West Philly artist Nile Livingston with some works from the “Baltimore Avenue Series” (Photo by Annamarya Scaccia / West Philly Local)

Nile Livingston’s presence is calming.

We’re seated at the back corner table in Green Line Café on Baltimore Avenue. Livingston is sitting across from me, every once in a while dodging the sunlight coming through the window. As she answers my questions about her art, she’s composed and soft-spoken—her responses brief, but with a relaxed kindness.

Which is completely opposite of her work. As West Philly Local wrote about nearly two years ago, Livingston is the visual artist behind the “Baltimore Avenue Series,” which chronicles life on the corridor through colorful line drawings. (The series was displayed in Gold Standard Café’s dining room in 2012.) For the series, Livingston took scenes of everyday Baltimore Avenue life and put them down on stark white paper, first creating contour lines and then adding vibrant dabs and streaks of color Sharpie paint markers to bring them to life.

The “Baltimore Avenue Series” was inspired by “the day-to-day pedestrian archetype” she’d often see after moving back to West Philly following her graduation from Kutztown University, where she earned a B.F.A in large metal fabrication and sculpture. As she notes on her website, the series “captures the fleeting moods” of the community as “it’s transformed by the influx of growing businesses, new residents, petty crimes, and trope characters.”

And all of the characters that compose the new West Philly are there: the jogger, the coffee shop writer, the dog walker, the artist, the neighborhood kids, and the parents with their children. Her favorite image from the series, titled “The Museum of Momma Art: Affordable Gifts for Mother,” is of a woman pushing a stroller down the street.

The final images, she said, are based both on observation and imagination.

“I tried to take these archetypes and leave it open to a story,” said Livingston, 26, who also designed the Cecil B. Moore playground mural at 22^nd Street and Lehigh Avenue. “I don’t know what their lives are about, so I draw people that are kind of similar to them. These aren’t people I know necessarily. These are all strangers.” Continue Reading

From left to right:  Hunter Gatherer shop manager Dominick Caswell and tattoo artists Josh Anderson, Zack Traum and Mike Munter (Photo by Mike Lyons/West Philly Local).

In November, we reported that plans to bring a tattoo studio to 4510 Walnut Street were in the works, becoming the latest business to occupy the revolving storefront.

Well, readers, turns out those plans become a reality two weeks ago, when Hunter Gatherer Tattoo (Facebook page) open its doors. Co-owned by tattoo artist Josh Anderson and Falls Taproom owner Marvin Graaf, Hunter Gatherer Tattoo becomes the third tattoo shop to operate in West Philly.

Hunter Gatherer, which is open seven days a week, specializes in traditional and neo-traditional designs with an illustrative focus, said Anderson. Anderson, 33, serves as the shop’s main artist, working every day to get Hunter Gatherer “off the ground and going.” Tattoo artists Mike Munter and Zack Traum also work out of the studio on a rotating schedule, with Dominick Caswell acting as shop manager.

So far, business has been good and “super positive” for the tattoo studio, with the community showing “nothing but great support,” Anderson said. Once the weather breaks, the owners plan to host a grand opening party with an art show featuring local artists, a private DJ, and food and drinks.

Hunter Gatherer Tattoo (Photo by Annamarya Scaccia / West Philly Local)

With Hunter Gatherer, Anderson said he wants to set it apart from the studios typical of South Street or in Brooklyn — two “touristy” places he’s worked where customers are rarely repeat. Instead, he prefers a relaxed atmosphere where he can make “all the artists happy and all the clientele happy.”

Much of the woodwork in the shop—a space that has been many things over the years and most recently an art gallery—was made from reclaimed wood pallets that Anderson and others cut and fitted together. The repurposing of materials, as well as Graaf and Anderson’s childhoods in big hunting and fishing towns, are much of why the shop is named Hunter Gatherer, Anderson said.

“I was getting sick of just having that whole hustle, bustle, not really get to know anyone. My clientele there, you never really saw them again,” Anderson, who’s worked as a tattooist for over a decade, told West Philly Local. “I’d like to develop a relationship with my clientele.

“We’re just trying to create a nice space for everybody to come and see, and get tattooed, that has a good vibe and environment.”

Hunter Gatherer Tattoo is open Mondays to Thursdays from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m., Fridays & Saturdays from 12 p.m. to 11 p.m., and Sundays from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Walk-ins and appointments available. For more information, call 267-233-7015.

-Annamarya Scaccia

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Dominick Caswell is a tattoo artist. He is the shop manager. We regret the error.

Photos by Annamarya Scaccia / West Philly Local

When I first met Lola Reed a few weeks ago, I was struck by her style.

It’s a brisk Saturday in February, and Reed is meeting me for a mid-morning interview at her new store, HALO Foundation Boutique. She’s wrapped in a chic tan coat and sporting killer heels that make her hike over the mound of snow she’s crossing a bit shaky. As we make small talk during her walk over, Reed has a warm smile on her face.

Reed, 28, opened HALO Foundation Boutique at 4616 Baltimore Avenue during the holidays, taking over the space from a short-lived clothing store. It’s a small two-level shop with oversized front windows, decked out mannequins, and an intimate atmosphere. A cozy nook notches out the ground floor, where high-end and designer clothing, jewelry, and accessories are placed on display.

To the right, wooden stairs lead up to a nearly empty loft space. A cozy loveseat and cluttered table are pushed against the back wall, which is plastered with a large collage of fashion editorials and photos of runway models cut from magazines.

This is where we find ourselves after we’ve made our way inside. As we sink into the couch, Reed, dressed in all black, begins to chat with affection about the boutique and its backstory. The air is filled with faith music playing from a portable stereo/CD player on the floor. Light from the morning sun bathes the space.

In a way, it’s a scene that perfectly encapsulates Reed’s mission, of which the boutique is only a part. Continue Reading

Many Spruce Hill residents know Richard Guffanti, a retired teacher and community organizer who lives near 45th and Spruce. Richard is always ready to help his neighbors with various problems and is also keeping an eye on his block.

This thank you note and photo came from our reader Veronica:

“This is Rich Guffanti, shoveling the pedestrian walkway on 45th and Spruce – an area he isn’t even responsible for as a homeowner! He was just doing it so that people can get through safely. I was catching the bus on 45th and Spruce and saw him being a great neighbor. Thank you, Rich.”

Fulani cowboys driving their cattle to water. (Photo by Anna Badkhen)

To say the least, Anna Badkhen is a wanderer.

From the edges of Mexico to the villages of war-torn Afghanistan, the West Philly-based Badkhen has roamed the earth, searching for those societies in extremis—those people living in the farthest reaches. It’s often there, in those outlying regions, where she finds a fuller picture of life: of communities surviving in areas unheeded by the contemporary world.

As a journalist and writer by trade, Badkhen has written four books and countless articles about people in extremis, translating her experiences and their realities into exceptionally woven and affected stories. And now, Badkhen has launched an Indiegogo campaign to help fund her latest book, Walking with Abel (Riverhead Books), which will publish next year.

Donations to Badkhen’s campaign, which closes on March 8, will help fund the completion of the Walking with Abel manuscript. The book tells a nomadic Fulani family’s story of “survival, perseverance and adaptation” living in the Sahel region of Mali in Western Africa, where Badkhen spent much of 2013. Ultimately, says her campaign site, the fundraiser will “make truly communal the book that explores the mega-narrative of all of our human migrations, our ancestral restlessness, our shared hejiras.”

When West Philly Local asked Badkhen about what made this trip truly unique, she replied:

“‘Where are you from?’ My hosts in an Afghan village would ask, my hosts on a farm in Western Iraq, in the velvet mountains of Indian Kashmir, in the snakepit dugouts of Azeri refugee camps. I had grown up in a country that no longer existed, in a city that since had changed its name: Leningrad, USSR. I had moved away, and moved again, and again. My point of departure was never the same: Moscow, Massachusetts, Philadelphia. It made for relatively effortless travel. It made for uncomfortable silences, odd hesitations.

The Fulani ‘are regarded everywhere as ‘the other’ or ‘the stranger,’ writes the Dutch anthropologist Mirjam De Bruijn. ‘They are always the people who come from far away.’ They were hereditary outsiders who appropriated all the space their cows required at any given time but never more than that. The Fulani never asked me where my home was.”

–Annamarya Scaccia

This is the next in the series of vignettes of local block captains drawn from Them That Do, a multimedia documentary project and community blog by West Philly-based award-winning photographer Lori Waselchuk. Make sure to go to Them That Do for more photos, videos and other information and updates.

Leonia Johnson is a young block captain on the 200 block of S. Millick Street in West Philadelphia. Photo by Lori Waselchuk

Last March, Leonia Johnson stood up at the Cobbs Creek Block Captain Association’s monthly meeting to speak about the murder of her neighbor and friend, Gregory “Chop” Scott, two weeks earlier. Scott had been shot seven times, at point blank, in front of his home on South Millick Street. When Johnson described cleaning the bloody crime scene after the police finished their work, the meeting room filled with moans. Her listeners, too, knew such pain.

“Chop was old school,” she said. Perhaps she wanted her audience to know that for her, age meant wisdom and experience. She was the youngest member of the association by decades.

Johnson described how Scott helped her keep the block safe. “If he saw young people selling drugs, Chop would ask them to move on and they would. They might not have liked what he was saying, but they respected him.”

Her message was both a memorial and a call for unity. She said that the people who lived on the 200 block of S. Millick had “prayed together and declared as a block that this will not make us weaker.”

She knew that several members of the association also had experienced violent crime on their watch. So she said: “I say all this to you so that you do not give up your hope… and so that you do not become complacent.”

Johnson’s block has a history of unity, not violence. “We are like a family,” she told me during a recent interview. Then, after thinking about her words, she smiled to herself and added, “And we can be quite dysfunctional at times.”

Block captains have been a steady influence on S. Millick. “We’ve never not had one,” said Johnson.

“When I was young, my mother was block captain. I watched the respect my mother got.” Johnson was a junior block captain, too. “I thought it was the coolest thing in the world to have a title,” she recalled.

After she graduated from college, Johnson got a job as a youth counselor at the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network, then moved into her mother’s home. Johnson, who now is 34, became the block captain eight years ago, after the previous captain moved away.

Being a young block captain has its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is Johnson’s ability to relate to youth. She once interrupted a dice game on a porch and a boy came up to her afterward to complain that he lost money because of her. “I told him ‘Well, you owe me thirty thousand dollars!’ and when he said ‘What?’ I said, ‘When I see ya’ll gambling, all I think about is how my property value is dropping thirty thousand!’”

Johnson understands why there are so few young block captains. “Very few 30-40 year-olds do community service,” she says. “They are trying to establish themselves and they don’t think about the next generation.”

She had her own doubts too, she said. “I wondered how I’d be able to be effective and still have a life.”

Johnson is concerned that the block captains with whom she works are getting old and there are no volunteers to take over. If the older block captains simply fade away, “we won’t benefit from their knowledge,” she worries.

Johnson has built friendships with the elder block captains and feels responsibility to assist them when she can. It’s a lot to take on. “Somebody needs to help me bridge the gap!”

–Lori Waselchuk