There’s still a chance to see a brand new and amazing exhibition of portraits of African Americans by African Americans with connection to West Philadelphia. The “Finding Faces: A Century of African-American Portraiture” is an exhibition of a portion of a private collection of artworks presented in collaboration with the Diartspora Gallery, currently on display at the University City Arts League (UCAL). It is a special event celebrating “Black History Month.” The exhibition will run through Friday, Feb. 28.

A special reception will be held today, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Arts League (4226 Spruce St.), and collectors Michael Guerin and Katie Pfeiffer of the Diartspora Gallery will be on hand to discuss the origins of the art collected over a period of 20 years.

This is a powerful exhibition you don’t want to miss, according to the Arts League’s executive director Noreen Shanfelter. UCAL is grateful to the collectors for giving them this opportunity so they can share it with the community.

The show includes approximately 25 paintings, small sculptures and photographs and is curated by artist Douglas Witmer and award-winning photographer Lori Waselchuk. For more information and the gallery hours, visit: http://ucartsleague.org/.

AIRSPACE will host the 4th Annual Friends & Neighbors Exhibit. (Photo courtesy of the 40th Street Artist-in-Residence program.)

Don’t miss the chance for a great show opening tonight at AIRSPACE (formerly known as AIR Gallery). The annual exhibit showcases the work of 40th Street resident artists’ friends, neighbors, students and colleagues. Each resident invited two artists to participate in the show. So here’s who’s participating this time:

Barbra Chigounis
Rachel Dobkin
Justin Duerr
Adam Fergurson
Petra Floyd
Lauren Hansen-Flaschen
Najee Haynes-Follins
Terry Johnson
Brooke Lanier
Nicole Myles
Johnny Plastini
Shawn Thornton

To check out the profiles of the participants, who work in a variety of media, visit the 40th Street Artist-in-Residence Program website. The program awards West Philadelphia artists with free studio space for one year. In exchange, the resident artists “give back to the community” by organizing shows and teaching workshops and classes.

The opening reception starts at 6 p.m. (we hear there will also be some great food!) The gallery is located at 4007 Chestnut Street, First Floor. If you don’t make it to the reception you can also see the show on the following Saturdays: Jan. 25, Feb. 1, and Feb. 8 1-4 p.m.) and by appointment (email: 40th.air.app@gmail.com).

This is a call to all creative neighbors: Fun-A-Day, the annual community art project organized by the Artclash Collective, returns next month and your participation is very welcome. Here’s what you are asked to do:

Choose a project and make one piece of artwork every day for the entire month of January, then share your work in a group art show held the following month. The 31 resulting pieces create a narrative outlining each artist’s journey through the first month of the year. Projects may vary from lighthearted to serious, “high-brow” to “low-brow.” Past year’s list of mediums includes photos, drawings, paintings, songs, textiles and more.

Since its inception in 2005, Fun-A-Day has grown to inspire similar art shows around the country and internationally and shown tens of thousands of pieces by hundreds of artists. Fun-A-Day Philadelphia is organized by a group of local artists, including three of the founding members of the Artclash Collective.

Photo via Fun-A-Day on Facebook.

The 10th Annual Fun-A-Day Art Show will be held at Studio 34 (4522 Baltimore Ave) on Friday, Feb. 7, and Saturday, Feb. 8, 2014, 7 p.m.-11 p.m. Studio 34 has hosted the event since 2008. The “Fun-A-Day Lite” show will feature select pieces of various projects in the hallways of Studio 34 for an entire month after the show, until mid-March.

Participation in Fun-A-Day is free and open to all ages. No sign up is necessary. Everyone is invited to join in on the fun and come to the show to see what your friends and neighbors have been up to during the first month of 2014.

Please follow Fun-A-Day on Facebook or visit the Artclash Collective website for updates on the show.

Art part of “American Queen” series (Photo courtesy of Davis)

“Too many Basquiats. Not enough new artists.”

Black acrylic etches the lines of the first five words atop three stacked yellow crowns that run down the canvas’s vertical. The letters of the last two words—arguably the most prolific—are bold white on top a banner of black at the end, serving as the eyes of a symbolic queen. The background is a sea of baby blue with random strokes of white, red, navy and yellow.

In a way, Tiffany Davis’s anchor of her “American Queen” series—and the series itself, which includes “Never Condense Art,” a spin on Andy Warhol’s infamous soup cans—is both reverence and dismissal. For her series, the 29-year-old West Philadelphia artist (who goes by American Queen TJD (Facebook page)) takes elements from her favorite artists—like Jackson Pollack’s splashes or Jean-Michael Basquiat’s crown—and treats them as foundations for a larger purpose. Davis then washes the distinct trademarks away with her own deeply felt abstract expressionism—each canvas a kaleidoscope of color and words that call to a greater mission.

“Anybody can reproduce anything that Basquiat did, but why would you want to do it?,” Davis said, talking from her hotel room on Sunday as she waited for the Eagles game to begin. “I can probably make a name for myself [if I called] myself the female Basquiat, but why should I have to do that?”

Davis, who works during the day as a program director at Drexel University, hung up the hats of her successful fine art-cum-clothing line Cocky Persona last year in order to concentrate on the canvas-based visual work. It’s art that projects a message, with all canvas infected with the moments taking place in her life or in the world at large. (Her next string of pieces will reflect her recent trial — losing her rented South Philly home this past weekend to a fire. The day of our conversation, she was in the process of moving back to her childhood home at 56^th and Larchwood.) You can read it in the words that brand each canvas, like “Waste no time. Live,” “Breathe. Passion proves itself,” “Love you first,” or “Worth, state of mind”—positive reinforcements from the gut.  Continue Reading

Halloween week is here and we compiled a list of spooky and fun happenings in our area, for kids and adults alike, in the next few days. If you know of any other events that are not included in the list please email: editor@westphillylocal.com or use the comment section below.

Tuesday, October 29

Bat House Building Workshop – Mariposa Food Coop (49th & Baltimore) – 7 p.m. – A special Halloween week workshop exploring the funny flying nocturnal creatures and what you can do to help restore their often threatened habitat. You can learn how to build your own bat house, where to put it, and what to do when a colony moves in. Free admission. Please RSVP to education@mariposa.coop.

Thursday, October 31

Peanut Butter and Jams Halloween with Charlie Hope – World Cafe Live (30th & Walnut) – 10:30 a.m. – Come sing along with 2012 Juno Award Winner Charlie Hope. Charlie will sing some well-known songs as well as her originals that will get children and parents moving and singing along. Audience participation is encouraged, so be sure to bring your singing voices and dancing shoes! Costumes are welcome. Tickets ($10) are available here.

Halloween at The Woodlands – 40th & Woodland – noon – 4 p.m. – Bring your kids for some treats at the mansion before the tot parade in Spruce Hill.

Stories to Make you Shriek! – Kingsessing Library (1201 South 51st Street) – 4 p.m. – A spooky story time presented by Ms. Kim for brave kids.

Spruce Hill Halloween Tot Parade – 45th & Baltimore – 4 p.m. – This is a fun Halloween tradition in the Spruce Hill neighborhood. The parade will start gathering after 4 p.m. on 45th St. just north of Baltimore Ave. (next to Milk and Honey). The kick-off time is 4:30 p.m. To read more about the parade, click here.

Town Watch Haunted Gym – St. Francis de Sales School (47th & Windsor) – 5-7 p.m. – This year, St. Francis de Sales School has agreed to host the annual Haunted House & Garden event, in their already scary Basement-Gym-Basketball Court. Springfield Avenue will remain open this year, but the 900 and 1000 blocks of Farragut  and the 900 block of 47^th Street, from Springfield to the north side of Warrington, will be closed to auto traffic. For more info and if you want to volunteer at this event, check out this page.  Continue Reading

This Saturday and Sunday (Oct 19-20), catch a behind-the-scene glimpse of local art life by visiting studios of many great artists participating in the annual Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST). Each October, over 300 artists across Philadelphia open their studios and work spaces for tours (guided and self-guided), exhibits, demonstrations, talks and receptions. The Philadelphia Open Studio Tours is an annual celebration of visual art in the Philadelphia region. It’s also called a Fall festival of visual art. The West Philly arts community is excited to host the tours this weekend and can’t wait to show you around their studios and tell you more about their work.

Self-guided tours are free to the public and run from Noon – 6 p.m. on both weekend days. You can plan your tour as you like and here you can find more information on what West Philly artists and community partners will be waiting for POST tourists this weekend: http://philaopenstudios.org/post/neighborhood/west-philadelphia. Along with individual artists, community partners, such as The Green Line Cafe, The Institute of Contemporary Art, and The Cedar Works, are inviting guests for exhibitions and other special events this weekend.

Guided Trolley Tours are on Sunday from 1:00 – 5:30 p.m. They depart  from The Gallery at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists at 237 South 18th Street. The cost is $40 per seat and advance reservations are required. For more information, click here.