brookover

Stimuli • Stimulus at 110 Church Gallery

2011-05-28T22:16:00.000-04:00

I'll be showing Atmospherics #4 in this show:

artist reception

Friday, June 17, 2011

5 - 8 pm

exhibition

Friday, June 3, 2011

Friday, July 22, 2011

We will be open for FIRST FRIDAY on June 3 and July 1 from 5 - 8 pm

Stimuli • Stimulus drawings shaped by recent external forces, a juried exhibition.
Juror, Leo Robinson artist, master lecturer, educator.

Stimuli are events in the environment that influence behavior. Stimulus is a response model that describes the relation between the stimulus and the expected response.
Bill Brookover
Jenna Hannum
Colin Keefe
Brian Piana
Ana Vizcarra Rankin
Abbey Ryan
Kari Scott
Dennis Will
Wendy Wolf
Danielle Bursk

110 CHURCH | g a l l e r y >

keep your fingers and toes crossed!

2011-05-17T22:16:00.000-04:00

I'm a finalist in a juried show at 110 Church Street Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. The exhibition stimuli - stimulus features drawings shaped by recent external forces. Leo Robinson artist, master lecturer, educator is the juror. I dropped off three framed prints to be reviewed in the gallery space. Wish me luck!

2011-03-25T22:57:00.000-04:00

We went to the American Philosphical Society Thursday night for a preview of their new exhibit "Of Elephants and Roses: Encounters with French Natural History, 1790–1830". It was a time of science and curiosity about exotic specimens. This is a grid of etchings of leaves and seed pods of American oaks collected by André Michaux who was sent to America to look for species to replenish France forests. Each print is about 4" x 6" based on field drawings during the collecting expedition. The prints are mounted on linen and are an impressive grid of prints.

The museum at APS showcases their extensive collections to link science, history and art. The show is up for several months as part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts celebrating connections between Philadelphia and Paris. Check it out!

Lynda Barry - Picture This

2011-03-20T22:51:00.000-04:00

We went to hear Lynda Barry speak at the Free Library of Philadelphia on Thursday night. I listened to her 2008 talk on What It Is and totally fell in love with her infectious creativity. The Free Library event description says

What It Is offered writers gentle creative guidance. Barry offers the same guidance to artists in Picture This--encouraging us to draw and exploring why we start drawing and why we stop. Like What It Is, her new book is an extension of Barry's popular traveling workshop, “Writing the Unthinkable.”

She is so convincing that we all have creative imaginations that are just waiting to burst forth. One of her key ideas is that the human brain is wired to create images which link memories and emotions through deep neural pathways. She uses the word IMAGE to mean more than a visual representation. For her, IMAGE is a carrier of meaning, something that carries memories of the way the thing looked, what is smelled like, what it tasted like, and how it felt to be in that moment. She offers exercises to recall these images, such as remembering your first phone number or naming the first 5 cars you owned. When you think of your first car, you can totally see yourself sitting in the car, who was with you, what you wore, what was playing on the radio, and what emotions you were feeling. That is an IMAGE. It’s no coincidence that the word IMAGE is embedded in IMAGINATION.

Listen to her 2008 talk here. The 2011 talk should be available for downloading soon. Or subscribe to the podcasts at iTunes.

T-Shirt Silkscreen Printing

2011-03-17T21:45:00.000-04:00

Check out these photos of T-shirt printing at Second State Press.
I'd love to do this at Fleisher. I really like the way a few screens can be used by each student to create their own unique design. Well done!

18 Fabulous Fleisher Printmakers at Nice Things Handmade, Philadelphia, PA

2011-03-14T23:12:00.003-04:00

Christine Blair, who taught me everything I know about screenprinting, curated a show of her students work at Fleisher Art Memorial. The show is at Nice Things Handmade, 1921 E. Passyunk Ave., Philadelphia. Show will be up through April 8, 2011.

Click HERE to see an album of photos from the opening here:

Harry Bertoia show at Kean University, Elizabeth, NJ

2011-03-08T23:11:00.001-05:00

Harry Bertoia is best known for his iconic modern furniture for Knoll in the 1960's. I wrote about his diamond mesh chair for a student project in my 2nd year of architecture school. He was also a printmaker, exploring his ideas of abstraction and pattern through monoprints. His prints and furniture will be on view in the Karl and Helen Burger Gallery at Kean University from March 24 to May 10, 2011. Check out this slide show from Dwell for a selection of beautiful images and more background on the show.

Print Love-In at Fleisher Art Memorial

2011-02-05T22:24:00.001-05:00

Sunday I'll be working at Fleisher's Print Love-In. We got snowed out last year but this year is a go. There are printing stations set up for screenprinting, lithography, linocut and more. Images are donated by Fleisher artists and are already in place and inks are already mixed. Participants get a pack of colored paper and choose their mediums. After printing, there is a separate station for adding personal messages, glitter and more. Then you can send your sweetie a token of your love!

Silkscreen at Philadelphia Open Studio Tour

2010-10-13T21:12:00.007-04:00

I took advantage of POST (Philadelphia Open Studio Tours) on Sunday. There are so many artists opening their studios to visitors that they are spread over two weekends each October. Broad Street is the dividing line between the two tours. Last weekend studios west of Broad were open. This weekend it was east of Broad. We were able to catch a few studios in Kensington and Fishtown.

1st stop was Coral Street Arts House where Christine Blair curated a show of artists who live in the converted factory building. CSAH is a project of New Kensington Community Development Corporation that provides live/work studios for artists.

Christine is a printmaker and instructor at Fleisher Art Memorial. (Full disclosure: I’ve studied silkscreen with Christine since 2003, and this year I started teaching a silkscreen section at Fleisher alongside her). The show is hung in the community room just off the lobby. The room is light and airy, but it is challenging to use as a gallery. The exterior wall is brick and has regular window openings. The opposite long wall has several glazed openings that provide borrowed light to the adjacent hallway.

Christine piece is a meditation on her mother’s live and long struggle with cancer. She uses silkscreen to create collages of family photos and sentences her mother wrote after a stroke robbed her ability to talk. The triptych captures Christine’s emotions and memories reflecting back on her mother’s life.

At the Crane Arts Building, things were hopping. There was a wedding reception going on in the Icebox, the big space at the north end of the building. And a dozen artist’s studios were open. I was interested by a number of artists, while not printmakers, use silkscreen in their art practice.

Dianne Koppisch Hricko is a fiber artist who uses silkscreen as a stencil to apply layers of transparent dye ont flowing silk fabrics. She uses the patterns on her screens to create layered & lyrical designs. Her scarves are twisted and puckered and fastened with magnets that can be placed as needed without piercing the fabric. She also prints on fabric to make half and full kimonos in translucent silk. She has exhibited large wall pieces in juried shows around the country. The silkscreen stencil is central to her creative process.

Virginia Bradley is a painter who silkscreens printed images from art history onto her large canvases. Images from historical texts emerge from layers of abstract color to engage in a conversation about the origin and meaning of her images. The merging of historical imagery with contemporary color and form create a sense of familiarity with something that is new and contemporary. She is Professor of Art at the University of Delaware and has exhibited widely.

Bohyun Yoon and Wonjung Choi use silkscreen to print brightly colored faces onto glass panels hung from full height metal frames. The frames are set up to create a space to walk into with a spotlights hanging from the center, causing the panels to glow from within in strong color while throwing shadows on the walls outside the frame. The printed faces lose their saturated color when their shadow is projected onto the wall, but the individual panels become one continuous over-sized shadow on the wall. The work is in its initial stages and will be impressive when displayed in a final form. Bohyun is a CFEVA Fellow and teaches at Tyler School of Art.

All the News that Fits

2010-10-06T20:15:00.009-04:00

Screenprinters, Printmakers, and friends: I'm posting a bunch of news items of interest.

1. Dear Fleisher has come and gone, but the 4" x 6" prints that didn't sell (including mine) are posted on Flickr. You can contact Fleisher to purchase a print. They are still anonymous, so the fun continues!

2. This is the 2nd and last weekend for POST (Philadelphia Open Studio Tours). Artists east of Broad Street are opening their studios from 1 - 6 pm, Saturday and Sunday, October 9 & 10. Christine Blair is hosting at Coral Street Arts House.

3. Check out this blog, Printmakers of Etsy. Printsy represents the printmaking artists of Etsy.com, working in the time honored techniques of intaglio, relief, screen printing, lithography and monotypes. Their mission is to spread the word on Etsy and the internet about original prints, to educate the public on printmaking processes and to profile members of the team. They post interviews with printmakers who sell their work on Etsy. They also post a weekly roundup of Etsy shops featuring fine art prints.

Perkins Works on Paper 2010

2010-09-27T08:14:00.004-04:00

Two of my sceenprints are in the juried Works on Paper 2010 exhibitition at Perkins Art Center, Moorestown, NJ.

Opening reception is Sunday, October 3, 1-4. The show is up from October 3 to December 12.

Rachel Whiteread's "Ghost" at National Gallery of Art

2010-09-11T14:39:00.009-04:00

The National Gallery has joined ArtBabble to post their videos on the web. I'm intrigued by this piece, a plaster cast of the space of a small room. She has turned the negative space of the room into a solid object, turning the room inside out. She quotes one viewer as saying it's like feeling the inside of his pocket. At the end (around 7:20) of the video are some good shots of the whole piece.

Polypus levis Hoyle (male) - Port Gazelle, Keguelen

2010-09-07T22:40:00.003-04:00

Polypus levis Hoyle (male) - Port Gazelle, Keguelen
Originally uploaded by peacay

This is why I love the internet. I was just browsing through my blog links and ran across this amazing post from BibliOdyssey about an oceanographic expedition in 1898 that recorded these amazing creatures that some refer to as our Cephalopod overlords. Now the book is on line as a PDF. Perhaps our overlords will enter my printmaking world...

my fall silkscreen class at Fleisher starts Monday, 9/13

2010-09-02T20:27:00.003-04:00

Only a few spaces remaining — register today!

Silkscreen: Intermediate to Advanced [AW3114F] | Mr. Bill Brookover
6:30 - 9:30 PM

come see my print at the Fleisher Faculty Show!

2010-08-28T16:18:00.005-04:00

I started teaching silkscreen at Fleisher Art Memorial this past winter. One of my silkscreen prints is in the Faculty Show. Check it out!

Gli at the Rice Gallery

2010-02-10T16:19:00.002-05:00

El Anatsui Installation from Cosmic Light Productions on Vimeo.

The Nigerian artist El Anatsui uses discarded material such as liquor bottle caps and collars to make beautiful tapestries that are now in major museum collections around the world. The Rice Gallery is part of the Fine Arts Department at Rice University, where I studied architecture and fine arts as an undergrad. We had great art exhibits that opened my eyes to a larger world. I'm thrilled that the tradition continues.

I love what he says at the end about the ambiguity of his work and its title (which can mean wall, story, or to disrupt) giving the viewer the freedom to interpret the work in their own ways. I think his work is about making beauty out of humble materials that the world throws away, about seeing materials in new ways, about recycling, and about the continued development of traditional crafts.

Art Deco reflections

2010-02-04T07:06:00.001-05:00

Art Deco reflections
Originally uploaded by wdb3b

in response to Dennis Montagna's "Scene En Route" post.
US Customs House, Philadelphia, PA (1932)

Star Anise Series

2010-01-29T21:18:00.005-05:00

Star Anise Series
Originally uploaded by geishaboy500

Isaachar Ryback, illus., 1922, In the Forest, children's book by Kvitko

2010-01-29T21:18:00.003-05:00

Isaachar Ryback, illus., 1922, In the Forest, children's book by Kvitko
Originally uploaded by A Journey Round My Skull

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

2010-01-29T21:18:00.001-05:00

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Originally uploaded by speakingoffaith

.

2010-01-29T21:17:00.005-05:00

.
Originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds

.

2010-01-29T21:17:00.003-05:00

.
Originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds

Vernacular Typography Polaroids

2010-01-29T21:17:00.001-05:00

Vernacular Typography Polaroids
Originally uploaded by onpaperwings

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape...

2010-01-29T21:16:00.005-05:00

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape...
Originally uploaded by krossbow

Woad tartan

2010-01-29T21:16:00.003-05:00

Woad tartan
Originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds

Cathedral, Siena, Italy, 1895.

2010-01-29T21:16:00.001-05:00

Cathedral, Siena, Italy, 1895.
Originally uploaded by Brooklyn Museum

Subliminal

2010-01-29T21:15:00.003-05:00

Subliminal
Originally uploaded by cobalt123

Tomas Saraceno - Galaxy Forming along Filaments - La Biennale di Venezia / Venice, Italy, 2009

2010-01-29T21:15:00.001-05:00

Tomas Saraceno - Galaxy Forming along Filaments - La Biennale di Venezia / Venice, Italy, 2009
Originally uploaded by Paolo Màrgari

letraset cameras

2010-01-29T21:14:00.003-05:00

letraset cameras
Originally uploaded by maraid

Jong schaatsertje met val-kussen / Young skater with safety cushion

2010-01-29T21:14:00.001-05:00

Jong schaatsertje met val-kussen / Young skater with safety cushion
Originally uploaded by Nationaal Archief

chinatown

2010-01-29T21:13:00.001-05:00

chinatown
Originally uploaded by joe holmes

1/21/2010

2010-01-21T20:53:00.020-05:00

Curling Coils
by cobalt123

CHLORODONT
by el estratografico

A man and the sea

by lonesome:cycler

blue lagoon
by Temari 09

prcssd. boston, ma. 2009.
by eyetwist

"Lift" (Detail) -…

by Mr. Kimberly

improve your love handles device
by "T"eresa

The inards of the Industry hall
by Bergen Public Library

Cheerful Rose in Macro
by cobalt123

Undefeated Divas & Gents_11
by dsb nola

Årsta Castle, Österhaninge, Sweden
by Swedish National Heritage Board

Cathedral, Troja, Italy, 1895.
by Brooklyn Museum

Unknown People
by Duchamp

by blamstur

cracking paint
by Leo Reynolds

Over my head
by sigmaman

Vintage paper design heart

2010-01-18T21:14:00.001-05:00

Vintage paper design heart
Originally uploaded by geishaboy500

Thanks to Flickr user geishaboy500, I'm using this photo as the basis for my Fleisher Love-In print.

1/14/2010

2010-01-16T19:50:00.019-05:00

Made fron Bamboos
by H G M

'broken voices'
by dis-order-ed

gowanus
by joe holmes

Villa of author Viktor Rydberg,…
by Swedish National Heritage Board

Mandarin
by sigmaman

P1030318
by we-make-money-not-art

decoupages3 p20
by pilllpat (agence eureka)

Ben's Chili Bowl - Washington DC
by Bob Jagendorf

Hmmph...
by Prof. Jas. Mundie

Baked ('kiln burnt') earthen pots
by H G M

Hotel Fbg. St. Honore 45 (8e)
by George Eastman House

Lemons
by geishaboy500

Ivan da Silva Bruhns 1925
by dis-order-ed

today's video: oh, the temptation!

2010-01-12T19:26:00.001-05:00

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

1.7.2010

2010-01-08T22:47:00.017-05:00

from my Flickr galery 1/7/2010

Flickr GALERIEopWEG

Flickr Ken McCown

Flickr Meanest Indian

Flickr A Journey Round My Skull

Flickr bentemiltenburg

Flickr Ilike

You're Invited!

2010-01-05T21:50:00.004-05:00

Please join me for the opening reception at the Philadelphia Sketch Club Works on Paper 2010, Sunday, January 9, from 2 - 4 pm. Follow the link for info and directions. Two of my recent silkscreen prints are in the juried show.

Focus on Printmaking

2010-01-03T20:49:00.007-05:00

Well, it’s the start of a new year and a new decade, so it’s time to dust off the old blog and get busy writing and posting.

My interests are more and more focused on printmaking. That feels like a good source of new blog material. For instance, today I was in printmaking heaven. I was able to catch the last day of a printmaking exhibit at Rutger’s Zimmerli Art Museum – Blocks of Color – American Woodcuts from the 1890’s to the Present. Beginning with Arthur Wesley Dow, and continuing with Bertha Lum, Helen Hyde, Gustave Baumann, to Jim Dyne, and Helen Frankenthaler. While my interest is silkscreen, I hope to explore woodcut some day, and this show was a great introduction. Also, it sparked many ideas for the upcoming silkscreen term at Fleisher, which starts next week. Stay tuned for more printmaking goodness!

book review

2009-09-12T21:16:00.014-04:00

on reading Atul Gawande's bettter - A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
This post has nothing to do with the stated themes of my blog. This book is a medical doctor musing on how to bridge the gap between his idealized view of saving lives and the actual world of modern medicine. His work deals with life and death and is based on the achievements of modern science. My work has to do with saving special places in the world and learning to see the world a new way. On the face of it, my world has nothing to do with Gawande's world. But the desire to improve, to perform better, is a basic human trait. So I learned a lot from reading how to institute handwashing regimens in hospitals, and how surgeons in poor hospitals in rural India improvise and succeed at a broader range of surgical obstacles that their better funded American colleagues. Note, Americans are not better educated, just luckier. His final section outlines his program to strive for better performance. Here are the highlights:

1. Ask an unscripted question

2. Don’t complain

3. Count something

4. Write something

5. change

Ask an unscripted question

Make a human connection
Keep the conversation going for more than 2 sentences
You will discover the unexpected about the people you encounter day to day

Don’t complain

Everybody has troubles
Airing your woes won’t lift the gloom
Negative bring negative
Change the subject, to the weather if nothing else
Try to keep the conversation going

Count something

Everyone should be a scientist in this world
Count things related to a problem that interests you
If you count something you find interesting, you will learn something interesting

Write something

Write anything – a blog, a poem, a letter, an e-mail
Add some small observation about your world
Give yourself an opportunity to think through a problem by writing about I
Let yourself become part of a larger world
Be willing to join a community and contribute something meaningful to it

Change

Recognize when change is needed in your work
Seek out solutions
Don’t be afraid of failure; learn from your mistakes

“So find something new to try, something to change. Count how often you succeed and how often you fail. Write about it. Ask people what they think. See if you can keep the conversation going.”

Julia & Paul Child - Architects

2009-08-25T22:44:00.014-04:00

We recently saw Nora Ephron's new film, Julie and Julia. Among its many pleasures, it presents the loving partnership between Julia Child and her husband, Paul. There is a scene of Paul drawing the shape of pots and pans on the pegboard walls of their Cambridge kitchen. Turns out that kitchen, their 9th, was a collaborative work of design, even a work of art. I discovered a Design Quarterly publication from the Walker Art Museum on my bookshelf that I think I bought at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in the late 1970s that analyzes the design anatomy of her kitchen. The exploded axonometric view shows the interrelationship of the five main functional ares: kitchen/dining, cutting/mixing, cooking, pastry, and pantry. Each is filled with storage, counters, and equipment. There is a place for everything, and everything is in its place. There are more pictures of the kitchen at this great blog by the NY Times writer Mark Bittman here.

A little web research led me to discover that she donated her kitchen to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. There is a great web site here. In fact, there is a scene in the movie where Julie Powell and her husband Eric visit the kitchen in the museum. The Smithsonian realized the cultural, folkloric, and culinary importance of the kitchen. They document their acquisition and data collection in a great on-line diary here.

I remember brainstorming in my housing studio in architecture school on our favorite rooms in houses we grew up in. We all agreed the kitchens were the best rooms in the house. Julia put it best, "Make the kitchen a really important part of your home and I think it's terribly important to have a family . . . For everone to eat together and if you had a nice room to do it in, this is where, this is the kind of place you would choose because it’s warm and friendly and smells good and it's the place to live."

Now there's a goal to work toward. Some we'll have a really workable eat-in live-in kitchen.

Helpless

2009-02-12T20:23:00.002-05:00

K.D. Lang

This is the last of my music posts for a while. These are all songs from the music mix I made at the end of last year to share with family. Enjoy!

Light & Day/Reach For The Sun

2009-01-27T21:28:00.003-05:00

The Polyphonic Spree

ok, so these folks are a little twee, and they DO look like a bunch of hippies who took over the church choir...but work with me here and give it a listen. Just reach for the sun, ok?

Paris 2004

2009-01-26T22:45:00.001-05:00

Peter, Bjorn & John

Song For You

2009-01-25T22:27:00.000-05:00

Alexi Murdoch

Pachangueando

2009-01-24T23:08:00.000-05:00

Pacha Massive

Harvest

2009-01-20T21:04:00.002-05:00

Rufus Wainwright with Chris Stills (covering Neil Young)

Somersault

2009-01-19T21:48:00.003-05:00

Zero 7

Forro West

2009-01-16T22:47:00.001-05:00

Forro in the Dark

Secret Heart

2009-01-15T22:54:00.001-05:00

Feist

More Adventurous

2009-01-14T21:23:00.001-05:00

Rilo Kiley

Puntos Cardinales

2009-01-13T22:31:00.002-05:00

Cafe' Tacuba

My Father

2009-01-12T21:33:00.010-05:00

Wimberley Field Unit, Jones County, TX 1973
Originally uploaded by wdb3b

I'm thinking about my father tonight. He died 5 years ago. By a twist of fate, the calendar lines up with the same days of the week this year, so the years sort of fade away.

This is where my folks lived before I was born. It is a bungalow on a farm just west of Abilene, TX. My dad was managing an oil field for my grandfather after World War II. They left here for him to attend Texas Tech to get a geology degree. That's when I entered the picture.

I think I took this picture in 1973. At that time he was managing the oil field again, though it was only producing stripper wells by then. My folks lived in town, but he went out every day to keep the pumps producing, even though it was just dribs and drabs. I always enjoyed going out to the field with him. I know nothing about the oil business, but it was great to spend time with him in the car, talking about this and that.

This is the summer that I had fallen in love with Judy. I remember talking with him about my life, and my decisions. He was also completely supportive of me making my own choices. Judy and I got married the following June, and his advice stuck.

I really miss him, with his good advice and sense of humor.

This ones for you, WD.

My Printmaking set at Flickr

2009-01-11T20:12:00.003-05:00

This is a selection of my prints made at Fleisher Art Memorial, a community art center in Philadelphia, PA. Click on the white triangle, then click on the right side of the image to advance to the next slide. Enjoy!

Come See My Work

2009-01-08T19:56:00.013-05:00

We interrupt this musical interlude for an important announcement: Two of my silkscreen prints have been accepted for the Philadelphia Sketch Club's Annual Juried Exhibition of "Works on Paper 2009", January 9th through January 25th, 2009. This piece was accepted for the show in the upstairs gallery. A second piece from the fall semester at Fleisher Art Memorial was accepted in the downstairs Salon de Refuse.

The Sketch Club is at 235 South Camac St. in Center City. The gallery hours are Mon., Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun. 1 to 5 PM. If you're free on Sunday, come to the opening reception from 2 to 4 PM, 215-545-9298.

Tower of Song

2009-01-07T20:56:00.000-05:00

Martha Wainwright

Hometown Glory

2009-01-06T21:14:00.002-05:00

Adele

Mansard Roof

2009-01-05T22:08:00.000-05:00

Vampire Weekend

Congoleo

2009-01-04T22:18:00.000-05:00

Listen to Angelique Kidjo on Morning Becomes Eclectic with Nic Harcourt

Yor Ex-Lover is Dead

2009-01-01T21:23:00.000-05:00

Stars

Barracuda

2008-12-24T21:52:00.001-05:00

Miho Hatori

Freeway

2008-12-23T22:18:00.000-05:00

Aimee Mann

Tijuana Sound Machine

2008-12-22T21:59:00.000-05:00

Bostich and Fussible of the Nortec Collective

Henry Chapman Mercer: Tiles and Obsessive Collector

2008-08-20T20:28:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-16T21:19:00.001-04:00

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

2008-08-16T11:58:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-04T21:53:00.000-04:00

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!

View Larger Map

Welcome!

2008-08-02T21:37:00.001-04:00

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.