Philapalooza.

Five groovy things encountered (or revisited) in Philly of late:

1.    John and I went to Johnny Brenda's in mid-December to see local band A Sunny Day in Glasgow: several thumbs-up on both counts. Great band, great venue, and extra points for genuine friendliness on the part of both our waitress and the female bartender – very unusual and very awesome. Thanks, ladies!

2.    On the food/libation/entertainment front, I cannot overemphasize the extreme awesomeness of our friendly neighborhood Memphis Taproom. It even has plenty of tasty, well-crafted vegetarian fare for my more ethically-minded husband. Yay!

3.    We went to see an excellent show - "This Is The Week That Is" - by Philly’s 1812 Productions, an all-comedy theater group. Who can argue with an all-comedy group? Not me, that's for sure. Comedy = funny. Funny = good. And 1812 Productions = funny + good. No joke.

4.    I forgot to mention in a previous post that last month's First Friday gallery walk here in Fishtown brought to my attention a great new gallery/art studio space very close to us on Frankford Avenue called Part Time Studios. It's a pack of talented folk across a range of media, but I fell in love particularly with the work of Adam Smith, who does primarily painting and sculpture. In fact, I particularly crave the following piece:

"Crew Neck, V Neck" by Adam Smith, 4" x 7", acrylic on found paper.

Man, I love that painting. Mmmmm. I vow to make it mine...

5.    Last but not least, we had the great pleasure of meeting writer Maya Sloan, based recently in Philadelphia but relocating to Brooklyn, alas. Anyway, she's a super-great person and extremely funny – she's coming out with a book this summer, entitled "High Before Homeroom." Intrigued? Me too! I'm going to pre-order it at this link, and you should as well... gotta support our literary artist brethren, yo.

That's all for now, folks... more soon on the awesomeness of the Brandywine River Museum in all of its glorious Wyethness. Mmmm, Wyeth paintings... yummy.

Portraitpalooza.

Rounding out 2009 with a bunch of portrait commission projects... here's one I finished and shipped out to California earlier in the month -

...aaaaand now for a close-up...

More soon! Been busy.

Happy Holidays!!

Peace on earth, and on the arm of the comfy chair...

Happy holidays to all, from a very relaxed Feissel household.

Picked a pack of pics.

Oh my, so overwhelmed with urban awesomeness and deeply in love with being back in Philadelphia. Ahhh. I'm going to make this a mostly visual post, as John and I have been paddling around a bit in the city, taking some photos here and there:

This chocolate novelty shop has been at Reading Terminal Market forever, yet this will never stop being funny to me. Noses! HAHA! Funny.

Better be good... radioactive Santa is watching you. Creeeepy.

Urban chickens, yo! In a chorus line, of sorts, at Greensgrow Farm.

Some gorgeous brickwork nestled into a building over at 20th and Sansom or so...

Snowman and Mickey are hangin' tight, bringin' some holiday spirit. While partying on the roof.

More awesome brick, ironwork and mosaics on a building at Broad and Spring Garden...

City Hall and Dilworth Plaza, all busting out in Christmas cheer (via the "Christmas Village" event, which is a nice attempt at an olde-style German Christmas market, but falls *slightly* short due to such vendors as "The Sheet Man.")

Good advice, brought to you by the sidewalk at Cumberland and Gaul, near Greensgrow Farm. Go hug yer mom, whydoncha?

Phirst Phriday and other delights.

Where to begin? It's been busy – in a good way. On the art front, I've been working on some time-sensitive commissions, so I've had my nose to the grindstone... more or less. Actually, that sounds really painful. Let's just say, I've been spending some time in my studio – these days, a room in our house here in Fishtown. As for my quest for the perfect drawing group, the Thanksgiving holiday had interrupted my search somewhat... though a couple of Sundays ago I did bike down to the Rodin Museum for some sketching fun and boy, did I have a bad drawing day... wow. Really bad. I'll have to go back at some point to redeem myself. Sigh. I also made a stop this past week by the Tuesday portrait session at the Plastic Club, and made yet another lousy drawing. It's a nice place, though, very mellow but focused - I'll definitely go back there again.

A bad drawing I did at the Plastic Club – and no, the model didn’t look like Dwayne Johnson (the Rock), it's... just a bad drawing. Sigh.

Oh, per the title of this post - John and I went out for First Friday back on the 4th, mostly covering our own neighborhood via the "Holiday Art Walk," covering both the Frankford Avenue and Girard Avenue corridors. I had work at two galleries, in two group shows – here's a pic of my work (these three paintings hung vertically in the middle of the photo) up at Highwire Gallery on Frankford, about 4 blocks from our house (very convenient for me):