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Midweek News on Artblog Radio Podcast, Taller Puertorriqueño, Judith Schaechter, Commonweal Gallery, and more

In this Midweek News podcast, Roberta and Ryan talk art news in Philadelphia, change in leadership at Taller Puertorriqueño, Smithsonian Visionary Award winners, Commonweal Gallery show and more.

Roberta: Hi, it’s Roberta.

Ryan: And this is Ryan. And this is the midweek news.

Roberta: On Artblog radio! And Ryan in the news today, I’m going to tell you everything and in small little packages. The first news is Nasheli Ortiz. Who was the executive director at Taller Puertorriqueño has stepped down from that job, and Erikka Goslin, who is Deputy Director, will become the interim Executive Director. So that’s big news and it kind of leads me to say there’s still a lot of churn in the arts organizations. People coming and going, and I, I think that’s ramped up, since the pandemic has been over, there’s been a lot of people moving on. Budgets are not back to what they used to be. I don’t know what the reasons are, but people are still moving.

So there’s that. Judith Schaechter and Dan Dailey took glass artists with connections to Philadelphia. Judith has taught at the University of the Arts for many years. They both received the Smithsonian Visionary Awards. At the May 1st event, the Smithsonian held in conjunction with their annual craft show. So congratulations, Judith. Artblog is a big fan of Judith Schaechter. There’s lots about Judith on Artblog. If you Google it up.

Notable exhibits. There’s a couple of group shows. It’s group show season, as you know, graduating students shows at all the colleges. Plus we’re easing into the summer where it’s basically standard operating procedure to have a group show.

I want to point out the Creative Scholars. Which is a coming-of-age show for high school students at Tyler School of Art. Sounds really good. They work with these students. Tyler faculty work with these students for a whole year, and then they have a show at the end. I am looking forward to seeing that.

The Woodmere Annual is coming up. Always a notable show. Definitely go see that. That opens June 8th and runs till September 1st. And Commonweal has an interesting show called Teamwerk. Where they have 20 artists they’re working with and they paired them in 10 teams. So two artists per team. People who have never worked together before, and they’re the show is about this and they’re having programming where the teams are speaking and talking about how it was to collaborate with another artist. It’s a marvelous idea for a show and I really look forward to seeing that.

Notable events, I told you in the news post, but we haven’t mentioned it in the podcast. But Gross McCleaf is moving the gallery that’s been on 16th Street for many, many years. They’re moving to the Mill studios in Manayunk, and this weekend, May 18th from noon till 5:00 PM they’re having a moving celebration. So come in and talk to them, see them congratulate them, send them on their way. They’d like to see you. There’s one opportunity I want to shout out, and that is the CFEVA POST. Philadelphia Open Studios has got an open call right now and you can take advantage of early bird registration for $50 off if you do it through May 31st. Registration otherwise is $125, so that’s a really good deal. Yeah, take advantage of it.

And over to you now, Ryan.

Ryan: Well, I wanted a tag team on the common wheel. The Teamwork Show. They have an event coming up on the 18th, so just a few days. That’s from, from 12 to one. A few of the artists are going to be there at Commonweal from 12 to one. I think that’s going to be really good to, to tag team on that.

Roberta: Is it in person or is it virtual?

Ryan: It looks like it’s local. It looks like it’s in real life.

Roberta: In real life, okay.

Ryan: Yeah.

Roberta: Good.

Ryan: Yeah, so that show looks that’ll be good to add on to that. So Commonweal, obviously we’re seeing, and that’ll additionally be worth seeing.

Also this weekend, Rehoboth Art Festival, if you want to get to the beach, if the weather’s nice, might be a nice time to have out that way. This Saturday also has a Big Ramp has the opening of the magic of the sun, playing with the moon. That could be really interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing what that is all about.

Roberta: Is that an eclipse show? Post facto,

Ryan: No, not, not specifically. There will be some doing with that, but I’m, I’m not quite exactly sure what that’s going to be. So there’s quite, there’s a few artists that are going to be participating in that. So it’s kind of, it’s, it may be thematically related, but it may not be directly exactly that.

Roberta: You don’t need to bring your eclipse glasses, for example. No.

Ryan: No, I don’t think so. Yeah, we’re getting into a lot of the college the graduate shows that, that those are often very interesting. News around the city. Morris Arboretum is a, is a place that I like to go. They’re doing a dinosaur thing around their area, which is kind of unusual. I’ve never heard anything like that done at Moore before. So that’s kind of wild.

And then the Chinese Lantern Festival is coming up that’s going to be in, they’re both in June. But you’ll start seeing them get going fairly soon. And the Chinese Lantern Festival is at Franklin Square, and that officially opens June 20th.

But if you’re in that neighborhood, you’ll, you’ll see those things going up starting very soon.

Roberta: And that’s controversial. I just want to say sidebar here. Yeah, because the city has privatized Franklin Park and so, whoever runs the Chinese Lantern Festival, has to pay for that. It’s a private event.

It turns the whole public park into a private park. And there are some people that have some trouble with that.

Ryan: Yeah. But I know a lot of people live in that area, so it is very curious what you think about that. On the 18th as well Moore is having an event called the Awaken Your Dreams, Poetry and Art Show. That looks like a lot of fun from 4-7pm.

Arden Theaters opening on the 16th once on this island. It’s a coming-of-age story that looks really interesting as well. I have to throw in some theater there as well. This is my absolutely my thing.

Roberta: It’s your jam.

Ryan: I want to shout that one out, that it’s opening on the 16th. That’s at Arden Theater. What else from you, Roberta?

Roberta: Oh, well, let me tell you what’s on my mind. My mind is, and my head is full of Earworms these days, Ryan. I wake up in the morning and suddenly my head is full of childhood songs like “I’m a Little Teapot” or “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes”. Now, I sort of laugh at myself for that, and it is rather amusing.

I come from a family where my mother used to sing a lot of ditties around the house. She would be singing all the time, just a couple bars of a little song. But it’s memorable to me that I’m now doing, or it’s remarkable that I’m doing this too. God, they say, you turn into your parents and I’m seeing it happen anyway this morning.

I am shocked to say I’ve moved on from childhood songs to The Star-Spangled Banner.

Ryan: Oh no.

Roberta: I could not get this thing outta my head. The melody right, the melody is okay. It’s PO and sort of militaristic, which I’ve gotta say I don’t like. But then I started trying to say, what are the words anymore? And I got.

Oh say, can you see by the dawn’s early light. What so proudly we hail the…

Ryan: It’s for the best. It’s for the best. Let’s just move on. 

Roberta: You’re right. Oh my God. But I can’t get it out of my head, Ryan. What am I going to do now? I don’t want any psychoanalysis here, so, but I just want to say I can’t wait to move on from the Star-Spangled Banner. And that’s it for me.

Ryan: I just hope it’s not contagious.

That’s my concern. That’s sounds terrible. 

Roberta: That’s funny, funny, funny. Okay. Yes. I hope it’s not contagious too.

Ryan: This has been, Artblog Radio. And I’m Ryan.

Roberta: And I’m Roberta.

Ryan: Thanks for listening.

Roberta: See you next time. Bye-Bye

Ryan: Bye-bye.

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