A post about POST.

I'm backtracking a bit here, doing some coverage from the weekend-before-last - Open Studios in Philadelphia! Or, the second weekend thereof. Previously I've only witnessed the Open Studio deal back out in San Francisco, where I participated for maybe 6 or 7 years or so. Here in Philadelphia, it is organized similarly, with the production of a comprehensive guide and the schedule of studio openings divided amongst the different neighborhoods - Philly only covers two weekends, however, by splitting the city in half, whereas San Francisco divides the city into four sections and takes up the whole month of October. So, in this case, the second weekend of Open Studios covered the neighborhoods east of Broad Street... which, if you look at a map of Philadelphia, is a pretty broad area! (pun intended) so, i didn't get very far. But I did get to see some great stuff at 915 Spring Garden Studios - here's a bit of what's there:

-The incomparable Amy Kann! Sculptor extraordinaire, who tackles - among many other projects - the extremely difficult task of bas-relief sculpture, and has won many awards for her efforts... I know from personal experience that relief is a unique challenge, and Amy handles it superbly. Please check out her website here: www.amykann.com.

Amy Kann's bas-relief of painter Rachel Constantine

- Insanely cool and intriguing artist Brooke Hine, who is creating amazing sculptures and ceramic pieces - some of which include cat whiskers!! She promises that the cat whiskers are ones that have already come off the cat... no tweezing involved. Promise.

One of Brooke Hine's zany and awesome ceramic creations

- The greatest surprise? Andrea Mihalik's studio: "Wild Chairy", where she refurbishes and reupholsters antique chairs, making crazy and beautiful creations which I covet dearly - please check out her website at the following link: http://www.wildchairy.com/.

A fabulously refurbished chair from Andrea Mihalik of Wild Chairy

- Sculptor Stephen Layne is in this building, but sadly was not open for Open Studios. His work is definitely worth taking a look at, check it out!

A detail of the sculpture "Philadelphia" by Stephen Layne

Other artists to check out at 915 Spring Garden Studios:

Donna Backues
Patrick Crofton
Susan O'Reilly
Kaitlin Pomerantz
Robert Couch
The Sleepwalkers Collective
Charles Newman

As mentioned, the scope of this particular weekend of Open Studios was so vast that I couldn't hit everything... I definitely spent some quality time at the studio of the lovely and talented Rachel Constantine, and even managed to get a print of one of my favorite drawings of hers... yesssss!!!!!. She also has prints available of a couple of her wonderful paintings, including this, this and this.

Michaela, drawing by Rachel Constantine - available as a museum-quality print

I also made a brief stop at Part Time Studios, up in Fishtown. I fell in love with the following painting, by Kyle Fisher:

“Delicates”, acrylic on birch, 19"×28", 2010, by Kyle Fisher.

In summation: Philly! Art! Yay!