Phila Street Art :: St. Bernard Street

M noticed this incredible little guy nailed to a telephone post along our walk to the garden one day. There seem to be a number of wonderful things along that walk. I don't know who the artist is, but it resembles Maurice Sendak a bit.

Corners of My World

A while ago I posted about the corners of my home, but as I was out walking the other day I realized that there are a lot of little corners that are special to me, some of them outside of the home. So I've set about to document them (after all, isn't that the whole point of writing a blog?).

This is a wall that I pass all the time on my way to the St. Bernard Community Garden. It's been decorated with chalk, and if any of you have ever used chalk on brick you know that it doesn't easily come off. I think I'll be appreciating this wall for a long time.



This is a vacant lot that I pass on my way to work in Camden. I'm not sure if those steel beams were present in the house before it was knocked down, or if they were put there afterward to help the surrounding buildings from following suit. Either way, I want to put a garden there really badly.

This is just a moment in time along the walk to the St. Bernard Community Garden.

My friend Nicole recently wrote a thought-provoking post on her blog, Blue Bicicletta, about appreciating each moment of the day with reverence. It's a word that doesn't get used that often, and it's really quite beautiful. To quote Nicole, "my pocket Webster’s dictionary defines reverence as: awe mingled with respect and esteem." I think we could all use a little bit more awe and respect in our lives. These little corners of my world allow me to be awed by the art of every day life, and to live that life a bit more purposefully, with reverence.

Phila Street Art :: Rittenhouse Square

This is the largest "yarnbombing" I've seen in Philly, but I'm sure there are more.

Night Parade

Earlier this month I stumbled across the most wonderful bit of community art I have ever seen. I was walking with M in South Philly and we stopped to look into a store window that was full of white paper mache lanterns. It turned out that it was actually a studio space in the Fleisher Art Memorial, and the lanterns were in the final stages of preparation for a "night parade" that was going to happen that weekend!





George Ferrandi, the artist-in-residence at the Fleisher, had been working with the community for months making lanterns and developing a storyline for this parade. The entire project is called "Wherever There is Water." There were weekly workshops for volunteers to come and make lanterns for the parade (M and I went to the very last one, lucky!) and a choir had been practicing for months. I was so ecstatic that I found out about it right before it happened!





The Saturday night parade was incredible; there were almost 300 people processing down the streets of South Philly holding illuminated lanterns, many in the shape of animals. People came out of their houses to watch, many joined the parade, and there was just a wonderful sense of community and joy. I saw many of my own friends from different parts of the city, and I made new ones along the way.







I didn't get many photos of the parade, partly because I was in it, and partly because I knew I wouldn't be able to capture it properly on camera. But these are pictures of the workshop I went to with M, and the studio space pre-parade. Here's the Flickr group, with lots and lots of pictures. And here's a lovely video on Youtube (I'm there at 3:17, wearing bright green!):

Phila Flower 2010

Highlights from the Philadelphia Flower Show, a little late!



Terrariums, of course.



This crown is made entirely of plant materials. Click on it to see the incredible details: little baskets with eggs, tiny birds with feathers sticking out of the tops of their heads, tiny dogwood blossoms!



A tropical "outdoor" bedroom.



The Netherlands exhibit, I love the canals with bikes in them and the tulips growing out of the walkway.



Just craziness.



Window boxes.



The winning balcony.



And finally, this was one of the most interesting exhibits I've seen at the flower show in a while, by Moda Botanica. They used shipping containers and had local graffiti artists Distraught and Distort cover them with art.



I actually recognized the art from around my house, I've posted some of it before.



I was especially thrilled with the Jane Pepper art (the retiring head of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society - she's very distinctive looking). She even signed one of them!







And a few days after the show I ran into this on my walk to work.



All in all, it was the most exhausting and satisfying flower show ever (and I'm so happy it's over)!

Phila Street Art :: 47th Street

I discovered these guys along my walk to work one morning.





The second one reminds me of this design from the girl and the rhino in Oakland, CA:



The lore is that George Lucas designed the AT-AT walkers in Star Wars after driving past the Oakland container cranes on the Bay Bridge. But who knows?

Planty Porch

A few months ago I was asked to judge a container garden contest for the Powelton Village neighborhood in West Philly. The neighborhood had used funds to buy decorative pots for all interested applicants in an effort to beautify the neighborhood. Each household with a pot then planted the pot (or pots) all summer and in August they were all judged (by me!) with a cash reward given to the top three contestants. Below you will find the winner:

Apparently this person wins every year, which doesn't surprise me because the pots were all lovingly tended and nicely placed. They even put some sticks and statues and other props in to add to the aesthetic appeal and make the design cohesive.

I haven't lived in any one place for long enough to establish a porch garden, but there are examples of them all over the city. I'm going to try to take more pictures (next spring, I guess) so you can see what the creative plant people in Philadelphia can do with the concrete space around their house. It's incredible, I tell you.

I would love to sit on that porch with a cup of tea and a book. Lovely.

Phila Street Art: 45th and Baltimore

Another wheatpaste, this time on a dumpster outside the new Milk and Honey Market in West Philly.

Phila Street Art: 47th and Baltimore

I see this little sticker every morning as I wait for the trolley. It's a good way to start the day.

Texadelphia

That's right, this exists in Austin:



It's some sort of food chain, I guess. Weird.

Other things that happened this weekend in Austin, Texas (they may or may not be in order of awesomeness, starting with the most).

Snow cones with Emilie. Flavors consumed include watermelon, margarita, sour cherry, cream soda, fuzzy navel, blackberry, cinnamon, ice cream (yes, you read that correctly), wedding cake, blue coconut, blue raspberry, raspberry, black cherry, green apple and cantaloupe. All in three days.



The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I've always wanted to go here and when Emilie suggested it I leapt at the chance to plant-nerd-it-up. It was prime time for lupines when we were there, though in Texas they call them bluebonnets. Either way they were everywhere and they were gorgeous.







The actual festival was fun too. It was a bit too Mardi-Gras-y for me at times though (think roving groups of drunk a-holes). It was hard to get into a lot of the music venues, near impossible for the most popular ones. But we ended up going to a lot of decent free shows, dancing and staying up later than I expected (fueled by snow cones). Emilie and I actually had the most fun at the "dueling pianos" bar we went to, go figure.



Of course I found a way to take pictures of art too. That Chiquita Banana-looking sticker is actually meant to promote one of M's DJ friends, Sammy Bananas. Clever.







Snow cones, wildflowers, music and dancing. Who could ask for anything more? Now I need to catch up on my sleep and shake this cold I've been holding on to for the past week.

Phila Street Art: 15th and Spruce

I like . . . . . . bunnies.



I found this on a dumpster in an alley near where I work. It's sticker art, (the most famous sticker art is Shepard Fairey's 1986 Andre the Giant campaign). There are lots of street stickers in Philly, but I'm just now noticing them.

It also reminds me of this story-turned-inside-joke. My friend was teaching an art class to 4-year-olds one afternoon and after giving a demonstration she asked her students if they had any questions. One little girl raised her hand, and after being called on she looked off into space and said, "I like . . . . . bunnies."

Phila Street Art: 32nd and Spring Garden

"Tuscan Landscape" (restoration)



This was completed in 1999 by Tish Ingersoll, sponsored by the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network (which is run by the City of Philadelphia).

Phila Street Art: 45th and Baltimore

This was in the alley behind my old house (the one I lived in before moving to CA) and I was pleased to find it still there. And someone found another one in Chinatown.

Phila Street Art: 20th and Arch

"Reach High and You Will Go Far"



This amazing mural can be found right outside the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's building. Appropriate, no? Painted in 2000 by Josh Sarantitis and PDRMAP with assistance from Veronica Werckmeister and Jay Slovik. Sponsored by CMS Companies.