ZAGAR’S MAGIC GARDEN

A week ago Sunday was a perfectly gorgeous day and I was eager to take a long walk with my camera. I was in search of some graffiti and other street art. Instead of finding graffiti I found a enclave of beauty, art and magic. I am still reeling from my discovery and have been left to wonder why it took me so long to find a treasure like this in the city I have lived in for 7 years. I feel like I was the last person in Philadelphia to know about it.

Certainly, I had seen Isaiah Zagar’s mosaics around town and have admired them and photographed them for quite awhile. There are many buildings in Philadelphia covered with Isaiah’s tiles. The Painted Bride on Vine Street between 2nd and 3rd St. is a masterpiece that I have photographed often and never tire of seeing. But let me tell you, finding the Magic Garden and wandering through its labyrinth of tiles, bicycle wheels, pottery shards, bottles, and other decorative ephemera was mind-boggling. Imagine what it would be like to actually walk into a kaleidoscope of sparking colored glass or pirate’s cave encrusted with treasures of incredible wealth. Well, it is better than either of those things…

It is pure magic! It is a wonderland of decorative whimsy. I wanted to stay there as long as possible to soak up joyful dazzle of the place. Such creative good energy! It was tinkling, jingling, buzzing and humming with beauty, peace, love and ecstatic exuberance. Isaiah’s Magic Garden is a delicious dream of what life could be like if we all embraced art, beauty and joy as our natural birthright.

I took over a hundred photos and would like to share just a few of the better ones with you. You can check my Flickr site to see more of the Magic Garden photos. I suggest you look at them in their largest size to get the full impact of the complexity of the mosaics and all the decorative details. Quite honestly, the photos do not give justice to the Magic Garden. You do not get a sense of the complexity and beauty of the place. It really must be experienced to get the full magical impact. If you are planning to visit Philadelphia, make certain you get to see this amazing place. It is only open on weekends, but I think you can call for an appointment. Check out the Magic Garden website for more information.

Content and photos copyright 2007 Janet Towbin.

THE LOW DOWN

I really do enjoy walking to work along 20th Street. Like any other major city, this downtown Philadelphia street has its share of businesses, office buildings and people all vying for attention. However, what I really notice is the street and it is mostly out of self-preservation. I must look down so I won’t fall (or twist my ankle) on the uneven sidewalk. (I’ve done that a few times and it really hurts.) Everyone who has walked these uneven city streets knows how easy it is to fall and how bad it feels when you land on your…whatever. So, I look down and watch where I walk. (There are other good reasons to watch where you walk in a city… but I don’t need to mention the unmentionable.)

As I was walking to work today, my eyes soaked up the gritty urban textures of cement, asphalt, pebbles and paint, with embedded bits and pieces of street junk. As I continued walking and looking down, I thought of Irving Penn’s series of eye-opening photographs called Underfoot. This wonderful series was exhibited at The Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2004 and I remember being completely blown away by those images.

I noticed some wonderful spray-paint markings on the streets due to repairs and resurfacing. Fortunately, I had my camera with me (of course!) and captured some of the vivid day-glo orange spray-paint.

There was a spinner in the street (perfectly poised next to a big blob of a line gone all drippy) and I thought about my friend, Harry Schwalb, who has drawn dozens, maybe even hundreds, of them, each spinner infused with personality and delicate beauty. This lone spinner next to an overweight, drippy line Aaron Siskind would have loved gave me a thrill. I honor all three artists in this particular photo which I have titled, Underfoot. The blobby, painted line with drips is for Siskind, the maple spinner for Schwalb and the general subject matter and title an homage to Penn. You can view these photos on my Flickr site to see them in their original size with greater detail.  (See Intersection and Underfoot.)

What a day! Thank you Irving Penn, Aaron Siskind and Harry Schwalb–your artistic vision inspires me in countless ways.

Content and photos copyright 2007 by Janet Towbin.

ARTIST V. PAINT: I WON!

Janet Towbin, from the Milano Series, mixed media on canvas, 2007, 24″ X 24″.

I think I finally hit my stride in the studio. Last night I completed a new canvas that I am very happy with. The square format works well and the colors turned out better than I had hoped. I think it’s a winner. Hopefully, this painting (and others) will travel to Santa Fe at the end of the month to be in a new gallery. It’s all in the works and I don’t want to jinx the negotiations by giving out too much information. I will post again when things are more certain.

It has been a struggle these past couple of weeks and it didn’t seem like I would win the battle of paint vs. artist. But I got over the hump of working in a small, cramped and horrendously messy space and found that ever-elusive sweet spot of creativity. Whew! Whenever I face a blank canvas, I am never certain I will be able to find my center of creativity again. It is like searching for a valuable gem put away for safekeeping, and then freaking out because you can’t find it right away. You know it’s there, you hope it’s there, but where is it??? Well, that was me, freaking out in my studio just days ago.

Now that I’ve found the “gem” again I am worried I will have to stash it away as classes begin in two weeks and I have tons to do to get ready for them. I need to plan my classes week by week, organize materials, books and projects, prepare syllabi, compile art supply lists and all the other organizational paperwork necessary to begin. I am also reading several books on feminism so I can properly discuss this topic in conjunction with a collage project I intend to assign my students. The project will be to read Herland (a book about a feminist Utopian society) written in 1915 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and to create a…. Ah, I don’t really want to say exactly what the project is, yet. I will eventually divulge the information, but not until my students hear about it first. But here’s a hint: it involves flags…

Bathed in War’s Perfume by Walt Whitman, 1900

BATHED in war’s perfume—delicate flag!
(Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,)
O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman!
O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships they arm with joy!
O to see you leap and beckon from the tall masts of ships!
O to see you peering down on the sailors on the decks!
Flag like the eyes of women.

Finding a poem that compares a flag to a woman is brilliant! I love Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. How serendipitous that I came upon it just now as I was writing this post.

There is a saying in medical schools and teaching hospitals about how to become proficient at a task: “See one, do one, teach one.” Teaching is truly the best way to learn anything. I just worry I might be learning more than my students!

Content and photos copyright 2007 by Janet Towbin.

INWARD TO ANOTHER LANDSCAPE

Well, I think I am getting back in the groove with my painting…even though I am not 100% satisfied with the work I made these last few days. I need to put in a lot more time and effort to really get my groove back. I will post a couple of my new attempts–so you can judge my progress for yourself. I feel more comfortable at this stage with my drawings and prints–the paintings just have to catch up to them.

I am reading a wonderful interview with poet Diane Wakoski in a book by Nancy Jo Hoy called The Power to Dream: Interviews with Women in the Creative Arts. Ms. Wakoski makes two wonderful comments I think are worth sharing:

“I love the color of things, I like the shape of things. I’m very involved with light and therefore the reflections and perspectives that you get from things.”

and this:

“I start with my eye, and my eye leads me inward to another landscape.”

I really like the way she describes her creative process–and how music and magic inform her poetry. She says that a physical life is worth little without a life of the imagination. One must combine the two to have a magical existence. I think that is such a beautiful way to look at life and creativity.

So here’s to magic…and our eyes leading us “inward to another landscape.”

Content and photos copyright 2007 by Janet Towbin.