This Friday 11/11/11:

Paradigm Gallery + Studio Presents: Height x Width x Depth

A Group Show of Artists Exploring Shadow Boxes, Dimension and Light

October 28th – November 19th

Opening Reception: Friday, October 28th • 6-10pm

Closing Reception: Friday, November 18th • 6-10pm

Artists:

Courtney Brown

Jason Chen

Ian Foster

Stefanie Fuoco

Jennifer Gin

Ann Keech

Caitlin McCormack

Sara McCorriston

Casey Murphy

Edward Richards

Ellen Sall

Burnell Yow!

 

RSVP to this event on Facebook.

     A Place To Be… a mixed media memoir installation

    by Linda Dubin Garfield and Susan DiPronio

Dive into piles of art supplies while meeting interesting people on the same mission as you: to create a portrait of what you think of as home  A gift to yourself or have it included in the ongoing memoir installation which includes textual and photographic art.

September 2- 17, 2011

at The Book Trader  7 N. 2nd Street  Philadelphia, PA 19106

Open 10 AM to 10 PM everyday.   FREE

Interactive Mixed Media Workshops: September  11 & 14,  2- 4 PM

Make your own home portrait. Write and tell your story of home.

Proceeds benefit Covenant House, Endow-A-Home and Project HOME.

A Place to Be

by Linda Dubin Garfield and Susan DiPronio

Dive into piles of art supplies while meeting interesting people on the same mission as you: to create a portrait of what you think of as home  A gift to yourself or have it included in the ongoing memoir installation which includes textual and photographic art.

September 2- 17, 2011

at The Book Trader  7 N. 2nd Street  Philadelphia, PA 19106

Open 10 AM to 10 PM everyday

Interactive Mixed Media Workshops: September 7, 11 & 14,  2- 4 PM

Make your own home portrait. Write and tell your story of home.

Proceeds benefit Covenant House, Endow-A-Home and Project HOME.

Recently Flux Space hosted an open forum for those to read their responses to the proposed question from a text Where Art Belongs. With the words still echoing in my mind from that hot July night, I just read another blog post demarcating the moment that you become an artist: when you finally have Blue Chip gallery representation.

I’m troubled by this because it gives artists the false sense of security in their plans, wishes, hopes, dreams, and wants.  I find more and more that the ideas proposed by artists like Marcel Duchamp ring a truth that needs to be firmly planted in everyone’s minds.  If you exist in a society and you  go to a school that is given credit by approved members and groups of said society; further you are successful in completing all requirements demanded before being granted completion, then you are what you say you are.  Going even further if you simply state to yourself that you are whatever you want to become, then you are what you say you wish to be.  Clearly there are different levels of skill, ability, and knowledge that demarcate you as either good, bad, or passe, however we are not talking about that.

Very simply, I just wanted to start a dialogue by saying we all seek a certain type of success, and that dream is rarely tasted in the way that you want it to happen.  There is no substitute for hard work, patience, and failure.  In this current Depression, every art form has been relegated to oblivion by the economic purists.  Money is not, nor should it ever be, the motivating factor.  Personal success and growth can never be accounted for in a financial chart.  That being said, money is a part of our lives.

So let me ask you the reader, does it deflate your artistic ideas if you never achieve a high end gallery representation, or if you make art in your attic or basement?  Where does art belong if not in our hearts and minds?  I believe it exists wherever we want it to, and that is devoid of a gallery, swarms of passerby’s, and collectors with money.  We want all of that, but I don’t think we need it.  What we need is to live without the trappings of the normal life; rent/mortgages, utility bills, and car insurance.  What if someone offered us a live/work space for cheap that echoed our former college life?   Would you NEED anything else, or just want it? 

In preparation for their installation at the 2011 Philly Fringe Festival in September, printmaker and mixed media artist Linda Dubin Garfield and photographer writer Susan DiPronio are conducting workshops with residents at Project HOME and Covenant House as well as teens from Endow-A-Home who are making mixed media portraits of what home means to them which will be part of the Interactive Mixed Media Memoir Exhibit entitled A Place to Be at The Book Trader, 7 N. 2nd Street in Old City Philadelphia from September 2 to 17, as part of the Fringe Festival. Pre- Fringe workshops are scheduled for June, July and August at the three non-profit homeless organizations.

A Place to Be consists of portraits examining what home means made by Garfield and DiPronio which are for sale as well as those of participants from pre-Fringe workshops at Covenant House, Project HOME and Endow-A-Home as well as a pre-Fringe birthday party for Garfield which raised money for the non-profits for the homeless. Artwork from participants from the Fringe Festival who chose to leave their portraits will be added to this ever-growing installation.

The Book Trader is open everyday from 10 AM to 10 PM. Interactive mixed media workshops will be held September 7, 11 and 14 from 2 to 4 PM. People are invited to come make their own portrait of what they think of as home and to write and tell their own story of home. All art supplies are provided at no cost.

Garfield and DiPronio have collaborated before when they worked together on a project after the 2006 Fringe Festival. Their individual projects, in different media, were of similar themes, so they joined together and created a stronger production. They were awarded a Leeway Grant for Social Change in 2007 for Invisible/Invincible Women which was presented at First Friday Main Line May 2007 in Ardmore, PA as well as at the Wooden Shoe in Philadelphia, PA in Fall 2008.

For more information, visit www.lindadubingarfield.com

Proceeds benefit Covenant House, Endow-A-Home and Project HOME.

The public is invited to an Artists’ Reception on May 12 from 5 to 7 PM at Alchemy and Intent, the magical combination of personal vision and paint and print science, an exhibit of paintings and works on paper at the Philadelphia Board of Ethics, 1441 Sansom St, 2nd floor, Philadelphia, PA. This exhibit closes May 31, 2011.

Meet the five local artists, Bobbie Adams, Rachel Citrino, Linda Dubin Garfield, Pia De Girolamo, and Tom Hlas, who create abstract works that present perspectives and responses to their physical, emotional, and social surroundings. They explore memory. They watch and experience and listen, and they interpret. They document the essence of what they see around them. They document their responses to what they see around them. They each intend to capture the feeling or idea of a place or event or circumstance. They experiment with material. They observe and distill, and translate, and then they put down mark on mark, line on line, image on image, like chemists at the cauldron….please enjoy their artworks for what you imagine there, or for the sheer pleasure of seeing.

Since 2009, the offices of the Board of Ethics have had an Art in the Office Program. The work of Ed Bronstein, a Philadelphia artist and architect, began the initiative in April 2009 with a collection entitled “Home and Away.” His work was followed by the wonderful work of Nancy Bea Miller and several other artists. In November 2010, Linda Dubin Garfield, president of smART business consulting,  was given the opportunity to organize and curate exhibits in the space. She has offered opportunities to established as well as emerging local artists who have participated in the shows in the office space.  The many visitors to the space are beneficiaries of the exceptional talent displayed there and the artists are happy for people to see their work. It is a win-win situation.  “It is better to have the art on the walls than in my studio where no one would be seeing it,” says Tom Hlas, a painter from Northern Liberties. “The art community is happy to have a new venue available for showing work to the public, especially when galleries are closing in this economy.”

smART business consulting offers business solutions for artists to reach their goals and their audience through individual consulting and coaching, small support groups and seminars as well as providing venues to exhibit art to public both virtually online (web design and social media) and in reality (exhibitions in galleries and other public venues.)

For more information, visit http://www.smARTbusinessconsulting.org.

ABOUT THE AGE OF REPTILES

“Two hundred and forty five million years ago, the Permian extinction event also known as “The Great Dying” took place. It was the greatest mass extinction in earth’s history. With seventy percent of all life wiped out, the stage was set for “The Age of Reptiles.” In this Mesozoic Era reptiles saw the greatest amount of development, these advances would help them become the undisputed rulers of the planet.

Slow moving plant eaters, some weighing in at eighty tons, thundered across plains and trampled forests. Looking on from the shadows, with longing, hungry eyes and bone crushing teeth lurked super killers, scanning the herds for signs of weakness. Some would abandon terrestrial life and take to the skies on wings of skin, or slither into water to conquer the unforgiving seas. Horns, crests, armor, and tails ending in clubs or spikes were all adapted for protection in a world where death came quickly and in many forms.

Sixty six million years ago, in the Southern Hemisphere of North America, a meteorite slams into earth at sixty thousand miles per hour, turning night into day. It unleashes the light of a thousand suns as it vaporizes. Hot mud, dust and boulders are thrown hundreds of miles; waves rise up thousands of feet high and race towards coastlines. Shockwaves cause earthquakes, the horizon glows red as forests and animals burn. Those who survive these horrors face starvation as clouds of dust choke out the sun’s life giving light. The earth is dark.

Dinosaurs had ruled every niche of earth’s ancient landscape for one hundred and fifty million years, eight hundred times that of man. Perhaps that is the reason we are so intrigued by them. Their fossilized remains remind us of what can happen tomorrow.

This month The Autumn Society and Paradigm Gallery team up to bring you “The Age of Reptiles.” A showing of art dedicated to the biggest, baddest, meanest animals ever to inhabit the earth. The Dinosaurs.”

-Anthony Pedro

Curator

ALCHEMY & INTENT, an exhibit of paintings and works on paper,  is opening March 22 at Phila Board of Ethics, 1441 Sansom St, 2nd floor in Center City. Artists’ Reception: May 12, 5-7 PM. Exhibit closes May 31, 2011. This exhibit is organized and curated by smartbusinessconsulting.org.

Snowflake Salon at 110 Church Street

Join me on Sunday, February 6, 2011- 1:30 to 4 PM-

Artist’s Conversation at heavy bubble, 110 Church St in Old City Philadelphia.

“The Art of Printmaking.”

Come down and hear about how to make various types of prints and see first hand how it is done. Samples will be on hand as well as some warming snacks for a February afternoon!! In conjunction with Snowflake Salon 36 artists work up until end of month.

Image: Blue Light, Archival Pigment Print by Linda Dubin Garfield