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!

It's the principle of the thing.

There has been much art-related goodness around of late, I'm just woefully behind on posting about it. I still haven't gotten around to downloading from my brain what I soaked in at the second week of Philly’s Open Studios. But in the meantime, I'm just back from the D.C. area, where I saw a most fantabulous show in Alexandria, VA at Principle Gallery: the artists from Broad Street Studio, Jason John, Josh Suda and Brian Martin. Incredible show! Amazing skills! And good people. Part of what I like about this group is that not only are they sporting some serious technical chops, but they also seem to have found their own unique voice and vision, that which brings a fresh and modern angle to the realist scene. Not that I don't have complete respect for some of the hardcore classical realists out there today – it's just that sometimes I need to see a little more in a painting than a deftly rendered lady lounging in her birthday suit, y'know? Anyhow, here are some samples of the work of the Broad Street Studio crew:

Hyperfocus, 14" x 11", oil on panel by Jason John

Birth, 10.5" x 10", oil on panel by Joshua Suda

The Approach, 9" x 12", oil on panel by Brian Martin

phillyphotos

Some shots around town... nobody does urban decay quite like Philly! So charmingly...

I just read an article about the recent sale and development plans for this building at 12th and Vine - no more broken windows! Hopefully.

Don't forget your Ex-Lax.

The view from the 915 Spring Garden artist studios building.

Even Philly gets the blues

Women blogging about Women Painting Women.

Excitement is building for the Women Painting Women show this November at Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, SC! Charleston Art Magazine has an article in its October issue, and has put show participant Terry Strickland's art in the cover! Robert Lange Studios has also put up a "sneak peek" link to the work which will be exhibited in the show, at this link. Also, here are links to participating artists' blog posts about the show:

Candice Bohannon Reyes
Terry Strickland
Alexandra Tyng
Alia El-Bermani
Sadie Valeri
Amy Lind

Candice Bohannon's powerful painting Dementia, 2008, oil on panel, 38" x 48"

More soon!

Plein Air for Camphill.

Last night I checked out the exhibition "Plein Air for Camphill" at Rosenfeld Gallery. The exhibition is a benefit for Camphill Special School, a school for youth with developmental and intellectual disabilities in Glenmoore, PA; a portion of proceeds from sale of works benefits Camphill's education and care for children with special needs. Cool, huh? The majority of work at the exhibit was created on-site at a day-long plein air art-making event this past August at the school. There were over 50 artists represented, so there was a lot of great work (and a ton of people at the opening!) – here's but a tiny sample:

Apple Tree Three, 11" x 14", oil on panel, by Stephanie Lieberman

Fairview Road, 15” x 16.5”, oil on panel, by David Shevlino

Shed, Woods and View, 14" x 18", oil on linen, by Alexandra Tyng

Women Painting Women Exhibition!

Please click on the hypertext for the latest update on the "Women Painting Women" exhibition at Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, South Carolina this November. I'm really thrilled to be a part of this exhibition, and excited to see the show in its entirety! The image below is of one of the paintings included in the exhibition:

Voice of the Tiger, 33" x 32" oil on canvas, by artist Terry Strickland.

PhiladelphiARToverload.

Whoa! It's been a good week for cramming in art-related things. Besides working on my own painting - which is an ongoing, never-ending lifetime project - I've had some great art encounters this past week.

• Number one: Bambi! (A gallery here in Philadelphia in the Piazza) It never fails to delight. This past time around, I caught the very tail end of the show "Lil Pus" by Joseph Hasenauer - an absolutely awesomely silly series of women hanging out with... an octopus. Ha ha. I loved the idea and the paintings so much, that I bought a print (more within my price range than an original painting, sad to say.) This isn't the print I bought, but it's a good example of the series: A painting by Joseph Hasenauer from his "Lil' 'pus" show at Bambi Gallery • Eggs! I learned a great deal about egg tempera this week, part of that through a presentation at the Philadelphia Sketch Club by artist Jeff Gola. He showed us his work and discussed his path as an artist, and his methods in working with egg tempera. Though I'm personally a disaster with pretty much any fast-drying media, and I'm terribly impatient with the slow build-up process involved in using this particular fast-drying medium, I have to say I'm rather intrigued by the notion of using such a natural painting medium... never mind the potential for toxicity in the raw pigments! Anyway. Here's one of his egg tempera paintings: Two Sheep, egg tempera, 16" x 20" by artist Jeff Gola. • Speaking of eggs, I brought some new paintings over to Square Peg Artery & Salvage the other day – here's one of the newer pieces: who's first?, 2010, oil on printed fabric, 10"x10", by me, Diane Feissel. • Friday night I ambled on over to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for the US Artists show, and caught a ton of great stuff within a relatively small space – lots of galleries and artists represented from a fairly wide time range. Many of the galleries present were showing the usual Philadelphia-area suspects: Stuart Shils, Randall Exon, Bo Bartlett, Nelson Shanks, Andrew Wyeth, Al Gury, Maxfield Parrish, some Peales in there, etc. Arcadia Fine Arts was there representing some of the non-Philadelphia area usual suspects: Jeremy Lipking, Malcolm Liepke, Ron Hicks, Brad Kunkle, Robert Liberace, Joseph Todorovich, Daniel Sprick, etc. "Where are the women?" you might ask... I was definitely asking the same thing. It was a challenge, but I did manage to find some representation from the other half of the population (some of them even still living!) in works by Christine Lafuente, Nancy Depew, Anne Harris, and Kerry Brooks... Cecilia Beaux and Mary Cassatt were there, of course, representing the 19th century. I have to say, out of all of that Great Art, this one particular painting by Anne Harris - who we've featured on the "Women Painting Women" blog to which I contribute – nearly blew my mind; it positively glowed. I'd never before had the good fortune of seeing her work in person, and I'm so glad I did: Portrait (Pink), 2010, oil on linen, 44 x 30 inches by Anne Harris. • Afterwards I remembered that it was First Friday, and that there were a couple of galleries I wanted to check out down at the Piazza in Northern Liberties. I stopped by Bambi again for the new show, which included a personal favorite, photographer Anna Tas (who, I just learned, is based here in Philadelphia... yay for Philly!!). I also checked out Vincent Michael Gallery, which I still haven't made up my mind about overall... but they definitely have some interesting work; check out the info on the current show here. • The rest of the weekend I studio-sat for fellow artist Mark Bullen during the first weekend of Philadelphia's Open Studios. While there I stopped in to the studio next door to check out the latest work from artist Tom Kohlmann – here's a sampling, photos courtesy of fellow artist Garth Herrick: Paintings by artist Tom Kohlmann, pics by artist Garth Herrick Phew! Now off to do some of my own painting... haha. More on that soon!