Midweek News, Janice Merendino, Joe Ovelman, First Friday, Small Favors, Fishtown Festival, South Street Live, Bernie!, Broad Street Run, and so much more.

South St Live 2025 – May 3 – 12-6pm (South St to be closed from 8th St to Front St)
South Street Headhouse District & DaVinci Art Alliance –

DVAA has an opening May 4 – Philly Dreaming & Becoming – opens May 4 and runs through May25 – 704 Catharine St

Free Comic Book Day – Partners and Son – Open all day – Special Events starting at 7pm –  618 S 6th st

Fishtown Music & Arts Festival 2025
Taking place on Saturday, May 3rd, along Front Street (between Oxford and Palmer), the festival will kick off at 12 pm and will feature over 11 hours of music, with the main setup around LMNO (Mexican restaurant front and Palmer just north of Cecil B. Moore)

Small Favors 2025 @ The Clay Studio – 1425 N American St – Open Now through June 29

Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

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

Roberta: On Artblog radio. Okay, so how are you today Ryan?

Ryan: I’m fine. I’m feeling a little Wednesday frazzled already.

Roberta: It’s only 10 in the morning.

Ryan: Yeah, it was an interesting morning.

Roberta: That’s not good.

Ryan: My son’s cats have decided to wake me up at 6:30 every morning to ensure that they get fed.

And I feel like as the days have gotten longer, as soon as the sun comes up, their alarm clock has moved earlier and earlier. Oh, for sure. Since my alarm clock has moved earlier and earlier. So the joys of pets.

Roberta: Yes, pets. I must ask, is he allowed to bring pets with him to college?

Ryan: I think because he was thinking about this single-person space, I think there was potential that he could bring a cat. Which would be interesting, but he has two and they’ve been together since birth, and I’m like, that’s pretty mean. You have to take both or none. We’ll see what happens.

Roberta: Decision time. But are you going to have to step up and be the cat’s dog?

Ryan: It’s an opportunity. So much is a problem. Oh, it’s all about per, it’s all about perspective.

Roberta: Oh, it’s about, it’s a teaching moment. Are you telling me that?

Ryan: No, I’m saying you can look on the bright side or you can. You can still as a negative, which makes you feel down. And it is, it’s the same. You’re still handed the same, whatever it is.

Yeah. It’s a perspective.

Roberta: So I can’t even remember what I did over the weekend. What did you do over the weekend?

Ryan: I had some house repair I had to do, I had a roof leak from. The last big storm.

Roberta: Oh, until

Ryan: I got to it. Yeah,

Roberta: you did it yourself.

Ryan: I do pretty much all of my things myself.

Roberta: Wow. That is great.

Ryan: Yeah, so there’s a little bit of that and then I found on, on one of like the free cycle things. I found this Roche bah cushioned back that was part of this funky couch that they had, but they were like slid onto the special seating unit that they had made. And what, however they designed it, it just like cracked and crumbled and so they just had this interesting back.

So then I just found some foam and built my own little couchy loveseat thing.

Roberta: Found some foam.

Ryan: So from a previous project. Well I think it was my last couch I was getting rid of, but I thought, why would I get rid of the cushions? So I took the foam out of the cushions because the frame had disintegrated enough, and then the backing upholstery had disintegrated sufficiently that I was over it.

So then I just assembled it and kept the foam for a future project, which is this project, as it turns out.

Roberta: As it turns out.

Ryan: And then I went to Jomar to pick up some fabric.

Roberta: Yeah. Joemar, Joanne Fabrics doesn’t exist anymore. I’m, I’m glad Jomar does.

Ryan: So yeah, it’s a few places and couple of dollars in and I have a new loveseat.

Roberta: Okay. You heard it here. Everybody. If you need a couch rebuilt, you know where to go. Or Ryan is your guy.

Ryan: Something like that. Upholstery is a dying art. I still some of those old tools too, but.

Roberta: You know how to upholster.

Ryan: I practiced a little bit, but it’s a lot of work.

Roberta: It’s so much time for you.

Ryan: There’s a reason it’s so expensive and it’s just cheaper to buy it new from China via Ikea via, yeah. That stuff is wild.

Roberta: So my regret over the weekend is that I didn’t make it to. Dump days at the township. Every two weekends in the spring and two in the fall, they have dump days. That’s what I call them.

I’m sure there’s a more fancy name for it. But it’s, it, they don’t charge. You can drive things in, no contractors allowed, but if you can show that you live in the township, you can, you know, unload everything. They take electronics, they take, furniture. They take bicycles, you know, and a lot of it gets recycled.

There are tables there where you see people that are receiving the goods and there’s sort of nonprofits that are going to then turn it around. If it’s a broken piece of equipment, they can maybe fix it and then pass it along. So I love to go. I have a historic love of going to the dump. Don’t ask me, don’t judge Melanie and all.

But I missed it, so I regret that. Got away till the fall.

Shall we get into the news? Sure. Now that we’ve done the debrief. Okay. I have three things. Three, yes. Three. Okay. First off, congratulations to Janice Merendino, who has a wonderful interview with Canvas Rebel, which is an online platform that I have heard of before, but I have not been involved in and don’t know anything about it, but it’s a very nice piece highlighting her.

And Janice is a friend. She has a really great story. She’s one of the co-founders of the Clay Studio. She’s a longtime professor at Rosemont College. She had a very groundbreaking project called, it was where she taught people to draw who didn’t think they could draw. She had these workshops and she would tell them to use the side of their charcoal, and she would explain about depth and three dimensionality and not linearity.

And by the end of the workshop, people were drawing amazing things and it was focused on the people. So you were to draw your own portrait. You would do the before and after, ask them to draw. A portrait. Initially, everybody would use a line, right? A line portrait, that’s what you do. And then she would teach them side shading and all this kind of thing.

Wonderful project. Her practice ranges from that to ceramics, drawing, painting, calligraphy, and she just did a community project in her hometown, Atlantic City that we told you about previously. A wonderful. Revisit of where she grew up and how or her grandmother had grown up and how the neighborhood has become new immigrants, not from Italy as her forebearers were, but from Pakistan and Africa and various places.

So it’s a wonderful project. Second off, there is a workshop. Seed bomb workshop at Drexel University. In conjunction with an exhibition. There’s a Gorilla Gardening Workshop to combat climate change and ruin in our Philadelphia community. There’s a professor, Denise Wolf, who’s the Creative Art Therapies professor.

She’s going to lead the workshop showing you how to make seed bombs with paper pulp from recycled materials and native seeds. And she’s also going to do a paper making demonstration. Doesn’t this sound great? It is. Attendees will le leave. It says, with two to four bombs that they’re encouraged to throw in gardens or backyards or in places that look like they need some seeds.

That is Friday, May 9th, 2 PM to 4:00 PM in Penny Park, which is the lawn outside the Pearl Stene Gallery at Drexel. A rain location is going to take place if it rains inside the gallery.

Ryan: And do you just have to register for that?

Roberta: Golly, gee, we’ll put in that information. I sorry about that failure here. I think you probably do, but we’ll, we’ll fill, fill you in on that.

In the transcript or in the, in the links my final. Shout out is to Joe Ovelman. He has a new book out. Joe’s an artist and a bookmaker book artist, and he’s got a, he must have a dozen books out there. His new one is called Sauna Dish and on the back cover is, I think this should have been the title. It says Saunas are Hot.

This is a book as all Joe’s books are, that is. Written, handwritten in Sharpie marker. If something was wrong, it’s crossed off and something new is put in. There’s scribble scrabble all throughout, and Joe’s a gay man, openly gay. And this is about, as you can imagine saunas, it’s a place of designation for people who are going there for sex.

So there is sex that goes on in this book, but it’s all kind of anecdotal and. Maybe autobiographical, maybe not. We don’t know. He has pseudonyms for the people, so there’s no one named by name. And there’s a little love story that goes on with a hetero male that comes to the sauna and a character called Georgie.

They are friends for two years until something happens, and that changes and then it falls apart. This book is not for everybody. But I highly recommend it for the style of its making the just no holds barred language and drawing the ability to use Sharpie marker and cross out, you know, fearlessly. And some of the words are upside down and some of them are backwards.

So shout out to Joe. There is a podcast that I did with Joe. I’ve known him since 2019 po possibly before that where he was talking about another book of his called On Grief. He had had some loss in his life and he was really torn up about it, and so he made one of these Sharpie marker anecdotal book.

They’re really, you can almost put them in a pocket. They’re so small little chap books. They’re very, very well done. Anyway, shout out to Joe Ovelman and his book on a Dish, and that’s it for me.

Ryan: We’re at the end of April, heading into the 1st of May. Which makes this Friday, first Friday. So there’s quite a few openings that are happening throughout the city. We’ve talked about a few last week to give you a couple weeks, advance the calendar’s up on Connect, and you can always find what’s available there.

And a couple things that are happening this weekend after first Friday, on Saturday is South Street Live is having their big street closure, May 3rd from 12 to 6:00 PM. And it’s going to be, south Street’s going to be closed from eighth Street to Front Street, and this is in collaboration between South Street Headhouse District and DaVinci Art Alliance.

That is going to be a lot of open shops. The street’s going to be blocked, it’s going to be full of people and fun, and hopefully the weather. Cooperates as well. After the event is the fourth Da Vinci Art Alliance has an opening, so check out that as well. They’re at 7 0 4 Catherine, so just a little bit off of there.

As well as our friends of Artblog, Partners and son will be host hosting all the comics events that are happening. There’s the free comic book day and they are having an event at 7:00 PM on Saturday. So right after the block party. And Partners and Sons is located at six 18 South sixth Street, and so that’ll be a lot of fun.

So if you’re still in the neighborhood and need something to do after the 6:00 PM closure or reopening of the roads, there’ll be plenty to do. Partners and Sons, 7:00 PM Also, that Saturday Fishtown Music and Arts Festival is happening. I think it’s the third or fourth of those, and that’s happening also from noon to 11:30 PM.

Just up just north of Cecil b Moore on front. So it’s going to be closed, I’m not sure how many blocks, but four blocks ish. It’s kind of funky blocks right there. And they’re going to be hosting around LMNO, the it’s, it’s a Mexican restaurant there at Palmer and front. And so again, that runs from noon to 11:30 PM Also in that neighborhood is Clay Studio is doing their small favors.

I’m not sure how many years they’ve been doing this, but many, many years. But I really enjoy it because there are small, intricate pieces and the, the detail is fantastic. And they, they all get like a four inch cube to put their little sculptures in and it’s just amazing what they can do. It’s small spaces.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth it. Everything is for sale. But they’re really. They’re really great. This is ongoing as it’s currently going. It’s running through June 29th, so you have plenty of time, but if you do want to buy one, you should get there sooner than later. And they are 1425 North American Street that’s at the Clay Studio.

I also noticed coming up in June, so I’ll give you plenty of time, is change makers. Take the stage again at Mission Story Slam. So I mentioned mission story Slam. Last time, last fall, I think it, the last season it came out. So this is at National Mechanics, so this is a story slam and it was really, I got a lot of feedback from it last time.

It was the people who went really enjoyed it. I did not go but maybe I will go this time. This is June 10th from six to 10:00 PM and I’m not, I forget what I thought I wrote down the theme, but I, I guess maybe I did not. Anyway, I’ll, I’ll put links to it on, on what’s happening and when. And on all of those.

So those are my four or five different things that are happening all this weekend and a couple in the future, and one ongoing. So planning to do this weekend and things ongoing and things to look forward to in June.

Roberta: Totally. I want, can I pop in with one or two?

Ryan: Yeah.

Roberta: Bernie Sanders will be in town on Mayday.

That’s something if you didn’t catch that news. A rally with. The A-F-L-C-I-O, you know, he’s big up with the workers person and a really great person. And there’s going to be a rally at city hall and in the agen four o’clock. So I, it’s outside city hall on the north side. Anyway, that’s, that’s something noteworthy and if you want to do that, gathering together with people at this time to show solidarity.

Against what’s going on in Washington is a good thing to do. I’m going to try to make it to this one Sunday, May 4th is the Broad Street run, which is lots and lots of street closures and lot 40,000 runners running the 10 mile race from up at, up above Temple University all the way down to the Navy yard.

So it’s always fun. People run in crazy costumes and you know, the cheering on the sidelines is very wonderful and bulant enthusiastic human experience, really great. Highly recommended.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s going to get chaotic this weekend. There’s so many things going on, A lot of closure. So

Roberta: a lot of crowd scenes,

Ryan: a lot of crowds.

Roberta: But art is involved in a lot of it. Well, at least in the ones on South Street and Dish Town. Yeah. Great. Arty.

Ryan: Yeah. Hopefully the weather holds up, but so far, so far so good. I think that’s it for me.

Roberta: Yeah, that’s it for me too. We’ll wrap it up. So thanks everybody. It’s Roberto. Thanks for listening and come back next week for more.

Thank you.

Ryan: And this is Ryan, and this has been Artblog’s, Midweek News. Thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next time. Bye-bye.