Art in City Hall times deux

Last night was the opening reception at Art in City Hall for Fairmount Park's Colonial Elite, an exhibition of work by students and alum (that's me!) of Moore College of Art and Design inspired by the historic houses of Fairmount Park. I selected Woodford House which is on 33rd and Dauphin here in Philadelphia- go visit- it's lovely and contains the Naomi Wood Antique collection. Unfortunately the lighting in the hallowed halls of City Hall is pretty dismal, thus rather disappointing photos of the work below. But if you delve into the blog archives around August and September, you can see the work in progress. That dark blob of a ribbon on the bottom right reads "OUTSTANDING PARTICIPANT"- I even got a letter telling me how great I am... It would have been REALLY nice if the alumni had been eligible for cash prizes too- even the other honorable mention prizes for the students carried a $50 prize. But, you know, I'm making the big bucks now that I'm an established artist... Okay, enough cynicism. I really did enjoy the project and the process and I love that City Hall has an Arts program, extremely visible to those who work there and visit there- the movers and shakers of the City of Philadelphia.

While I was there I stopped down on the 2nd floor to check out the Paper Works! exhibit and got to visit the collaborative book Michelle Wilson and I created last year. The exhibit was curated by Winifred Lutz, and includes some amazing Philadelphia paper artists including Susan White, Lesley Haas, and Virginia Maksymowicz (those three are off the top of my head-and artists whose work I'm quite familiar with) It's an extremely well- curated show, and for once the showcases felt like the proper space for the artwork- much of it would be rather too delicate to be displayed openly in such a venue. Go visit this month before it disappears! City Hall is on the intersection of Broad and Market, and the artwork can be seen on the 5th floor (Fairmount show) and 2nd & 4th floors (paper show). Enter the building on the Northeast corner, sign in at the desk, and see the show during business hours M-F. You might even run into Mayor Nutter- who happens to have grabbed a cameo in the new film Law Abiding Citizen (City Hall is featured heavily in this Philadelphia-based movie).