Shelley Spector ‘Dreck Groove Wallpaper (One)’ (2011) reclaimed cardboard, courtesy Bridgette Mayer Gallery, photo: Shelley Spector

NextFab Studio is a high-tech shop in West Philadelphia that enables architects, industrial designers, and artists to create prototypes or small runs of products. Its staff of twenty includes engineers, designers, electronics specialists, photographers, and others who are available for training and technical help. I met Shelley Spector there last week to see what she’s been doing during the past six months that she’s had a residency at NextFab through Breadboard, an organization at the University City Science Center that promotes community outreach around technology and manages the Esther Klein Gallery, among other projects.

Any artist who makes ‘things’ that involve construction would think she had died and gone to heaven at NextFab. Its technical possibilities are endless; the difficulty is surely in making choices. Shelley concentrated on the computer-controlled laser cutter and sewing machine, which meant developing a proficiency with both the hardware and software (proprietary to each machine for most of the high-tech fabricating equipment); she said that took about two months.

Shelley Spector with parts for the computer-controlled sewing machine at NextFab

The work from the residency, a project addressing the nexus of consumption and environmental change, will be exhibited at the Esther Klein Gallery; Dreck Groove runs from Feb. 17-March 30, 2012.  Shelley used the computer-controlled sewing machine to produce a series of small embroideries whose imagery derives from weather mapping. What appear to be abstract patterns on textiles, decorated with the industrial version of traditional women’s handwork, were taken from graphs of fluctuating temperatures over time, infrared satellite photography, and charts of the spread of nuclear fallout. One embroidery lists all the names given to hurricanes during 2011. The decorative quality of the work makes the underlying criticism apparent only on second glance.

Shelley Spector, several small embroideries from ‘Dreck Groove’ courtesy Bridgette Mayer Gallery

Shelley used the laser cutter to create frames for the embroidered cloth and to cut out units from scavenged, consumer-product packaging which she will assemble to cover several walls (hence her description of the collaged work as wallpaper).  She learned a lot about her neighbors in the process of collecting sufficient gift boxes, food cartons and other household waste from their recycle bins; indeed, her project is a sort of alternative recycling. The units create a pattern that, at a distance, reads as a mid 20th-century modern design, until one gets close enough to read the writing and recognize the familiar imagery from boxes for cereal, crackers, and plastic bags.  This is the visual landscape of American domestic life.

Ian and Matt, engineers at NextFab Studio

Sarah McEneaney ‘Baseball’ (2010) tempera on wood

I ran into Sarah McEneaney at the most recent First Friday gallery openings as she was getting off her bike in front of the Vox Building, then laughed when I saw the image used (below) as the announcement of her current exhibition at Tibor de Nagy Gallery (through March 10, 2012). Many of the paintings record a life of leisure activities (watching baseball, camping out in Florida, on the coast in Brittany, hiking in a wildlife preserve) except that a painter’s work is never done, and even when she doesn’t picture herself drawing (which she does while floating in the Dead Sea), you know that a sketchbook is close at hand.

Sarah McEneaney ‘Philadelphia Winter’ tempera

Most of the works are in a smaller format than those in her last exhibition at the gallery, and a number  show a particular sensitivity to landscape, from wetlands to trees in winter.  My favorite showed the artist at an open window, on her birthday, and most of the painting is occupied by patterns of various trees  surrounding an open field of snow that suggests the as yet unwritten story of the year, or years, to come.

The day I talked with Sarah Stolfa of PPAC, their website had briefly crashed from all the traffic they were getting from Living Social, a coupon site, where they had some half-off coupons on offer for their upcoming workshops. ($30 instead of $60). The fact that they’re using a coupon site for class coupons tells you how web- and business-savvy this organization is.

Sarah Stolfa, photo courtesy of Workman publishers, publishers of Stolfa's book, The Regulars

PPAC opened in late summer 2009. It opened because while there were co-op dark rooms for hands-on professional photographers in Philadelphia, “No one in the city was running a nonprofit, high end digital equipment center for the creation of work,” Stolfa said. And, for one photographer to purchase the digital scanners/printers needed made no sense — it was not affordable and took up too much space. But to share the equipment in a community art center made a lot of sense. As with many organizations, PPAC grew as its mission grew. From a space with equipment it is now a place with an educational program, a gallery to show work, and a lot of free or low-cost programming open to the public. Here’s the interview I did with Sarah, by phone, on Dec. 22.

Sarah Stolfa, photo courtesy of Workman publishers, publishers of Stolfa's book, The Regulars

Roberta: Are you a membership organization?
Sarah: We are free and open to the public but also a membership organization.

You are an active photo community with lectures and other programming, and an art gallery. What printing services do you provide?
PPAC makes museum quality prints 60″ wide for practicing artists.

Tell me about printing for other artists. You printed the Zoe Strauss show at the PMA.  It’s a great coup to print a museum show.
We created two sets of prints – one for the museum and one to travel (the show will travel)….and we did match prints for the book. We did everything. Zoe got to choose who printed [the show]. She’d never worked with us before and was very excited about it. She wanted the work [the printing] to stay in Philadelphia. She’s giving back to the community. It’s really a great way to highlight Philadelphia, the community, support the community.  Peter Barbarie was on our advisory committee. But he had nothing to do with it. It was great to work with him in another capacity.

How did the printing go?
It was a lot of proofing and talking to see how the images should feel…it’s a process. It’s a great project.

How many works in the show and do you frame it too?
There are 170 photos, different sizes-”20×30″ to “8×12″ in the show. Framing is done in house at the PMA.

How about the book?
I just got an email today [Dec. 22]. Zoe has the book in her hands.

When did the project begin?
We started on the project in April or May…it’s roughly 8 months of work.

Have you printed this massive quantity for an artist before?
It’s the first time we worked with an artist for this big a show.

Who else have you printed for?
We were printing and scanning with Daniel Traub since May 2009 [even before PPAC opened and the equipment was in her house in Fishtown]. We worked with Janelle Lynch, a New York artist. We do scanning for her.

Are artists hard to work for?
Working with artists is our favorite thing.

Where do you teach?
At Penn and PPAC. Everyone [at PPAC] has teaching experience and is an artist. We understand that practice. It’s in our tool sets. We do this because we’re part of the community.

How many photographers here in Philly
That’s hard. Many artists wear many hats. The census form doesn’t capture it…

How about community…How does everybody get along…Light Room, Basho?
With the Light Room there’s no competition and no overlap. They support us and come to our events. We go to theirs. They are the opposite of us [not digital]. They have a really great darkroom. Basho…We have a healthy competition. Our lectures are drastically different. It’s like fast food chains close together. But helping each other.

How about your programming?
Laura Heyman is giving a talk on her Haiti photos. We’re sponsoring a screening with the Free Library of the film “War Photographer” about photographer James Nachtwey. Zoe is doing a free lecture Feb 18. There’s a show and panel in February…”Of the Ordinary” features artists who use photographs in their work that were never meant to be shown in a gallery context. Our Book Fair is April 28. The Slide Luck Pot Show…there’s a call [see website for more]. Last year more than 125 people came. This year we’re going to have it outside in the garden.

How are you doing with the recession?
It’s a tough economy now. Running PPAC is a tough challenge. I anticipate us continuing to grow. We want to expand things. We will be announcing an artist in residency program in Jan. 2 people per year will come and use the facility for one month.

Is this a residency with housing for out of towners?
Ultimately we’d like to do housing.

What else?
We expanded Philly Photo Day. And next year we will start being a collecting facility…we will get a print from the artists in residence.

How is it being a photographer in Philadelphia?
It’s a hard time to get a job as a photographer. Philadelphia is affordable to live in…it’s a friendly and open community. If you come to events you’ll be in the community…There are great resources for artists. Even if there’s not a lot of jobs there’s space for you to do your own thing.

Do it Yourself?
People can do it; It’s easier [to be a photographer] in NY where the film and fashion industries are. There are photo opportunities there. But I know people who set up here and can work for 10 years.

There’s teaching jobs?
At PPAC! If you have a great idea for a workshop or class, send me an email. There’s a lot of opportunity if you make it…like the fact that PPAC opened.

Tim Belknap 33 second promo

Pamela Ellis Hawkes: Floral Arrangement #7, 2011, was a highlight at The Photo Review Benefit Auction in 2011.

Philadelphia in 2012 has three community photo art centers — Project Basho, Philadelphia Photo Art Center and The Light Room. It has a commercial photo gallery – Gallery 339. In addition, you can see photography exhibits monthly in academic galleries like Sol Mednick Gallery and Gallery 1401 at University of the Arts. Blue chip gallery Locks has periodic photo exhibits, as do other galleries like LG Tripp, which just ended its 4th annual abstract photography show Jan 7.  The Print Center has its 86th Annual International Competition – Photography opening in June. And, Perloff says, Philadelphia museums “have come around” to showcasing photography.

Nick Kline, "Soup Bowl," from "Mold" series, 2011, Archival Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Paper, 60"x50" and variable editions in smaller sizes. Din of Murmurs: Mold, Sol Mednick Gallery, University of the Arts, Jan. 13-Mar. 2.

What’s different now, says Perloff, is that young artists are moving here and staying here after graduation instead of moving to New York or the West Coast – where the fashion and music industries historically provided many more job opportunities for photographers.

From Don’t Move Again –Laura Heyman, photos of Haiti, PPAC, to Feb. 4

Those industries have changed with digital photo tools making photography at once cheaper to work with and more specialized, so that photo skills are not enough anymore, you need to be a Photoshop whiz as well. “It’s a hard time to get a job as a photographer,” says Sarah Stolfa, founder of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center in Kensington. Stolfa launched PPAC in 2009 after she got an MFA from Yale School of Art and became frustrated that Philadelphia lacked a digital lab for artists who want to scan and print their own works. Tired of running up to New York, she created PPAC so she and other photographers could scan, print, and be with a like-minded community. In addition to running PPAC, Stolfa, like many photographers in Philadelphia, is a photo teacher. She teaches at PPAC and at the University of Pennsylvania.

PPAC is a non-profit arts center, with classes, lectures, movie screenings, a book fair, a gallery for exhibitions, and the closest things the city has to an annual photo festival, “Philly Photo Day,” a celebration of all things Philadelphia, in which the entire population of the region is invited to take a photo in the city on one day (in 2011 it was Oct. 28), and share the photo in a 2-week exhibition in which the Center prints everybody’s photos and displays them.

Phillip Toledano, Justin, from the current exhibit at Gallery 339 - up to Jan. 28

Martin McNamara, who founded the commercial photo gallery, Gallery 339 with partner Tom Callen in 2005 and represents Stolfa’s work, talked about the need for an expanded, international festival for practitioners, collectors, scholars and gallerists to come together for networking, sales, and to discuss the state of photography. “Since we opened we’ve seen a lot of interesting nodes of activity – 2 photo centers (Basho and PPAC); increased activity with universities that offer photography degrees; Temple opened their new building — an amazing facility; and of course the art museum opened their dedicated photo space [The Levy Gallery] in the Perelman Building…One thing that’s not in place yet is a festival,” he said.

“We have Philly Photo Day — I love the democratic event…But other cities have multi-day multi-week photo festivals, and it brings attention to the idea of photography,” he said. Gallery 339 participates in festivals in New York and Miami.

Pia Johnson, "Finding Yourself at Home". Digital C-print. 12"x18" From ONWARD at Project Basho, Feb. 11-Mar. 25

Efforts to organize a festival have come up short. “We had a committee to discuss a photo festival,” said Perloff. But the financial backing never came together. Both Stolfa and Tsuyoshi Ito of Project Basho (another community art center in Kensington) sat in on Perloff’s festival meetings. And when the event didn’t materialize, Tsuyoshi decided to create a one-day festival-like event in conjunction with his center’s annual emerging artist’s exhibit, Onward (opening Feb. 11). The festival, also Feb. 11, is open to all, with speakers, portfolio reviews and other activities, says Basho’s Grisha Enikolopov. The cost of a ticket is $65, and Enikolopov says they are hoping for around 200 participants. “This is the inaugural summit but we want it to be annual. Next year we will bring in video as well.”

Stephen Perloff: Plastic Covered Hat, Philadelphia, 1972, from "Unseen Color, Part I" at the Light Room, Mar 10-April 14, 2012

Everyone I talked with said there’s collegiality among all the players in the photo scene — as well as healthy competition among the various photo art centers. Al Wachlin, Jr. is a founder of the oldest, yet most under-the-radar photo art center, The Light Room. Located in Fairmount, the 10-year old member organization has a darkroom, a small digital lab, and a gallery space. But their mission is to serve their members. “We don’t offer classes to the public. We get calls. If people get a camera and want a class we send them to PPAC or Basho. We cooperate. We’re definitely trying to support each other.”

Stolfa explained it this way: “With the Light Room there’s no competition and no overlap. They support us and come to our events. We go to theirs. With Basho, we have a healthy competition. It’s like fast food chains close together, but helping each other,” she said. (Project Basho is around the corner from PPAC in Kensington).

Basho’s Enikolopov, who moved to Philadelphia after graduating from Wesleyan and started volunteering at Basho (he’s now the Coordinator of Marketing and Events) said, “We’re all in a really big city, and we’re all really small. The more the merrier. The more people who are interested in photography the better for everyone.”

A slightly different version of this story appeared at the Daily News as part of Art Attack, the NEA/Knight-Foundation-sponsored project, a partnership between Drexel University and the Daily News.

Scot Borofsky, The Huge International Demise of Mr. Potato Head 2007 84" x 58" Oil on Canvas

Corey Armpriester- How did you make the migration from street artist to gallery representation?
Scot Borofsky- Magazines and newspapers wrote about my work.

CA- How important is it for artists to travel?
SB- Well, I think if you’re an artist you have to travel. You’re collecting information. You are totally affected by the culture you live in, your idea of life and the world. You really have to go far away from that culture to see it in an objective manner. In my case I’ve traveled largely in third world countries. I’ve seen the other side of life and I owe so much of everything that I know, think and do to what I saw traveling. It’s one of the most important things.

Scot Borofsky, Moss at Eagle Chamber 2008 62" x 46" Oil on Canvas

CA- Aztec and Mayan temples have a history of human sacrifice. How did you come to terms with this while living around the temples and being influenced by them aesthetically?
SB-The abstract artistic design rules of that time is my area, I don’t feel like I have to come to terms with that personally. If you go into the Amazon you’re going to find people still engaged with some form of human sacrifice.

CA- Do we [Americans] practice human sacrifice via war?
SB-Absolutely. You can’t justify these things.

CA-Do you practice ancestral worship?
SB-I believe in simultaneous reincarnation, which basically comes down to we are all fragments of the same soul.

Scot Borofsky, Night Highway 2004 36" x 32" Oil on Canvas

CA- What is one quality every artist should posses?
SB- That’s a very difficult question to answer. I think you have to be able to get obsessed over your idea. You have to take your idea to the furthest limits it can possibly go.

CA-What was the greatest lesson you learned while attending high school?
SB-They taught me to believe in myself.

CA-Can you talk about the experiance you had with Jean-Michel Basquiat?
SB- I was at a Julian Schnable exhibit [at the Whitney]. I was in a room by myself and suddenly Basquiat walks into the the room. Basquiat started to back-up to the wall while taking a marker out of his pocket, and behind his back he started doing a drawing on the wall, during the opening at the Whitney! And he was looking me in the eye the whole time. He put the marker back into his pocket and then slowly made his way out of the room. You couldn’t make out the image he was trying to draw but you could see Basquiat in the line; you could feel his energy. Thats what helped me find my own style.That was his gift to me. He gave that to me.

Scot Borofsky, Summer Hay 2011 60" x 50" Oil on Canvas

CA- What is your relationship to the symbol?
SB- I was working with collage materials making collage constructions from stuff I found on the streets of Manhattan. They were abstract free-form constructions. A couple of them started to look like what you would call primitive figures or masks. They started to look like a symbol for the figure.

CA- Is the spiral representative of a prison?
SB- I use the spiral in a lot of different situations. The spiral for me means only one thing, It means the first bowl made by human hands.

CA-Are your pyramid step lines about ascension?
SB-The pyramid is definitely about ascension, that is true. I also use the step line in symbols that are figurative, this is actually the origin of the design.

CA- Is your work concerned with the way geometric archetypes affect the human brain?
SB- My work is very concerned with the way lines and shapes are seen by the human brain. For instance if you compare the Roman Arch to the Japanese Pagoda, one line brings you down to earth and the other lifts your spirit up. Those kind of lines I try to incorporate into my symbols. People see art differently depending on how left brained or right brained they are.

CA- Is your work born out of spontaneity?
SB- Some artists will say you have to wait for an accident to happen and then go with it, that’s your open door, the key. I don’t wait for the accident, I create the accident.

Scot Borofsky, Iron Vines 2007 46" x 64" Oil on Canvas

CA- Is art ever finished?
SB- Oh yeah, I think you should never expect an art work to work on the first round. You’ve got to go back to it.

CA-Is it the artist’s responsibility to explore the duality of life?
SB-The artist’s responsibility is to explore life, and then put all of that into the work. That’s what makes art powerful.

CA- Is it possible for the civilized to live amongst the uncivilized?
SB- To me civilized means culture that works.

CA- Should artists attempt escaping influence?
SB- Artists should emulate what they find and are attracted to in art. One day down the line they will see what came from them and not the influence. At this point they can let go of all the influences and just paint what is you.

CA- Do you consider yourself a decorative artist?
SB- Not at all, that’s an insult.

The exhibition runs to December 31, 2011
Jules Goldman Books, 29 N. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA

His last show is the result of a choice he made more than ten years ago to no longer fill the entire pictorial plane with paint and to  renounce all figuration. He now  prefers to compose exhibitions with semi complete  elements leading to a whole rather than necessarily making each element a work unto itself.

This tactic is clear when we visit the studio. No paintings are on display. The sculptures are pressed up against the wall ready to be deployed, or not. Mair seems happy to leave them be and to deploy them in his head. He pulls some out for me and kind of throws them out on the floor like carpets. He arranges them and then arranges them again. There is no set arrangement. The spectator can meddle there as well, I guess. But who would ever dare rearrange a show? Well actually there is Captain Culture & Herr Doktor Kropp, a team of art consultants who will fix your show free of charge, but that is another story.

Taken together Mair’s work has an  IKEA quality to it  – decoration that is derived from a furniture sensibility. You  are always wondering about a work’s  possible function.

The objects are more or less flat. Volume is derived by assembling flat elements. There is always a painted edge or plane somewhere that suggests an orientation. Paint is applied in strips in an allotted space. It doesn’t transfer, travel or overflow.

Color is emitted and diffused on neighboring elements of the painted plane. The color becomes lighting and the art/ furniture combination is fulfilled (but do not try to read by this light). According to Mair the color is a  residue of a greater mass or color that was there before.

Enclosing colored planes gives the color mass.

His works often suggest that they were once bigger but that a part was detached and dispersed.

Mair’s work is a little messy. Canvas and wood meet imperfectly in a jury rigged fashion, painted edges are vague and fuzzy. A straight line misses its mark . . . there is a fuzziness which avoids a conclusion. It is a  controlled messiness which alleviates the seriousness that this work could deploy.

Mair likes to brush up against the line separating art and utility. Is this a bookcase I see before mine eyes? Its shelves before my hands?

You are also free to turn his pictures this way and that (look above and below).

The tug in two opposing directions — that of painting and sculpture — that many artists have felt is at work in Mair as well.

In one work the frame slides out from behind the canvas. In another the two vertical elements of the frame rise like goal posts out of the top of the picture.

Mair uses canvas and stretcher structures as the building blocks  for his objects. The canvas and chassis entente remains as a support and surface for the paint, but they have become objets d’art in their own right. This is a sly way of painting and sculpting.

The paint, however, cannot reciprocate. It is happy to lie ensconced in or on the object. It bends to the will of the canvas stretcher structure and from there it faintly diffuses itself onto the white planes of its keeper.  Overall there is a persistent flatness which means that Mair is still mostly painting.

Mair’s studio is on the edge of a long straight canal typical of the landscapes of northern Europe with their straight lines and flat lands. I ask him if his proximity to this cityscape has influenced his work and he professes that the open space is a pleasure to be in but he cannot point to any work that might be a result of this landscape.

Although Mair’s work calls to mind many other artists he himself doesn’t work within those references. He is looking to make art that can still serve a  purpose and open new perspectives. If he proposes a hint of utility it is in hopes that the spectator will go beyond that and confirm the object as art. Letting the spectator confer the status and value of the work is risky but honest.

There is a lunge towards the infinite here and it is achieved without a draughtman’s means. Mair has come far from the huis clos of the picture where all is controlled and described to a place where suggestion sets us in motion.

The bits and pieces add up to what most bodies of work are becoming: a set of  pieces to a board game that are looking to be deployed on the great board of the contemporary art game.

However it seems that the more artists create the more fragmented art becomes. The number of pieces needed for the game is infinite and their signage forever evolving. There will always be missing pieces.

I like the line that Mair is pursuing. It is  unhurried and consists of a few brush strokes and a few strokes of the saw combined with gravity’s will and a certain nonchalance. You can follow the signs or not.

Peter Funch, Babel Tales, Exigent State. Photo courtesy of the artist

These artificial communities constructed by Peter are surreal and often whimsical, but can be deeply unsettling to someone that questions the hive mentality. Peter has created street scenes that never actually existed in reality and at first glance you’re convinced that they are simple street shots, but nothing could be further from the truth.  I came across Peter’s work in Chelsea on one of my random art walks around New York City. Peter answered my questions via email.

Peter Funch, Babel Tales. Following the Followers. Photo courtesy of the artist

What kind of boy were you?
As I young boy I was extremely curious. I would tear everything apart just to figure out how it was made. I was looking at the technology behind the userface. Then for a while I became quite a trouble maker. If nothing was happening I would try to make it happen. It was at times a very restless energy.

When did the camera come into your life?
My Dad took lots of pictures so there was always a camera in the house. When I was about 18 or 19 I started to become very interested in using the camera myself. At that point I had no idea where I was going with my life, but I really enjoyed taking pictures and fell into studying photojournalism at university. Photography was the first thing I was excited about in my school time.

Peter Funch, Babel Tales, Informing the informers. Photo courtesy of the artist

How do you decide on a street location in NYC?
Sometimes I choose very specific locations to get one image. In many of the images it is the location that defines the scenario. Others are more open. I usually pick places that are very crowded with a diverse set of characters and an interesting aesthetic. For Babel Tales, I decided that the project should be done in Manhattan. I make rules for every project that I do. Choosing Manhattan was a good way of defining an area. It’s an island with so many stories, references, history, and mystery.

How long did it take to finish the Babel Tales series?
I spent four years working on the series. It was quite a long and consuming process but on the other hand it was interesting to work with one idea over  a longer time. The same principle of shooting where the content develops.

On average how long did it take to compose a single photograph?
Typically 10 to 15 days of shooting on the street, but the most time goes into categorizing the images and putting together the final product in my studio. Some took a month and some took years. I usually work on 5 or 10 different images at a time. Some of my latest images are derived from raw material that was shot three summers ago. At the time I thought it didn’t work, but seeing it with fresh eyes has helped.

Peter Funch, Babel Tales, Memory Lane. Photo courtesy of the artist

Are you subverting the individual in the Babel Tales series?
It’s more about indicating a relation between individuals as a group. Babel Tales is about the relations that we aren’t aware of or do not usually pay attention to.

Do you celebrate the hive mentality?
Yes I think it’s very interesting to view all levels and collective groups of society as a large moving organism and breaking that down to the image of a single person walking on the street – his/hers p.o.v. and narrative.

What does it mean to be an artist?
To be an artist is a position in society where you comment, reflect, study, break down and build up. It is not a position you can apply for since you define it yourself.

Fabian Lopez, in his studio

Waddell and Lopez are both from Los Angeles and in fact they both went to the same school undergrad. They both came to Philadelphia for an MFA from Tyler.

Fabian Lopez, Next Evil, 36x48" each, oil on canvas

Lopez, who is the son of Mexican immigrants, makes works influenced by what he saw growing up in his house (religious paintings on the wall — big iconic works with a strong central image). His oil paintings have a big-sky affect and many of them contain a strong, iconic central image, although it might be abstract.

Fabian Lopez, one of his drawings

The artist, who teaches drawing at Tyler and color theory at Rowan University, is also drawing a lot, which is quicker and more immediate than a painting, and something you can do when you’re spread thin and don’t have that much studio time.

Fabian Lopez, new work based on two religious paintings at the PMA

His drawings of late are influenced by Goya and the turbulent street life he sees around his apartment on Girard near the Crane.
In a new painting, the artist is trying something different — a large oil based on two religious paintings from the PMA collection. He said he’s been studying them for some time now, making trips to the museum. But the artist said he will take the color out of his version of the paintings….denuding them of some of their power–making them more abstract. Well, he thinks that’s what he will do.

Shanna Waddell in her studio

Shanna Waddell, Lopez’s friend, studio-mate and fellow Los Angeleno, works in a more directly intuitive fashion. Waddell gets obsessed with things and then paints up a storm in graphically representational and thickly impasto’ed oils. Currently she’s channeling religious cults, with their charismatic leaders whose often murderous ways include killing their followers and others who stand in their way of world domination.

Shanna Waddell, painting in studio, based on cult leader Marshall Applewhite

Unlike Lopez’s measured and iconic semi-abstractions, Waddell’s works are full of anger and overt passion. In fact they seem like paintings made by someone in a cult (they’re not, she isn’t).

Shanna Waddell, Trans-cient, 78x96" oil on canvas

After some prompting by Lopez, Waddell told me she had had a solo show in New York at Thomas Erben, the dealer of Dona Nelson, one of her teachers, who had advocated with the dealer on her behalf. Waddell said she’s painting for a new show with the gallery next February.

Lopez says he wants to organize a show with Los Angeles artists and Philadelphia artists, maybe raise money to have it in the Icebox, do it up right. Sounds like a great idea.

Andrew Jeffrey Wright 59-second sample

Jenny Sabin's greenhouse, under construction at the Jefferson Garden, Aug. 19, 2011

Workers buzzed around the thing, which looked like a cross between the bones of a beached whale or dinosaur and the ribs of a Viking sea vessel. Strange yet intriguing. The ramp at the entrance to the garden insisted you climb up it — there’s no room to go safely around. So I climbed aboard and asked for Jenny. She was at her studio I was told but they’d call and get her.

Jenny Sabin's greenhouse, under construction Aug. 19, 2011

Meanwhile, behind the space more white ribs lay on the grass waiting to be installed on the greenhouse. And in the far corner of the garden on a small patio sat a bunch of colored-plastic boxes, which I guessed would be added to the structure. Aaron Cromie, playwrite, was there too. His site-specific Fringe Festival Play, A Paper Garden — commissioned by APS Museum, along with Sabin’s greenhouse and a few other pieces — was being written and he needed to talk with the horticulturalist about the plants in the garden. (All the commissioned works here are in conjunction with the museum’s indoor exhibit Of Elephants and Roses).

Jenny Sabin's Greenhouse, the cold frames waiting to be installed, Aug. 19, 2011

Cromie’s play takes place in the past, present and future he said. There are different plants here now in the garden than back in the day. When the horticulturalist spoke she talked about four American holly trees (around 30 years old) that are spaced in parallel positions and pruned to a Christmas tree look. Usually holly trees sprawl from top to bottom and do not have this distinctive cone shape. But the Jefferson Garden architect dictated the shape so they achieve a kind of French-style formal garden look (consistent with what Jefferson saw in France). Apparently the hollies get hand-pruned three times a year. There are two white dogwoods and the groundcover is periwinkle or vinca minor.

The horticulture tour of the garden continued with the playwrite and his cohorts taking notes, but Sabin had arrived so I went off to look at her greenhouse with her and ask her some questions. Here’s our interview.

Jenny Sabin's Greenhouse, under construction Aug. 19, 2011

When did all this begin?
Sue Ann Prince (museum director) and Merrill Mason (associate director) approached me last July (2010) to work on a project.

What’s the idea?
I wanted to invert the idea of the closed greenhouse. Turn that upside down. Themes are our relationship with nature and with technology…and how nature is communicated to people.

A very different looking greenhouse.
The greenhouse is the cold frames (small colored plastic boxes with lids). The cold frames populate the structure.

The greenhouse feeds off the exhibit inside APS that has to do with Empress Josephine Bonaparte’s (1763-1814) greenhouse.
Back then scientists studied nature in the field. Now it’s in the lab. For Josephine…Malmaison contained nature and put the scientist on display (in the greenhouse).

What kind of architecture do you do?
I do design computation. I’m an architectural designer. Now we can have direct control over the design and the drawings. I write with code and I draw with code. Any changes needed, I can redesign in the computer program instead of redrawing by hand.

Jenny Sabin's Greenhouse. Cold frames installed with plants in the finished structure. Photo by Brent Wahl, courtesy of APS Museum

Talk about the idea of the cold frames.
I wanted the cold frames to be modules. How many could we fit? There are 125 in all, 109 fit in the structure and the rest will be in the garden. It’s meant to be interactive, and people will be able to open the cold frames and touch things (maybe harvest some things like lettuce, which they will be planting).

What plants in particular?
We started 10 vines a month ago that will grown up and onto the top arches (like a roof)

What kind of vines?
Clematis, moon eye and scarlet runner beans

Are you in charge of filling the rest of the cold frames?
The rest will be done by a landscape architect. It will be plants that grow in Philly in the fall, some lettuces..

Also, I am making a cabinet of future fossils…

Jenny Sabin's Greenhouse, the ramp to the pavillion insists you enter not go around

What’s that?
The exhibition (inside APS) has some ceramics (with plant motifs painted on)…giraffe handbag…high end and low end…I’m going to make some ceramic objects and some 3D printed objects, made using algorithms that are biomorphic. I’m making mathematical flowers.

Where are you printing? I saw some 3D printers at Next Fab.
I was an artist in residence at Next Fab.
I have a printer we bought through a grant. (Z Corp has done some printing for her; her machine is Z Corp).

Do you design buildings?
I’m not an architect in the way you think of architects. I’ve never done anything this scale. (dimensions of the greenhouse - 52’ (l) x 14’(w) x 12’ (h)) I teach design studios; design and materials; techniques. My degree is from UPenn. I was teaching there but just got a professorship at Cornell.

Where was this project designed?
The project is happening in my design studio — Lab Studio…I run it with biologist Peter Lloyd Jones…we’ve done a lot of transdisciplinary work. I do one project a year — in the summer months. I do installations. This is my first pavilion.

Where is your studio?
Crane Old School. We’re in what I think was the library. I have a kiln in the basement.

Do you want to build buildings too?
I hope to do buildings.

Jenny Sabin (2nd from the left wearing hat) and her gang, who were on a lunch break.

You have a gang of workers. Who’s helping you?
Four architecture students from Penn; and a graduate of the Penn program is doing the fabrication. Mike Avery, my former student, is now a fabricator. His workshop is DraftWorks. It’s neat working with a former student

What kind of programming do you use–CAD?
I use CNC

What’s that?
Computational Numerically Controlled

So every bit, every rib, every connector, everything was designed by you on the computer…the cold frames too?
I designed the cold frames. They snap together.

No glue or screws? Why?
It’s a nice design. Kids could build it.

The colors are great. The green pops from far away.
The green is fluorescent. It costs more and I only wanted one fluorescent.

Jenny Sabin's Greenhouse, the finished pavillion. Photo by Brent Wahl, courtesy of APS Museum

What’s the timeline of the project?
July 2010 Sue Ann and Merrill approached me with the idea of doing a project. The proposal was in the beginning of the fall. They went after funding and got it in mid-April and we started.

Who’s the funder?
Pew Heritage Trusts

Did you have enough time to do all this? 4 months?
A greenhouse pavilion this scale needs 6 months. I haven’t had a day off in 2 and a half months.

It looks pretty sturdy…
It’s sturdy but small. We will probably limit it to 25 people at a time (on the inside of the structure).  Prince said, “There there will be guides here at all times to explain the project, and extra hours in the fall.”

Why did you put the ramp so close to the garden’s entrance?
It’s important for people to enter the garden through the greenhouse. The ramp is there (at the entrance) to force people to enter through the greenhouse.

How did you get into this computer-programmed architectural design? Were you a computer science major?
My degree is in ceramics and interdisciplinary arts.

Where?
University of Washington (Seattle). After that I ran a studio in Seattle for seven years.

It’s a leap.
I was in biology and pre-med before that (ceramics). And studied architecture at Penn.

You took to architecture right away?
I came to Penn at an interesting time.

The first year I was drawing everything by hand [the traditional way]. By the second year it was digital. Penn was the second architecture school to go digital. Columbia was first. I clicked with the code.

What’s the future for you?
My studio practice (and personal life) will remain here. But I just got a professorship at Cornell and I have a lake cabin in Ithaca. I start teaching this week (8/19).

Talk about the unusual structure–looks like dinosaur bones.
I saw the anatomy museum in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris….mastodon ribs  I also have a cabinet of future fossils. 3D-printed fossils and slip-cast ceramic fossils.

So the ceramics come around again…
At the end of the day I’m a maker. Materials and making are what drive me.

Jenny Sabin’s Greenhouse is on exhibit until Dec. 31.  Hear a lecture by Jenny Sabin on Oct. 20, 6pm at the APS Museum.