The arts and "Plan C"

Below is a good chunk of Wednesday's blog post by Gary Steuer, the Chief Cultural Officer for the City of Philadelphia. In it, Steuer lays out what may lie on the horizon if the budget impasse in Harrisburg is not resolved in a timely manner.

......

The State House is scheduled to act this Thursday on the bill that would allow the City to close a $700 million gap in its five year budget. Without this action the City will be forced to implement the "Plan C" budget which would be crippling to the City on many fronts, and would effectively eliminate all City cultural programs.

For those that have not been following this saga closely, the budget approved by the City Council and the Mayor required action from Harrisburg on two items - authority to raise the local sales tax by 1%, and some changes in the City's pension plan. The House eventually passed a bill - 1828 - that gave the City what it needed. The Senate then considered the bill and passed it with an array of amendments designed to rein in pension expenses throughout the state. That bill is what is now going back to the House. If the House passes it without amendment it will be signed by the Governor and the City's budget will be balanced. If the House passes a budget with further changes that the Senate does not agree to, the City will be forced to begin the process of implementing Plan C.

In the Arts, Culture and Creative Economy area, this means that notifications will begin going out to the field late tomorrow, providing details on what programs and services will be lost. Much has been written about all the horrible cuts included in Plan C - closure of all branch libraries, closure of recreation centers, 50% reduction in trash pickup, suspension of most programs and operations of Fairmount Park, police officer and fire fighter layoffs. But there has been relatively little coverage of the arts cuts included in Plan C. Here is a summary of what will be eliminated:

• All funding and staff or the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, including suspension of the Art in City Hall program and the Public Art program.
  
• City funding for the Philadelphia Cultural Fund
• City support for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Atwater Kent Museum, and African American Museum of Philadelphia
• City support for Mural Arts Program
• City funding for Avenue of the Arts

In related areas, the cuts to Commerce will include virtual elimination of the Art Commission and the Historical Commission. Other cultural programs and support that take place through Recreation, Records, City Representative and other departments are also largely eliminated. In terms of timing, staff will be notified if they are being laid off on September 18th, and all cuts and layoffs will become effective as of close of business on October 2nd. This is also when all program eliminations will take effect. If the House and Senate agree prior to September 18th, the notices will never go out, and in fact if there is agreement anytime up until October 2nd, we can pull back from the precipice. After that point, while programs and staffing can still be restored it gets much more complicated. Some staff may take retirement and not be able to or interested in returning to work; they may also find employment elsewhere. It will be complicated in many cases to restart programs, reopen facilities, etc.

There is hope that with pressure from their constituents, state legislators from both legislative bodies and both sides of the aisle will find a compromise before this comes to pass. It goes without saying these cuts will be crippling to the City and a significant blow to its citizens.

(Source)

lessons

"The process by which an artist’s work finds its way into a commercial gallery is often long and circumvented. Stein was gracious, politely tenacious, and smart. Professional relationships can often be analogous to marriage, and after three years of “dating,” I was certain that I liked Stein as a person. This was someone with whom I would enjoy working on a day-to-day basis; someone whom I could trust; and someone who clearly has a bright future, so that after one successful show I will not be left in the lurch with no further compelling work to promote."-Brian Paul Clamp, director,ClampArt (New York City)

The above quote is from this article on the F Stop photography website.

Articles like this should be required reading for anyone looking for gallery representation, from the newly minted BFA or MFA to even older, more experienced artists. Even though this article comes from the viewpoint of a commercial gallery that specializes in photography, the lessons are general enough to cover any kind of artist seeking professional representation.

I can relate to this because it parallels the way I wound up being represented by the gallery I work with, the Bridgette Mayer Gallery here in Philadelphia. When she opened her gallery here around 2001, I was already looking at a couple of other galleries in the city for representation. I made it a point to go to the openings of shows she had as well as checking out the work at other times, as I was genuinely interested in some of the artists she was showing. I introduced myself and got myself onto her mailing list. At the same time, my work was gaining some attention after it was included in a prestigious regional exhibition grant competition and other local exhibitions.

The 'dance' began in earnest when Bridgette asked me to bring some slides and other materials to the gallery for review. About three or four months went by and then she scheduled a studio visit for another three months down the line. In the meantime, we stayed in touch and I kept working as usual.

In the spring of 2002, she came to my studio. She was really interested in my work as I was her gallery, and I remembered that we had a long conversation that afternoon. I was in a transitional period with my work, changing how I painted and was moving towards a more hard-edged, geometric abstraction from work that was more based on biological forms. She had a lot of questions about what I was doing and how I saw the work developing, etc...

At the end of that conversation, she offered to represent me. I took some time to look think about it, asked her some questions and after a couple of weeks, I signed on with her. The relationship we've built over the intervening 7 years has grown to one where there is friendship, mutual respect and benefits on both sides. As with any other relationship, it's constantly evolving and, so far, things are going along well, even with the economic crap storm that's been happening. It's good to know that there's someone standing behind my work in the good and bad times.

Rebecca Crowell slide presentation

Contemporaries: Eleven Abstract Painters

View more presentations from Rebecca Crowell.

Rebecca Crowell, an artist I know only through the web, has included a couple of shots of my project, 'This Moment', in a slide presentation that she has used for workshops this past summer. Other artists that I've connected with online included here are Diane McGregor, Ian MacCleod, Jen Bradford, Lisa Pressman, and Michael Kessler.

The Dark Show and new works by Romaiello and Kaiser at Sage

Pam Farrell, Foriegn Soil No. 5, 18 x 18", encaustic on panel

The (Dark) Show

In The (Dark) Show, Pam Farrell, Michelle Marcuse, and Rob Solomon address the dark with a grain of salt, or perhaps a broad brush. Art history abounds with references to dark as a theme. For some, the dark suggests the unspeakable, the unknown, evil, the sinister, gloomy, and ominous. For these three artists, choice of palette represents more than a proclivity for dark thoughts. Light emerging from dark, shining a light in the dark, a playful interaction of opposites, and an exploration of space and time all offer the viewer an open-ended experience to explore individual ideas about the dark, to see beyond the expected.

The Dark Show

August 29-October 3 2009

Reception: Saturday, August 29 2-5 pm

Stratasphere

1854 Germantown Avenue. Philadelphia, PA 19122.

More Information at Stratasphere

VINCENT ROMANIELLO
New Work: Blue Collar

DON KAISER
Objects and Storms


September 6 - September 27, 2009
Opening Reception: Sunday, September 13, 6 - 8pm


SAGE PROJECTS 333 South Street, Philadelphia, PA.
The gallery is free and open to the public
Wednesdays and Thursdays 12-6pm, Friday, Saturday and Sundays 2-8pm

Annie Leibovitz: The $24 million question (New York magazine)

(Photo: John Keatley/Redux)

How Could This Happen to Annie Leibovitz?

I just finished reading this story and I don’t know what to say. It’s amazing to me how someone of her stature and creativity can find herself in a predicament where she might lose the rights to her own work and then still owe millions of dollars on a loan. Leibovitz obviously has problems dealing with money issues, but this is still ridiculous.

Leibovitz is known to have a drive for perfection in her work, which seems to have been the beginning of her problems. According to this piece, she didn't have unlimited budgets from the outset, but drove up the costs of the shoots she did in the hunt for perfection in her work. Of course, she was being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to photograph celebrities for high-profile magazines, so I guess having access to that kind of money and not really caring about what was spent would lead to disaster eventually. I mean, get rid of one or two of the multi-million dollar homes, perhaps? Actually hire a good lawyer and financial manager, maybe?

The Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Wall

After a 30-Year Run, Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Wall - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/b... Over the last two years, the rich became poorer, and they may not return to their old levels of wealth anytime soon.

"The rich, as a group, are no longer getting richer. Over the last two years, they have become poorer. And many may not return to their old levels of wealth and income anytime soon."

(full article)

Over on Facebook, I posted a link to a story in today's New York Times about how the 'Super Rich' are losing their wealth at a fast pace these days. Case in point, John Mcafee, founder of the antivirus software company, fortune has dropped from a peak of $100 million to $4 million. The story goes on to detail how this situation is affecting other segments of the economy.

The story was ripe for snark, so I added a fictional, one-sided conversation of a father talking to his daughter to the link:

"Honey, hi, this is daddy. How are you? Good, good. Um, listen, your mother and I have discussed it...and i'm afraid that we won't be able to give you that 20-room mansion on a private island that you wanted for your sixteenth birthday.

The good news is that there is still the hotel on the Riviera. You might have to share the building with other guests, but you'll still have ten floors to yourself...I know, I know, but the economy is a little down right now and we have to pinch pennies where we can..."

The link post received a few comments, but artist and fellow art blogger, Joanne Mattera, took it to a whole other level. Her three comments are posted together here:

"Honey, hi. You know that painting we wanted to buy? The impressive large work by that midcareer artist we love? We really can't afford it. I guess we'll have to call the dealer to say we can't get it. No, I'm so embarrassed, I not even going to call the dealer."

"Honey, hi, another thought. That dealer is probably hurting. The artist is probably starving. Let's ask for 50% off and see if we can't negotiate down from there."

"Honey, hi. I have another thought. Why don't we go right to the artist? That's 50% off there. Then we can negotiate for another 50% off and work down from there. We should be able to pick up that painting for pennies on the dollar."

This was fictional, but I can imagine conversations close to it having taken place behind closed doors all over the art-collecting world this last year or more.

Paper, pencil, paint

Studio organizing continued today. To the left of the entrance of my space stands a grey metal shelving unit that has been storage for paper and older works since I moved in. The top shelf held paper of various sizes, the second shelf was a catch-all for completed works on paper, the bottom two shelves held a box of canvas scraps and three boxes of older mixed media pieces that date from 1999 or so.

That second shelf, with the drawings, is the one I really dreaded going through. I knew that there was a ton of stuff there and once I pulled it all off and set it up on a table, I was really going to have to find a proper storage solution way sooner than later. Every bit of flat surface space in my studio is precious, so just the thought of having all of these works out on a work table (see above) is enough to get me moving on finding something to store them in asap. That's my challenge for tomorrow or Friday.

I don't go through older works that much and when I do, I'm always surprised by a lot of what I find. Most of the works seen in the photos above date from 2002-2004, so it's going back a few years. There are postcard-sized paintings, one small collage, rough graphite sketches and the rest are paintings on paper and mixed media pieces with graphite, oil pastels, and acrylic paint.

Looking at some of these pieces five and six years out from when I made them left me with a range of thoughts and emotions. There were some ideas I'll be happy to explore more in the present and close the door on others. Then, for a few, maybe three or four so far, there was the ultimate cleansing: rip, tear, rip...

One class, one painting

The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins

Penn puts a new spin on the freshman project

By Susan Snyder

Inquirer Staff Writer

Incoming freshmen to the University of Pennsylvania, as at many schools across the country, typically start their college careers reading a common book and then discussing it - an orientation activity meant to unify the class.

This fall, the 19-year-old project takes a new twist at Penn: Students will study and discuss a painting, Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic.

Penn officials said they think they are the first to use a painting for the orientation project, and national officials knew of no other school.

The university is changing its approach as part of a new campaign it will officially launch next month, called "Arts & The City Year."

In addition to the orientation project, Penn plans "arts crawls" around the city, and an arts "passport" to art and cultural institutions with discounts and prizes for students. An "art in public health" series, arts seminars, and a variety of other programs also are planned to put students more in touch with the art venues on campus and around the region.

More here

Google Street View sees all

S. Avalon Park Blvd. Union Park, Florida

The way Google Street View records physical space restored the appropriate balance between photographer and subject. It allowed photography to accomplish what culture critic and film theorist Siegfried Kracauer viewed as its mission: “to represent significant aspects of physical reality without trying to overwhelm that reality so that the raw material focused upon is both left intact and made transparent.”

Great essay about Google Street View by Jon Rafman over on Art Fag City.

To keep or cast out.

Strawbridge's

I began the god-forsaken task of straightening out my studio this afternoon. You know, one of those tasks that you know needs to be done, but every time you walk into the studio, you cast a slight glance and think, "I'll get to it" and in the next instant the full scope of the proposed chore gives you all the energy you need...to finally finish that piece that's been sitting in the corner for a year. Yep, dealing with that headache of a painting is preferable to any attempt to organize a growing pile of future, "Why did I save this?". Its a very good thing that I'm no longer the pack-rat I was back in the mid-nineties when I did a lot of mixed media work. Living in West Philly, I never had to go far on trash days to find something of interest to bring back to the studio I had then, situated in a room I rented in a 6-bedroom Victorian house.

Ok, so I'm ready to jump in. I've identified roughly four areas around the space that desperately need attention. I had to break it down like that so my anxiety about the overall picture doesn't do me in. I started with the relatively easy chore of sorting though empty glass and plastic containers that I've accumulated over time. These are containers that I generally use for long-term storage of paints as well as for quick mixing of a color I haven't already mixed. I keep them under a long, heavy wood table that came with the studio, in cardboard boxes. It became one of those slightly hidden 'catch-all' spaces, just out of sight enough to ignore the growing piles of jars spilling over the boxes they were in.

Along with the containers, I also got around to cutting up and storing old clothes and towels that I'll use as rags to wipe paint on. Getting through these two tasks made the space feel much lighter. Now, I'm eyeing the storage shelves near the entrance, which holds and array of old works on paper, small paintings and various pieces of cut canvas.

On a side note...that photo above? Well, that's a small Strawbridge's gift box that I found hidden amongst rags today while cleaning up. It's just big enough to have held cufflinks or earrings. I'm keeping it just out of sentimentality, as Strawbridge's no longer exists and was my favorite of the center city department stores that I would shop in from time to time. The landmark department store at 8th and Market closed it's doors for good in 2006. There was talk of a Target opening up there, but the latest I know of is that a casino might open up on three floors at the site. Just what we need...

Anton Gerasimenko

Anton Gerasimenko-"Spring is colder than winter"

Anton Gerasimenko uses the basics of web browser functionality, like scroll bars and buttons, and makes them an integral part of his one-page web projects.

(source: BD)

Oddments: tabletop

A tabletop full of dried acrylic paint remnants that I'm using for an on-going photography project.

Chlorophyll Skin

Chlorophyll Skin from Lucy McRae on Vimeo.

Chlorophyll Skin is an experimentation into color, movement, absorption and the body by Lucy McRae and Mandy Smith. The music is “When I Grow Up” by Fever Ray. (source)

Matthew Langley Artblog: EU has outlawed incandescent lights... what about art?

Matthew Langley Artblog: EU has outlawed incandescent lights... what about art?

“Imagine painting. But you’re 200 yards away from the canvas, and 80 people are holding the brush. And you’re on a walkie-talkie going, ‘Need a little blue there. No darker blue. No DARKER BLUE!’”

—David Fincher’s definition of directing

LIsa Pressman-'Influences'

Lisa Pressman has a feature on her art blog called Influences, a project where she invites artists to share images of their work and to list creative influences. She asked if I would join in and I did. She just posted my entry here: Tim McFarlane's influences

poetry in slow motion

A great video featuring slow motion sequences of skaters doing their thing. The music that accompanies the video is 'Nightfall' by Mileece. Gotta respect the abilities/artistry of these kids.

How artists must dress

What you wear to an opening can be almost important as the work you're showing...

Artists must first of all distinguish themselves from members of the adjacent professional classes typically present at art world events: dealers, critics, curators, and caterers. They must second of all take care not to look like artists. This double negation founds the generative logic of artists' fashion.

The relationship between an artist's work and attire should not take the form of a direct visual analogy. A stripe painter may not wear stripes.

The relationship between an artist's work and attire should function in the manner of a dialectic, in which the discrepancy between the personal appearance of the artist and the appearance of her work is resolved into a higher conceptual unity. An artist's attire should open her work to a wider range of interpretive possibilities.

The artist's sartorial choices are subject to the same hermeneutic operations as are his work. When dressing, an artist should imagine a five-paragraph review of his clothes—the attitudes and intentions they reveal, their topicality, their relationship to history, the extent to which they challenge or endorse, subvert or affirm dominant forms of fashion—written by a critic he detests.

Communicating an attitude of complete indifference to one's personal appearance is only achievable through a process of self-reflexive critique bordering on the obsessive. Artists who are in realityoblivious to how they dress never achieve this effect.

Whereas a dealer must signal, in wardrobe, a sympathy to the tastes and tendencies of the collector class, an artist is under no obligation to endorse these. Rather, the task of the artist with regard to fashion is to interrogate the relationship between cost and value as it pertains to clothing, and, by analogy, to artworks.

An artist compensates for a limited wardrobe budget by making creative and entertaining clothing choices, much in the way that a dog compensates for a lack of speech through vigorous barking.

Artists are not only permitted but are in fact required to be underdressed at formal institutional functions. But egregious slovenliness without regard to context is a childish ploy, easily seen through.

An artist may dress like a member of the proletariat, but shouldn't imagine he's fooling anyone.

The affluent artist may make a gesture of class solidarity by dressing poorly. She is advised to keep in mind that, at an art opening, the best way to spot an heiress is to look for a destitute schizophrenic. Middle-class or working-class artists, the destitute, and the schizophrenic can use this principle to their social advantage.

The extension of fashion into the violation of norms of personal hygiene and basic grooming constitutes the final arena for radicalism in artists' fashion. Brave, fragrant souls! You will be admired from a distance.

-Roger White

(source)

New interview

There's a new interview with me by Brent Hallard up on his art blog, Visual Discrepancies. Go check it out!

Brent: One of the things that intrigue me about your work is how very immediate it feels.
But then, also, there is this fine sense of order; a tension that just reads so. There are often layers, sometime layers upon layers, some almost obliterated, or covered over. There is this sense of frenzy at work, though every move feels so considered, every layer, or clean slate making sense to the next. But this is, of course, looking at a finished piece. I’m sure the actual act, the sitting looking, the going back in, the results so far… these aren’t perfectly arranged layers and movements that happen. What appears in the end as a beautiful display of order and chaos, a pitched tension between control and free play, is something worked at?

Tim: You’ve hit on a lot of what goes on in my decision-making process while painting. There is a lot of back and forth, playing one layer/color/direction off of another, making decisions about how much to save and what to sacrifice. There is a dance between control and chaos that contributes to that tension that you sense... (read more here)

The High Line

Spent part of Friday afternoon exploring the newly opened High Line Park in the Meatpacking District of New York. It’s a great example of reclaimed urban space.

The first section between Ganesvoort Street and West 20th is currently open, but if all goes well, the park will extend up to west 30th in 2010.

Find out more about the park here: The High Line

Up all night

Detail from a recent work on paper.

Had one of those 'brain won't shut off so don't even think about trying to sleep' episodes after climbing into bed last night. The only remedy was to get up and write as much of that stuff down as I could. All of it was art-related and the pages of my art journal from this session were filled with random notes about projects and other things I couldn't stop thinking about for some reason.

From 1:45am until about 3:15am, I filled 7 pages with ideas for projects that I'm already pursuing or might pursue in the near future with painting, mixed media, works on paper, photography, printmaking as well as a major reorganization of the works in my studio. Getting it all written down was a good thing. Now, all I have to do is dust off my alchemy skills to make more hours in the day in order to get these things done...

Plastic mayhem

Artworks and other objects primarily made of plastics have been degrading for years and the problem doesn't seem to be going away any time soon according to this article from Slate.com.

(via c-monster)

waterfalls damage

Cafe sues over 'Waterfalls' spray

passages

Two photos of my main drawing/painting wall. The first one, taken in May, 2007 (black and white), shows the wall not long after I had repainted it (for an open studio event). After that, I decided to not bother repainting the walls and opted for letting whatever wayward marks to remain as part of the space, as in the second shot from February, 2009.

The drips and spatters are like markers in time. Looking at some of the outlines of previous works, I can sometimes recall exactly which piece I painted, if not when. On the other hand, there are outlines marked off that only represent part of the story, an intermediate point in the process where I may have been working on something only to either abandon it or move to finishing the piece on the floor or a table.

Whatever the case may be, the paint on the walls and floor serve as inspiration for me to keep going, regardless of whatever else is happening outside the studio.

Anthropologie art installation

The Anthropologie store at 18th and Walnut Streets here in Philly has this great, bright orange art installation that flows around the lower part of the building and seemingly into its facade. It really brings a nice punch of color and movement to a usually restrained corner in center city. If this were my piece, I would have titled it, Orange Flow, or something like that. I might still use that title for one of my own works one of these days...

Airport show mention in the Inquirer

Happy summer! I'm told that the sun is expected to appear for possibly two days in a row sometime in the next couple of months. This perpetual cloud cover and rain has to let up sometime...

On another note, I received a brief mention in an article by Edith Newhall in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the current exhibitions at the Philadelphia International Airport. If you're passing through the airport any time between now and September and have a little time on your hands, wander over to Terminal F, Concourse 3 to see my works on paper. There's a lot of great art to see all over the airport, so it might be a good time to make PHL a stop-over art destination.

'Back on my Feet' in the Inquirer

Back on My Feet, the current group show that I am a part of at Bridgette Mayer, was mentioned by Edith Newhall in yesterday's Sunday Inquirer:

Group hug

On Washington Square, meanwhile, Bridgette Mayer has assembled a sprawling do-gooder benefiting the nonprofit Back on My Feet, an organization that promotes the self-sufficiency of Philadelphia's homeless population by engaging homeless individuals in running as a means to build confidence, strength, and self-esteem. While not stringent on the gallery artist front - too many of her regulars are here - this summer group show of 100 donated works also boasts contributions from Back on My Feet participants and by such well-known Philadelphia artists as Candy Depew, Tristin Lowe, Eileen Neff, and Odili Donald Odita.

Some of the standouts are by the aforementioned, predictably, but also by Mark Brosseau, Jon Manteau, Tim McFarlane, J. McAleer, David Slovic, Brooke Steytler, Paul Santoleri, Rebecca Saylor-Sack, Ivan Stojakovic, and Jackie Tileston.

All works are priced between $500 and $1,000, and proceeds will directly benefit Back on My Feet.

Source

studio view (6.12.09)

Studio View (6.12.09)

New works in progress.

Glitch

Studio view (6.10.09)

Recent paintings on the left wall, new works on paper on the right. The new series of works on paper is called Glitch and is focused on accumulation, movement, and chance happenings. Those 'chance happenings' being random drips and other interesting marks developing due to overlapping brushstrokes and the interaction of wet and dry layers of ink. Each piece is ink on paper, 30 x 20 inches.



Glitch

Glitch

Glitch (detail)

I took these photos on Wednesday, after spending most of the afternoon hanging out with Tyrus Townsend, an art friend and freelance writer I'd only known previously on the 'net. He has an art blog called, I Heart Art. Tyrus was in Philly gathering information for an article he was writing. In addition, he did a short interview with me that may be published somewhere online, but I'm not sure yet. We walked through center city and wound up hanging out in my studio for a couple of hours talking about various aspects of the art world and so forth.

When Tyrus left, I stayed and worked on a couple of the pieces that make up Glitch. I worked on two of them earlier in the week, then did a third during this session. Three of them together was good, but I thought five would make a good number for the beginning of this project and did a couple more. The ideas in Glitch from a painting that was included in my last show called,Gravity's Architecture, seen below:


Gravity's Architecture, 2009, acrylic on panel, 16 x 16 inches

There was something about the illusion of structures created from the thinly painted, overlapping bars of color, and the force of gravity on the dripping paint, that made me want to explore this direction a little more.

I'm envisioning Glitch as an ongoing series on paper and possibly translucent mylar and exhibiting them in groups of five or six or more, depending on how things develop. I don't know if I'll explore this idea on canvas yet, as I have a bunch of other works that I want to do as paintings, so this will be a works on paper project only, for now.

Linear diversions

Lightstream, 2009, acrylic on panel, 16 x 20 inches

Tunnelvision, 2009, acrylic on panel, 16 x 20 inches

l: Tunnelvision

c: Gravity's Architecture II, 2009, acrylic on panel, 24 x 24 inches

r: Lightstream

Some recent goings-on from the studio

Astor Bell

No Division

I just found out about a new net music site that focuses on electronic music. Astor Bell.com distributes free albums and downloads of electronic music. So, If you're looking for an eclectic mix of electronic music, then check out AB.

From Flavorpill:

A promising example of the emerging Creative Commons music model, Stockholm-based electronic netlabel Astor Bell recently released several free albums online.

The label is eclectically electronic. Astor Bell's releases range from glitch-hop experiments to classic techno. 1st Dude adds orchestral sampling to Ninjatune-style cut-ups, while Dan Brasco mines melodic minimalism, Bubble Shield freaks out your headphones, and Giuseppe serves up a classic Kompakt sound.

Back on my Feet benefit this Friday

This Friday and continuing through July, I'll have two new works on display at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery as part of the gallery's benefit exhibition for the Philadelphia non-profit, Back On My Feet. There will be about 100 paintings on 10" x 10" panels displayed and available for sale by about 100 Philadelphia artists for $500-$1,000, with proceeds benefitting BOMF.

From the press release:

In celebration of eight years in Philadelphia, the Bridgette Mayer Gallery is holding a Benefit Exhibition to honor the non-profit group Back on My Feet. Back on My Feet promotes the self-sufficiency of Philadelphia’s homeless population by engaging them in running as a means to build confidence, strength and self-esteem. The benefit will feature 100 10" x 10" panels by gallery artists, Philadelphia artists and Back on My Feet artists, ranging in price from $500-$1,000. Proceeds from the event will go directly to the non-profit.

More from the press release here: BRIDGETTE MAYER GALLERY CELEBRATES EIGHT YEARS IN PHILADELPHIA WITH BENEFIT EXHIBITION SUPPORTING NON-PROFIT, BACK ON MY FEET

Back On My Feet website

Back On My Feet Benefit

Friday, June 5, 2009

6-8:30pm

Bridgette Mayer Gallery

709 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19106

215.413.8893

www.bridgettemayergallery.com

Mist, 2009, acrylic on panel, 10 x 10 inches

Chameleon, 2009, acrylic on panel, 10 x 10 inches

Yellena James

Yellena James