Henry Chapman Mercer: Tiles and Obsessive Collector

We went to Doylestown, PA this weekend to visit 2 of 3 sites on the Mercer Mile, a collection of historic sites created by Henry Chapman Mercer. Mercer was an archeologist, ethnographer, scholar, and obsessive collector of all things pre-industrial. He turned his passion for tiles and prints from around the world into a successful tile works, providing distinctive designs for Arts & Crafts architects. Most notably, the flooring and lunettes in the Pennsylvania State Capitol, Harrisburg, PA are all by Mercer. He used his wealth to create a museum of American hand crafts and pre-industrial trades and commerce. The museum houses large items, such as a Conestoga wagon, a hand-driven fire engine, a stage coach, and a gallows. It also houses rooms of material organized by type, such as horn and tortoise shell, and by trade, such as cobbler, tinsmith, and dairy. In the cast iron stove gallery, you can see how he used the shallow relief on the Pennsylvania German box stoves as inspiration for his ceramic tile decorations. He wanted to preserve the artifacts from a vanishing way of life, and he used them as a source for his narrative imagery.

We visited Fonthill, his house, and the Mercer Museum, both owned by the Bucks County Historical Society. We missed the Moravian Tile Works, owned by Bucks County Department of Recreation. All 3 are open to the public, and are designated National Historic Landmarks.

I posted some photos on my Flickr page, Mercer Mile, Doylestown, PA.

Beijing Olympics 2008, Part 2

In case you missed the point of the opening ceremonies, I take them to mean, "OK, we've had a bad couple of centuries, but now WE'RE BAaak!".

The National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest because of its shape as a tangle of beams, is the work of Pritzker Prize winning Swiss architects Herzog and deMeuron. It was designed especially for these opening ceremonies, as well as for track and field events, and a future life as a soccer stadium.

The New York Times has a super interactive graphic on Beijing, the new architecture in the city, and the growth of the city. There are special slide shows and audio commentaries by NYT architectural critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. I especially appreciate the way they explain the structure of the stadium with 24 piers supporting a network of trusses that frame the open roof. There's also a segment on demolition and preservation of the hutongs, the traditional neighborhoods of Beijing.


Not everyone is on board with the flattery and cheers. David Brussat writes at the Providence Journal that some might call it the "Barbed Wire" stadium. He reminds us that China is still run by the Communist Party as a totalitarian state with an abysmal human rights record. But they put on such a great show...

Beijing Olympics 2008, Part 1

Anyone who knows me at all is aware of my disinterest in sports, but I have to say I'm a push-over for the Olympics. All that pageantry! All those fit, smiling faces! And this year's Olympics have so many design connections! To start, in case you missed the opening ceremonies last week, here is a link to the NBC feed: Opening Ceremony, Act 1: Pageantry.

Featured Artist at Collingswood Second Saturday

I'll be a featured artist in Collingswood's Second Saturday this weekend, August 8-10, 2008. I'll be showing new screenprints and photographs at Evolumia Wellness + Holistic Living, 691 Haddon Avenue, Collingswood, NJ. My work will be there for a few weeks, so try to stop in on another weekend if you can’t make it Saturday night.

I'll be there for the opening reception on Saturday night from 6-9 pm. Evolumia is located at 691 Haddon Avenue, Collingswood, NJ 08108, phone: 856 / 283 / 2090.

It's also the Collingwood Crafts and Fine Arts Festival Saturday and Sunday, which will fill Haddon Avenue with crafts booths, so parking will be a problem. I recommend taking the PATCO Speedline, which is a 15 minute ride from Center City. Here is a map for walking from the station to the shop. It’s about a 10 minute walk from the station to the shop.

Summer Shop Hours

• Saturday: 12 PM – 7 PM
• 2^nd Saturdays: 12 pm – 9 PM
• Sunday: 12 PM – 4 PM

Center Information

• 691 Haddon Ave
• Collingswood, NJ 08108
  
• 856 / 858 / 2090

Restaurant choices abound in Collingswood, so come for dinner and stop by to say hi!

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Welcome!

Welcome to the first post on my blog. I hope you will return often as I explore the overlapping worlds of art & design, architecture & landscape. I'm an emerging printmaker and works on paper artist. I've been studying at Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia, PA for the past several years, taking silkscreen and photography classes. Please come back to see some of my work and links to some of the things I'm curious about.

The photos in the slideshow to the left are from a recent trip to Baltimore, MD and give a flavor of the things I'm interested in. Click on the image to visit my Flickr page for more photos.