Ron Klein is an artist, a sculptor who thinks big, travels the world to research and find materials, and whose works evoke the cosmos and thoughts about the place of humans in a bigger context. Ron’s got an installation at Abington Art Center now through June 23. Don’t miss it.
Read MorePeople got connected with art at our recent Look/Draw/Write workshops. We are very happy to share their responses written about the art of Michelle Angela Ortiz.
Read MoreArt & History, together at last, in this tour of the Callowhill neighborhood and its artist-run art spaces! Join us for an Art & History tour of the Callowhill Neighborhood with Hidden City’s Pete Woodall, this Friday, May 5, 2017, from 6:00–8:30pm.
Read MoreIn the gig economy many artists work multiple jobs. Grimaldi Baez works about seven, most of them in the community art realm, where he teaches and leads projects. For the Yabucoa, Puerto Rico-born, US-raised artist committed to idea of social justice, it makes for an exhausting but fulfilling life. Among other things in this wide-ranging interview, Grimaldi tell us how he relaxes.
Read MoreWorkshop participants shared their visions, memories, thoughts about Puerto Rico in poems written in response to Roxana Perez-Mendez’s complex and beautiful art. Perez-Mendez is Puerto Rican and her video installations at Taller Puertorriqueño embody the artist’s own fears and hopes for the island. The show closed March 25.
Read MoreEnjoy this podcast with Douglas Witmer, in which he talks about his community project, “Neighbor Who,” and about his love of art and music, and his family’s roots in the Mennonite community in Lancaster County, where he grew up, although not, he says, driving around in a horse-drawn carriage.
Read MoreBetty Leacraft has been making art with fibers since she was young and learned how to sew from her maternal grandmother. Respectful of those early teachings and thirsty for learning about her ancestors, Betty has studied the fibers practices of her African ancestors and traveled to Ghana. She and her work have traveled to South Africa, as part of the Women of Color Quilters Network, to participate in an international exhibition there. Outside of the art school traditions and acting as what she calls a “cultural custodian,” the artist teaches workshops in fiber art in her West Philadelphia neighborhood and many other places in Philadelphia and has been recognized five times by the Leeway Foundation. Betty participated in the Mural Arts Program’s 2015 Neighborhood Time Exchange program and is part of the PMA’s Philadelphia Assembled project that will debut this Spring.
Read MoreRose Luardo is a performer, singer, comedy sketch artist and artist. You may have seen her with Andrew Jeffrey Wright in the New Dreamz or as a singer with Sweatheart, the alternative rock band. In her first solo exhibition at Practice Gallery (over Feb. 26), she has created a theatrical tableau with several big elements, one of which involves the viewers climbing into a psychedelic-patterned coffin in the middle of the gallery space.
Read MorePlaywright, performer, theater and dance critic, and co-founder of Curate This, Julius Ferraro is a multi-tasker par excellence. Julius has a new play, “Parrot Talk” that will be performed at DaVinci Art Alliance at the end of March. The show will take place over two weekends, a month apart, where the second staging may (or may not) look and feel very different than the first. The interview with Julius took place Feb. 17 and it’s 31-minutes long.
Read MoreQuietly building steam over the last four years, the community project, Philadelphia Assembled, will burst into the world this April, with actions, workshops, performances and art, in places all across the city, and will manifest itself in a big installation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Perelman Building this fall. Starting with a series of conversations with regular Philadelphians, the Dutch artist, Jeanne van Heeswijk, made connections and reached out to more and more people, in what sounds like a revolutionary movement to empower people and make their lives better.
Read MoreIn the midst of the current national crisis over the President’s Executive Order banning Muslims from seven countries from entering our country, and just now, the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, where are the voices of Philadelphia’s Arts and Culture leaders?
Read MoreIn Jonathan Lyndon Chase’s paintings, faces go from cartoony (masks, he says) to realistic. The subject is the body, the black male body, the black queer body. Jonathan, who got his MFA from PAFA in 2016, is soft-spoken but intense. Easy to talk with and direct in his answers, no BS. Four of his works are in the current Fleisher-Ollman exhibit, up to Jan. 28. Among other things in this conversation, Jonathan talks about his materials. His works are filled with materials-brio.
Read MoreFrom our family to yours, Happy Holidays, Everyone!!! We are taking some time to spend with our families but will return with renewed vigor to present the 2016 Liberta awards next week, our signature round up of the weirdness and wonders of the year.
And in case you haven’t made a contribution but want to, our Annual Appeal Campaign is open until Jan. 1, 2017. Show your support and help us keep producing our content! Click the support link.
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