P'unk Avenue Window

the proposal show
works on paper
(managed expectations)

P’UNK AVE designer Richard S. Banister Jr and Catherine A. Kane are currently working on an art show about making art. Hopefully they’ll be done by the opening on Saturday, June 2nd, but making art is sort of hard and pointless and expensive and sometimes boring to look at. Which is what the show is about anyway. So, if they can bring themselves to finish making some art about making some art, they’ll be really happy to see you and your friends between 7pm and 11pm on the aforementioned date.

Here is the flyer that they made even before they made the art.

The Proposal Show
14 Drawings by Catherine A. Kane and Richard S. Baniter Jr
The Padlock Gallery
1409 Ellsworth St (5 blocks from the studio)
Opening: Saturday, June 2 2007 7 - 11PM

I have been working on-again, off-again on a pet project documenting typography/signage in the Italian Market (aka 9th Street Market) in Philadelphia for a while now. The market is about 50 feet from our studio.

My original intention was to create a book of this signage with a photo on the verso (left) page and a tracing of the letterforms on the recto (right) page. Something like below:

I had also wanted to invite type designers like Matthew Carter and other knowledgeable people to write commentary for the book. At one point, I mentioned this to Matthew after a lecture at UArts, and he gave me his card to follow up.

Since the Italian Market is considered to be one of America’s oldest outdoor markets, it allowed me to photograph a vast array of signage history in a very small area. Even a casual observer might notice that the signs range from the handmade to machine-made, from old to new.

The other night, while watching Helvetica, the movie, it occurred to me that Flickr would be a great way to get the photos up on the web and allow for commentary from everyone. The book could wait… or maybe never happen.

I found the set and uploaded them on our Flickr account last night.

This morning, I wake up and bang. One of them is featured on Philebrity. Yeah.

Just happy to dust them off and start the dialogue.

Rosi Dispensa, Tower, C- Print, 2006

It is one of those moments in time when various cool things have started to coalesce in one place.

That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I am excited about all of these cultural things that are happening in the neighborhood that P’unk Avenue calls home.

Case in point: there are 4 art openings this friday night in our hood. Of equal interest, there could have been 11! In fact, I have started to create a map of places that show and/or create culture near us. I know of a few more, and I am sure there is stuff I am missing.

Because I have a lot of free time (!), I am in the process of trying to coordinate this so that everyone considers doing something on the 2nd Friday of the month. Nancy at Benna’s Cafe has openings on this schedule, so it only makes sense to build upon this.

Today’s Daily News mentions this emergence of this art scene in South Philadelphia.

Some other cool things to note: Kun-Yang Lin Dance Company bought a building in the area and has intentions of opening their studio here.

2nd Friday Art Crawl in our Neighborhood!

May 11th starting at 6pm

__________________________

Rosi Dispensa: The Pittsburgh Series
An abstract look at the steel mills along route 837 in Pittsburgh, PA.
P’unk Avenue
1168 E. Passyunk Avenue, Philadelphia 19147
Opening: May 11, 6 - 10 pm

Katie Henry
Benna’s Cafe
8th & Wharton
Philadelphia 19147
Opening: May 11, 7 - 9 pm

Jared Udel: New Work
Annin Street Studio
1222 Annin Street
Philadelphia 19147
Opening: May 11, 6 - 8 pm

The Bards of Bruley Presents: “More Than Adequate”
w/ musical performance by Mr. Unloved
The Padlock Gallery
Opening Reception: Friday, May 11, 2007, 7-10

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The Debtor’s Inheritance project that I wrote about in March is going live this sunday, May 6th!

I hope you can all make it.

We have really enjoyed the collaboration with Katie Murken on this project.

This foray into ubiquitous computing has allowed us to play with text-messages (SMS) as a medium. Delivering narrative through a text message is something that we will continue to develop.

One of the cool things that emerged from this process is the idea of pacing. The narrative is delivered in multiple messages. However, if you always receive them in rapid fire – one right after the next – it can get overwhelming. We gave Katie a tool to control the pace at which the different narratives were delivered so that she could play with the timing for each one.

It is probably fitting that Katie and I both graduated from the Book Arts/Printmaking MFA program at The University of the Arts where we studied this kind of stuff in relation to printed books. I have always been the black sheep of the program, though, with my interest in the digital!

Here are the details of how to experience this project:

Debtor’s Inheritance

(part of Green Machine curated by John Murphy of InLiquid)

May 6 - October 30, 2007

Opening Reception:

Sunday, May 6 2007

5:30 Reception

6:00 Gallery Talk

6:30 Trail Walk

At the The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education

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