed Directories are available for free at all participating POST venues starting in mid-September. CFEVA and ici are proud to offer studio visitors a free POST mobile app and smartphone guide, powered by the ici platform. Information about the mobile app and smartphone guide is online at www.icihere.com, or by following the ici User Guide, available immediately after download.

SOUTH

POST @HBHQ

October 7 to 8 │ NOON to 6PM

Reception: October 8 │6 to 8PM

Featuring Elena Bouvier, Bill Brookover, and PD Packard. @HBHQ is an exhibition, workshop, and demonstration space housed at 1241 Carpenter Studios, and curated by the artist team at Heavybubble.

1241 Carpenter St, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19147 │heavybubble.com/hbhq

Da Vinci Art Alliance (DVAA) OPEN HOUSE

October 7 │ NOON to 5PM

Get in the Halloween spirit early with Da Vinci Art Alliance (DVAA)! Enjoy an afternoon of art-making, cider-sipping and glass pumpkin patch picking all while supporting DVAA, Tyler School of Art, and CFEVA’s Philadelphia Open Studio Tours. Featuring Periphery”, a group of multi-disciplinary artists whose production and conceptual queries are articulated on the outer boundaries of their material communities.
704 Catharine St, Philadelphia, PA 19147 │ www.davinciartalliance.org

POST Artist Katherine Fraser in her studio at 319 N. 11th St.

NORTHEAST

Over the Rainbow

August 20 to October 15
Artist Talk: October 15 │ Noon
Featuring new work by CFEVA Fellow Mi-Kyoung Lee

ArtBox at Shirt Corner │ 259 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19106 │ www.cfeva.org

Glen Foerd on the Delaware

October 8 │Tour/Artist Talk: 11AM & 12:30PM Reception: 4 to 6PM
Featuring installations by Talia Greene, Lewis Colburn, Myung Gyun You, and Aislinn Pentcost-Farren with Camp Little Hope. 2017-18 Resident, Karina Puente, will be working on site.

5001 Grant Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19114 │ www.glenfoerd.org

Old City Fest

October 8 │11AM to 6PM

Old City Fest is a celebration of art and design, fashion and food, creativity and culture on the streets of America’s most historic square mile.

3rd and Arch St │ www.oldcitydistrict.org/oldcityfest

NORTHWEST

LandLab

October 14 │ NOON to 6PM

A partnership between The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education (SCEE) and CFEVA, LandLab Residents will spend the next year engaging with SCEE’s property, conducting research, and developing creative installations that intervene with the land. Visit them during POST f to learn more about ways in which they will be working to remediate the ecological issues found in the 340-acre wooded property.

Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education │ 8480 Hagy’s Mill Rd, Philadelphia, PA 19128 │ www.schuylkillcenter.org

Local Engagement at Awbury Arboretum
September 20 to October 20 │ 9AM to 5PM
Post-POST Reception: October 19 │ 6:30 to 8:30 PM

Awbury Arboretum is a historic landscape in Northwest Philadelphia that is free and open to the public 365 days a year. The parlors of the beautiful Francis Cope House will feature 2017 POST Northwest artists.
Awbury Arboretum │ One Awbury Rd, Philadelphia, PA 19138 │www.awbury.org

WEST

CFEVA@Sonesta

Through December 31 │ Artist

Featuring works by: Henry Bermudez, Andrea Krupp, Robert Miller, and Dolores Poacelli.

Sonesta Hotel │1800 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19103 │www.sonesta.com

40ST Artist-in-Residence

October 15 │ NOON to 6PM

A year-long studio program catering to West Philadelphia. Residents include Santiago Galeas, Khiry W. Worrell, Serena Muthi Reed, Josh Graupera, and Margaret Kearney.

4007 & 4013 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104 │ www.40streetair.blogspot.com

For Our Ancestors
October 9 to November 14
Artist Talk: October 15 at 2:00 PM

Featuring new photographic pop-up books by Colette Fu that “speak, mediate, express, delight and inform.” Constructing pop-ups allows Fu to combine intuitive design and technical acuity with her love of travel and curiosity about the world around her.

CFEVA │ 237 S 18 St, 3A, Philadelphia, PA 19103 │www.cfeva.org

About CFEVA

With of mission to cultivate, nurture, and advance the careers of emerging visual artists while simultaneously expanding opportunities for the public to discover and connect with art, CFEVA’s services are designed to: raise the profile of Philadelphia’s professional artists, foster artistic experimentation and innovation, and showcase how vibrant artistic communities boost cultural tourism and foster economic development. Through fellowships, residencies, educational outreach, exhibitions, professional development, and city-wide events, CFEVA provides artists with the tangible resources needed to develop viable and sustainable careers.

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Explore Philadelphia’s visual arts community this October with POST, a free citywide event. #POSTPHL #POST2017
Hundreds of artist workspaces open this October during Philadelphia Open Studio Tours! #POSTPHL #POST2017

Thank you to CFEVA for the content of this POST.

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Transformations

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Transformations At Main Line Art Center

2016 Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art Recipients: Matthew Courtney (Philadelphia), Sun Young Kang (Bryn Mawr), Zahra Nazari (New York)

Curated by: Amie Potsic, Executive Director of Main Line Art Center through April 17, 2016

Main Line Art Center in Haverford is proud to announce Matthew Courtney (Philadelphia), Sun Young Kang (Bryn Mawr; 2015 Finalist), and Zahra Nazari (New York) as the 2016 recipients of the Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art. Selected by Members of Main Line Art Center’s Board of Artistic Advisors and Executive Director through a highly competitive application process, Courtney, Kang, and Nazari will be featured in Transformations, the 12th Annual Betsy Meyer Memorial Exhibition, on view at Main Line Art Center through April 17.

Masters of their primary mediums and inspired by cultural specificity, each artist expands their artistic practice to embrace installation with works that fully engage the audience in constructed objects, the spaces they inhabit, and the concepts they conjure. Through painting, ceramic sculpture, and paper arts, the artists transform, not only their own materials, but the galleries themselves into unexpected environments that dance between the evident and the ethereal.

Now in its twelfth year, Main Line Art Center is proud to present an annual exhibition in memory of Teaching Artist Betsy Meyer featuring the work of forward-thinking artists who are pushing boundaries within their artistic practice. As an artist, Betsy exemplified what is most exciting about engaging with the artwork of living artists: watching them experiment with their media and tackling complicated and tough subjects. As a teacher, she encouraged her students to follow her example and expand their practice into new frontiers. And finally, as a member of the board and exhibition committee, she assured that the Art Center was there for the artistic community of Philadelphia.

The Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art, presented by Main Line Art Center in conjunction with the Betsy Meyer Memorial Exhibition, consists of an award of $1000 and a solo exhibition to each selected artist. This award and associated exhibition program is an effort to support the talented contemporary artists in the region, to honor deserving artists in the field, and to encourage excellence and experimentation in artistic practice, presentation, and community involvement.

Approximately three artists are awarded annually. The 2015 recipients of the Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art were Seunghwui Koo (New York), Tasha Lewis (New York), and Kate Stewart (Philadelphia), whose work was featured in Tweak of Nature, presented at Main Line Art Center in Spring 2015. 2016 Recipient Sun Young Kang, was a finalist for the award in 2015. The 2016 finalists are as follows: Jennifer Crupi (New Jersey), Christina Day (Philadelphia), Tim Eads (Philadelphia), Michael Froio (New Jersey), Oki Fukunaga (New Jersey), Erica Loustau (Pennsylvania), and Adrienne Moumin (Maryland).

The Main Line Art Center gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm, and Friday through Sunday from 10 am to 4 pm. Each of the artists will also facilitate a workshop on their process during the course of Transformations. For more information about these programs, including registration, visit www.mainlinert.org or call 610.525.0272.

Matthew Courtney is a ceramic sculptor living and working in Philadelphia. He received his B.S. from the Philadelphia College of Art and his MFA at Kent State University. He teaches at The University of Pennsylvania, The University of the Arts, and Tyler School of Art. He has received an Ohio Arts Council Artist Fellowship and a Jerome Foundation Fellowship and was awarded a Challenge Exhibition at Fleisher Art Memorial in 2000. Recent exhibitions include, “On the Precipice” Cerulean Gallery, Philadelphia PA 2014, “Artists Musings: An Installation”’ CCC Gallery, Plymouth NH 2014, and “2015 Reflections from the West,” Lanzhou City University, Lanzhou, China. In 2015, he was selected by the Dunhuang Creative Center, DCC, to spend two months of the summer of 2015 to work as an artist in residence at Lanzhou City University Lanzhou China, “producing work inspired by the rich history and contemporary life of Gansu Province.”

Sun Young Kang is a book and installation artist, originally from South Korea, living in Bryn Mawr, PA. From small intimate books to room size installations, she uses paper with its duality of strength and delicacy to create physical and conceptual space. Kang received her MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking from the University of the Arts in 2007, and was a fellow of the Center for the Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia from 2013 to 2015. A participant in the 2013 Sofia International Paper Art Biennale and the Pittsburgh Biennial in 2008, Kang’s work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally at venues including the Susquehanna Art Museum, Queens Museum, Whatcom Museum, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and the Ganser Gallery at Millersville University. Her work is also included in the PA State Museum Permanent collection, Museum of Modern Art Franklin Furnace Artist book collection, and in numerous libraries’ special collections.

Zahra Nazari is a painting and installation artist, originally from Iran, living in New York, NY. Nazari received her BFA from the School of Art & Architecture in Tabriz, Iran, and her MFA in Painting/Drawing at State University of New York in New Paltz, NY. She is currently a recipient of The AIM Fellowship from the Bronx Museum, NY and received a Visiting Artist Fellowship from the Cooper Union School of Art in New York, NY and a Ruth Katzman Scholarship from the Art League Residency at Vyt, Sparkill, NY. She has exhibited worldwide at: Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ ; China Millennium Monument, Beijing, China; Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA ; Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY; Saba Institution, Tehran, Iran; The Painting Center, New York, NY; Woman Made Gallery & Zhou B Art Center in Chicago, IL. Forthcoming exhibitions will be presented by the Spartanburg Art Museum, Spartanburg, SC; Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY; Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT; Penn College in Williamsport, PA; and Von Faunberg Art Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany.

Amie Potsic, curator of Transformations, began her tenure as Executive Director of Main Line Art Center in July of 2012. Prior to that, she served as Director of Gallery 339 and Director of the Career Development Program at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA) in Philadelphia where she curated exhibitions and planned professional development programming for emerging and professional artists. Potsic has curated over 70 exhibitions at venues including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Moore College of Art & Design. Potsic is also an established photographic artist who has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. In addition, she is currently Chair of the Art In City Hall Artistic Advisory Board to the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture & the Creative Economy.

Main Line Art Center is our community’s home to discover, create, and experience visual art. A frequent recipient ofBest of Awards for its beautiful galleries and high-quality art instruction, the Art Center’s visual art classes, Accessible Art Programs for artists with disabilities, and contemporary and innovative exhibitions stimulate creativity, conversation, and joy. The mission of Main Line Art Center is to inspire and engage people of all ages, abilities, and economic means in visual art through education, exhibitions, and experiences. Last year we inspired 16,000 people at Main Line Art Center and touched the lives of over 80,000 through programs in the community.

Main Line Art Center is located at 746 Panmure Road in Haverford, behind the Wilkie Lexus dealership just off of Lancaster Avenue. The Main Line Art Center is easily accessible from public transportation and offers abundant free parking. For more information about Transformations, please visit www.mainlineart.org or call 610.525.0272.

Thank you to Amie Potsic for the content of this post.

Read about Tweak of Nature, 2015 Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art on DoNArTNeWs

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Conclusions

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Drawing Conclusions: A LandLab Residency Exhibition

Exhibition runs April 13 – May 22.

Opening Reception Thursday, April 30, 5-7pm with Artist Talks at 6:00pm The Center for Emerging Visual Artists Gallery, 237 South 18th Street, The Barclay, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19103 215-546-7775 | cfeva.org

Philadelphia, PA – The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA) is pleased to present Drawing Conclusions an exhibition by CFEVA LandLab Artists in Residence. The exhibition will be on view in CFEVA’s gallery April 13 to May 22. There will be Artist Talks and a Reception on Thursday, April 30 from 5-7pm. There will be a closing reception featuring botanical cocktails by WE THE WEEDS on May 22 from 5-7pm. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11am – 5pm and by appointment.

Drawing Conclusions features the work of LandLab Artist in Residents Jake Beckman, Leslie Birch, Hagan/Mills/Mills and WE THE WEEDS. This exhibition focuses on the results of each artist’s installation at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and how the outcomes of their residency inform ecological restoration issues. Each artist will present the results of their installations, including documentation of the evolution of their installation over time, data collected and how their artistic process is influenced by the residency.

LandLab is a unique artist residency program that operates on multiple platforms: artistic creation, ecological restoration and education. A joint project of The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA) and the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education (SCEE) LandLab offers resources and space on the Schuylkill Center’s 340-acre wooded property for visual artists to engage audiences in the processes of ecological stewardship through scientific investigation and artistic creation.

Jake Beckman is a sculptor and educator living and working in Philadelphia. Jake teaches Art and Design at the Community College of Philadelphia and graduated with an M.F.A. in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and a B.A. in Art from Swarthmore College. In addition to making work that explores systems and materials that sustain our way of life through a wide range of media, Jake has had a lifelong interest in biology, chemistry and many of the other physical sciences. His work explores themes of transformation, process and legibility as he grapples with the relationship between labor, value and substance. Jake is interested in the origins of the manufactured environment, as well as a concept of the displaced and abstracted landscape; a landscape in which earth and rock are mined, crushed, sintered, shipped and recompiled into an ordered system of buildings, cities, and bridges. He uses the visual language of industry, as well as the raw ingredients of the built environment— coal, stone, ore, etc.—to explore the memory of a time when Americans were more intimately connected to the processes that constructed and sustained their material surroundings.

Leslie Birch fancies herself a tech geisha in Philadelphia. Her fascination with the combination of interactive art and robots led her swiftly to electronics. An original member of The Hacktory in Philadelphia, Leslie is an authority on LED “Throwies” and Arduino microcontrollers. Her artistic practice has led her to working with Leah Buechly, inventor of the first stitchable microcontroller and winning NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge for the Orbit Skirt – a skirt that can track the International Space Station, as well as Senti-8, a wrist band that allows astronauts to experience the scents they miss. More recently, another invention, the FLORAbrella, has garnered attention around the world as a color sensing umbrella that can match clothing and do rainbow patterns. Currently Leslie creates projects and tutorials for Adafruit, a DIY electronics company in New York promoting education. She can also be found blogging about wearables for both Adafruit and Element 14. Her hangout is Hive76, a hackerspace promoting open source hardware in the Spring Garden area. When not hacking hardware, Leslie shares her tech love through speaking engagements, teaching at the library’s MakerJawn program and planning events like LadyHacks. Her free time is spent hiking, camping, letterboxing and birding. Yes, she loves Star Wars and you can follow her @zengirl2.

Hagan/Mills/Mills is an arts collaborative consisting of Philadelphia based artists Maggie Mills, Ben Mills and Marguerita Hagan. Their LandLab project, Native Pollinator Garden focuses on Colony collapse Disorder (CCD). Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

“is a syndrome defined as a dead colony with no adult bees or dead bee bodies, but with a live queen and usually honey and immature bees still present.” (USDA)

Native Pollinator Garden provides a variety of native blooms that follow three full seasons of succession. This provides forage for several generations of pollinators each year. The beds are constructed of chemical-free Douglas fir, are filled with a blend of organic, local soil and leaf compost, and are planted with native, organically grown plants from a local nursery. Native Pollinator Garden addresses the threats posed by monoculture, non-native species’ parasites and disease, GMO’s, and pesticides. It serves as an example of the importance of local action on an individual level.

WE THE WEEDS is a botanical arts collaboration headed by artist Kaitlin Pomerantz and botanist Zya S. Levy that seeks to highlight and investigate the presence of the natural world within the manmade landscape. Past projects include ethno botanical tours, participatory art and science experiments, public art installations, educational outreach, and culinary and sensory plant experiences. WE THE WEEDS has worked in participation with Practice Gallery, the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, the Asian Arts Initiative, and the Penn Center for Urban Research. The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education inspires meaningful connections between people and nature. We use our forests and fields as a living laboratory to foster appreciation, deepen understanding, and encourage stewardship of the environment.

The Center for Emerging Visual Artists is dedicated to coordinating a strong regional support system for visual artists, to advance the careers of professional artists in the region, to promote relationships between artists and the communities in which they live, and to increase access to and promote interest and understanding of visual art among citizens of the community.

Support for LandLab is provided by the Knight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation and the William Penn Foundation. This project was supported in part by the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Support also provided by PECO. This program is administered regionally by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

Thank you to Marnie Lersch, Program Associate for the content of this DoNArTNeWs post. marnie@cfeva.org (215 )546-7775 ext 13

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours EAST: Oct 3 & 4 l WEST Oct. 17 & 18 – noon – 6pm

Center for Emerging Visual Artists The Barclay, 237 S. 18 St., Suite 3A Philadelphia PA 19103

www.cfeva.org l www.philaopenstudios.org

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Tweak

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Tweak of Nature, Seunghwui Koo, Narcissism, Acrylic on resin, mirror, 12.5” x 48” x 12”, © Seunghwui Koo 2012

Main Line Art Center Presents Tweak of Nature Featuring New York and Philadelphia Artists

2015 Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art Recipients:
Seunghwui Koo, Tasha Lewis, Kate Stewart

Curated by Amie Potsic, Executive Director of Main Line Art Center

March 9 – April 21, 2015

Artist Talks & Opening Reception: Friday, March 13

Artist Talks: 5:30-6:30 pm | Reception: 6:30-8:30 pm

Artist Workshops:

Piggy’s Treehouse: Story Inspired Sculpture Family Workshop
Seunghwui Koo | Saturday, April 11, 10:30 am-12 pm

Piggy Bank Family Workshop
Seunghwui Koo | Saturday, April 11, 1-2:30 pm

Alternative Drawing Techniques Adult Workshop
Kate Stewart | Saturday, April 18, 1-4 pm

Sun Print Magnetic Butterflies Family Workshop
Tasha Lewis | Sunday, April 19, 1-4 pm
HAVERFORD, PA Main Line Art Center in Haverford is proud to announce Seunghwui Koo (New York, NY), Tasha Lewis (New York, NY), Kate Stewart (Philadelphia, PA) have been named recipients of the 2015 Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art.

Selected by Members of Main Line Art Center’s Board of Artistic Advisors and Executive Director through a competitive application process, Koo, Lewis, and Stewart will be featured in Tweak of Nature, the 11th Annual Betsy Meyer Memorial Exhibition, on view at Main Line Art Center March 9 to April 21. The exhibition hosts photo-based constructions, whimsical sculpture, large-scale paintings, and site-specific installation. Inspired by the exhilarating energy of natural and urban environments, these artists speak to our collective experience as human beings navigating the elements, the animal kingdom, and each other. Manipulating and tweaking our perception of nature and its creatures, they create new beings, surroundings, and realities that surprise, challenge, and delight. The exhibition was curated by Amie Potsic, Executive Director of Main Line Art Center.

For over a decade, Main Line Art Center has presented an exhibition each spring in memory of Teaching Artist Betsy Meyer featuring the work of forward-thinking artists who are pushing boundaries within their artistic practice. As an artist, Betsy exemplified what is most exciting about engaging with the artwork of living artists: watching them experiment with their media and tackling complicated and tough subjects. As a teacher, she encouraged her students to follow her example and expand their practice into new frontiers. And finally, as a member of the board and exhibition committee, she assured that the Art Center was there for the artistic community of Philadelphia.

In 2014, Main Line Art Center and the Meyer Family expanded the exhibition program to include the Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art, which consists of a solo exhibition and award of $1000 to each selected artist. The growth of this program is an effort to support the talented contemporary artists in the Mid-Atlantic region, to honor deserving artists in the field, and to encourage excellence and experimentation in artistic practice, presentation, and community involvement. The 2014 recipients of the Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art were Tim Portlock, Jennie Thwing, and Nic Coviello.

The Art Center will host artist talks Friday, March 13 from 5:30 to 6:30 pm, followed by a public reception from 6:30 to 8:30 pm featuring samplings from the center’s wine sponsor, Barefoot Wine & Bubbly. The artist talk, reception and gallery visits are free and open to the public. The gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 10 am to 8 pm, andFriday through Sunday from 10 am to 4 pm. Additional programs for Tweak of Nature include two family workshops presented by Seunghwui Koo on Saturday, April 11, a family workshop by Tasha Lewis on Sunday, April 19 from 1 to 4 pm, and a workshop for adults on alternative drawing techniques presented by Kate Stewart on Saturday, April 18 from 1 to 4 pm. For more information about these programs, including registration, visit www.mainlinert.org or call610.525.0272.

Tasha Lewis is an artist originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, whose sculptural and installation works combine the historic photographic process of cyanotype with paper sculpture, stitching, magnets, and ephemeral public art. Lewis received her BAs in English Literature and Studio Arts from Swarthmore College in 2012, and has studied at the Firenze Arte Visive in Florence, Italy and the Qasid Institute in Amman, Jordan. She has exhibited her work in Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Newark, New York City, Cambridge, Sarasota, and Grand Rapids, with recent exhibitions at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Cambridge Art Association in Massachusetts, and the Spartanburg Art Museum in South Carolina. Her works have been featured in British Vogue and The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes by Christopher James. Having recently completed a residency at Gallery Aferro in Newark, NJ, Lewis currently lives and works in the New York metropolitan area.

Kate Stewart, Götterdämmerung (detail). Custom wall covering and fabric, paint, chairs. Dimensions variable (20’ x 20’ x 20’) © Kate Stewart 2012

Kate Stewart is a painter and installation artist in Philadelphia whose wide-ranging work engages humanity’s relationship to the environment and disaster. She received her MFA from The University of Pennsylvania in 2003, a BA from Dickinson College in 1998, and studied abroad in Toulouse, France and at the University of Yaounde, in Cameroon. She was awarded a 6-month artist residency at 40^th Street AIR in Philadelphia, received a Vermont Studio Center grant and one-month residency, and was a 2008 finalist for a Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Individual Artist Fellowship. Stewart’s work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern in London, P.S. 122 in New York, Towson University, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Her solo exhibitions include Vox Populi Gallery, Moore College of Art, West Chester University, The Art Institute of Philadelphia, Drexel University, Gettysburg College, and Seraphin Gallery.

Seunghwui Koo is a sculptor whose work draws inspiration from traditional South Korean culture and the daily happenings and intricate moments of her life in New York City. She earned a BFA in Sculpture and Fine Art from the Kyungpook National University in South Korea in 2005. Koo was awarded a Visual Art Studio Residency by Chashama in New York in 2013, and received the Allied Artists of America’s Members and Associated Award in 2014. She has recently exhibited her work at the Belskie Museum of Art and Science in New Jersey, the Newark Museum in New Jersey, the Fountain Art Fair and Scope Art Fair in New York, and Gallery Shilla in South Korea. In addition, she was the 2014 winner of the New Generation Able Fine Art Seoul Competition.

Amie Potsic, curator of the exhibition, began her tenure as Executive Director of Main Line Art Center in July of 2012. Prior to that, she served as Director of Gallery 339 and Director of the Career Development Program at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA) in Philadelphia where she curated exhibitions and planned professional development programming for emerging and professional artists. Potsic has curated over 70 exhibitions at venues including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Moore College of Art & Design. Potsic is also an established photographic artist who has exhibited her work internationally. In addition, she is currently Chair of the Art In City Hall Artistic Advisory Board to the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture & the Creative Economy.

Main Line Art Center is our community’s home to create, experience, and discover the value of visual art. From our award-winning visual art classes, to our contemporary and innovative exhibitions, you can count on quality and expect the unexpected at Main Line Art Center. The art we exhibit, teach, and share is intended to exceed expectations as it inspires creativity, conversation, and joy. The mission that underscores all we do is to inspire and engage artistic creativity for all ages and abilities and to celebrate and strengthen the essential role of visual art in community life. Last year we inspired 16,000 people a Main Line Art Center and touched the lives of over 80,000 through our Exhibitions in the Community and festivals across the Philadelphia area.

Main Line Art Center is located at 746 Panmure Road in Haverford, behind the Wilkie Lexus dealership just off of Lancaster Avenue. The Art Center is easily accessible from public transportation and offers abundant free parking. For more information about Tweak of Nature, please visit www.mainlineart.org or call 610.525.0272.

Photographs and content for this DoNArTNeWs blog post provided by Amie Potsic. Thank You!

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Before Me

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Spring Tide at Newcomb Hollow Beach, Cape Cod National Seashore, James B. Abbott

The Landscape Before Me: Cape Cod

The Photography of James B. Abbott is Always in Season

Currently on view through February 6, 2015, St. Joseph’s University Gallery, Merion Station, Pennsylvania.

Public Reception on Thursday January 22, 6:00 – 8:00pm

In his largest exhibition of this work to date, James B. Abbott presents a timely meditation on Cape Cod across time. Large scale, multi-image panoramas display the drama of shifting tides, dunes and seasons while more intimate prints examine the subtleties of the moors and marshes. Taken over 15 years, this collection of images moves audiences into a contemplative space where time, place and scale are in constant flux.

The Landscape Before Me, is on display at St. Joseph’s University Gallery through Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. A reception for the artist will be held on Thursday, Jan. 22, from 5-7 p.m.

“The space of the Outer Cape has an inherent ambiguity of scale with little reference to familiar things, which makes it very malleable from a photographic and optical perspective,” remarks Abbott of his work with this landscape. “The dunes, tides, light, and water are never the same and they combine in so many different ways that I continually find new and interesting approaches to recording them.”

The cross section of images presented in The Landscape Before Me is from an ongoing body of work started in 2000 in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts while the artist was vacationing with his family. The work took on full commitment after he was accepted the Outer Cape Artist-in-Residence Consortium, managed by the Peaked Hill Trust. Through volunteers, the organization facilitates artists spending two weeks in a primitive dune shack with no electricity or no running water. The shelter was 400 feet from the ocean, isolated in the Peaked Hill dunes of the Cape Cod National Seashore, and provided unparalleled concentration and immersion in the landscape. This opportunity placed Abbott in the epicenter of an extraordinary environment, gave him the solitude to think, and came with a mandate to create. With this increased knowledge and appreciation of the place, his work took a new direction with increased momentum in the years following the first residency. Abbott has returned independently over 20 times since the May 2003 residency and in the summer of 2007, was awarded a three week C-Scape Dune Shack Artist Residency. This second residency was situated in a shack in the dunes of Race Point, for an intense three week period, and provided another unique time and situation to produce work.

The images are taken mostly in the Outer Cape region of the Cape Cod National Seashore in all four seasons. Abbott works with polaroid positive/negative multi-image panoramic and single wide-angle images printed and toned in a darkroom on conventional silver gelatin paper. Working in black and white allows the artist to approach the landscape without obvious tourist references, focusing instead on structure and nuance as he attempts to record a changing landscape. The ever-shifting sand dunes act as a three dimensional model as they record the primary forces and rhythm of nature. The sandscape seems to capture everything from the most minute shift of wind and tide to events of catastrophic force. The vocabulary of this landscape reflects permanence and mutability: where sea meets sky and land, where human intervention imprints the environment, and where the sky, sea and land often blend and/or mirror each other. The effects of currents of air are as evident as those of the sea in this place. At the most basic level, Abbott makes two dimensional photographic interpretations of these highly transitory three-dimensional records of natural and inflicted change.

Abbott’s goal is that the work will deal not only with how one perceives a place or thing but how one thinks of that place after encountering a visual representation of it. With emphasis on simultaneous micro and macro views or layer of information, the artist exploits the inherent descriptive nature of the photographic medium. He works on long term projects in one location and usually towards complex and diverse interpretations of a subject. In many ways, his collected works form a comprehensive and sincere portrait of a place. The artist learns and builds from each trip, so that as it grows, each body of work takes on a life of its own.

The work in Cape Cod is one of four long term, photo-based investigations of specific locations; he has also worked extensively in Berlin, Germany, on and around the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and currently in Florence and Venice, Italy.

Peaked Hill Dunes in Winter, Cape Cod National Seashore, James B. Abbott

James B. Abbott is a photographer who has maintained a studio in Philadelphia on North Third Street since 1983 and is a resident of Ardmore,Pa. Abbott earned a degree in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art, interned at the Light Gallery in New York, New York and completed an apprenticeship with renowned American photographer Burk Uzzle. Abbott has served as photographer for the Stieglitz Center at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Gallery Director of the Burden Gallery at Aperture Foundation in New York City. Abbott has held faculty appointments at Penland School of Crafts, Moore College of Art and Design, the University of the Arts, Philadelphia University, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and currently teaching in Italy for East Carolina University.

Over the course of the past twenty-five years Abbott has received many residencies and commissions; exhibited regularly; curated notable exhibitions and has built a successful international freelance photography and fine art practice. He has been a visiting artist and lecturer at Cranbrook Academy, a resident artist at the Cape Cod National Sea Shore, and lectured at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts. Abbott has been commissioned to create photographs for many projects and organizations including the Fairmount Park Art Association for their New.Land.Marks project, Rutgers University and NJN Public Television, and the Marriott Hotel. Abbott’s extensive exhibition history includes solo exhibitions at Harvard University, the Wellfleet Public Library, Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Lishui International Photo Festival in Lishui, China. Significant group exhibitions include the Atwater Kent Museum for the Museo Bardini in Florence, Italy, State Museum of Pennsylvania, The Print Center, and the National Constitution Center.

Abbott’s work is included in many public and private collections including the Federal Reserve Bank, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Abbott’s curatorial endeavors brought outstanding and stimulating work to Philadelphia through his gallery/exhibition space Exhibit 231. He put together exhibitions by Carl Toth, John Geard, Joel Katz, Geanna Merola and Sandy Sorlien.

Abbott has also received a number of grants and awards for his work: he is the recipient of three Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artist Awards, a SOS grant, and an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts.

A solo exhibition of select images from this body of work will be on view at The Saint Joseph’s University Gallery featuring work from nearly two decades of working on Cape Cod. The Landscape Before Me will be on view from Monday December 22, 2014 through Friday February 6, 2015. There is a public artist reception on Thursday, January 22 from 6-8 pm. Saint Joseph’s University Gallery is located in Merion Hall on the James J. Maguire ’58 Campus at 355 N. Latches Lane in Merion Station, PA. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. – 7 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. More at www.sju.edu/gallery or by calling 610-660-1845.

Thank You to Ann Peltz at akkoivunen@gmail.com for this press release.

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