Artist talk with Claes Gabriel, Jesse Harrod, Aislinn Pentecost-Farren, and Charlyn Griffith, and Sam Spetner, moderated by Roberta Fallon.
October 18, 6 PM
Free, Registration Required, Space Limited
On the occasion of Meadow Mansions: Designing Homes for Fairmount Park’s Winged Residents, join participating artists to hear more about the creative process behind the creation of their structures for bird habitats in the East Fairmount Park meadows. We will begin with a moderated discussion by Roberta Fallon of the Artblog and walk-through of the exhibition, followed by a Q & A with audience members.
Emily Bunker is a woodworker making furniture out of her shop-space in Port Richmond. While living in Philadelphia, she has had the opportunity to train under master furniture-maker Michael Hurwitz, and is currently a lead builder and project manager at a woodshop in the northeast. She has participated as an artist-in-residence at several programs including the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, Taliesin West.
Claes Gabriel was born in PortauPrince, Haiti in 1977. Gabriel studied painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1995-1999. His work deals with stretching canvas three-dimensionally to create paintings reminiscent of masks and statues. He has exhibited works in Paris, across the United States and in Haiti. He currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.
Charlyn Griffith and Sam Spetner have been working in creative partnership since 2014. They have collaborated on projects ranging from curriculum design, mural planning and execution and urban design strategies revolving around human centered design practices, and together they facilitate afterschool programming for Mural Arts. Charlyn is a community visionary and artist, with highlighted strengths in facilitation, education and body awareness and is currently the Community Engagement Director at Tree House Books in North Philly and in residency with Spiral Q. Sam has a background in architecture, design, and fine arts and his current body of work in geometric abstraction deals with color and the relationships of geometric “bodies” in space.
Mallary Johnson is a Philadelphia-based artist and educator. She received a BFA from Moore College of Art and Design in 2001 and an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2011. Her work utilizes strategies of drawing, photography and installation to create intersections between visual art and ecology. Incorporating Slow Design principles, recent projects have focused on exploring the personal, ecological and cultural impact of material choices within the design process. She currently serves as the President of the Board for the Valley Forge Audubon Society.
Aislinn Pentecost-Farren is an artist and curator. Her projects are site-specific, based on historical research, scientific data, and first-person inquiry. She has been awarded residencies and fellowships at Elsewhere, 40th St AIR, Slought Foundation, Mildred’s Lane, the Wagner Free Institute of Science and Philadelphia Mural Arts. Currently, Aislinn works with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program producing a series of socially engaged art interventions at Bartram’s Garden, and curating an environmental artist residency with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. In 2012 she co-founded art and design collective Camp Little Hope, who has since created commissions for the Hidden City Philadelphia Festival and the Arts Council of Wales, among others.
Moderated by Roberta Fallon, an artist, writer and co-founder and editor of Artblog, the online arts publication she began with Libby Rosof in 2003. Fallon manages the publication as chief editor and operates as Executive Director of the non-profit organization, TheArtblog, Inc. She teaches Professional Practices in the Fine Arts Department of Saint Joseph’s University and provides workshops on writing about art through Artblog. Fallon has juried or curated exhibitions at York College of Pennsylvania, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art and Murray State University in Kentucky and has been an invited lecturer on contemporary art at Cranbrook Academy, Swarthmore College, University of Pennsylvania, University of Delaware and elsewhere. Fallon holds a degree in English from the University of Wisconsin and has studied painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture at Tyler School of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She was born in Wisconsin. Fallon and her husband, Steven Kimbrough, have three grown children.