Groundwork Group
'V' Table, 2025
Cherry wood, zinc-plated steel
Table: 30 t x 82 l x 38 w"
Benches: 18 t x 82 l"
Table with benches 46" wide

Artist Statement

Ernie Sesskin and Brian Foster brought together a passion for architecture, antiques (of all genres), interior and garden design to create Groundwork in '93. Brian and Ernie live and work in Philadelphia, PA.

Lee Lippman
San Pablo #39, 1998
Oil and wax on canvas
28 x 28"

About the artist

Lee Lippman (1927 - 2020) was a versatile painter celebrated for cultural fusion in artworks, murals, and exhibitions across prestigious galleries, prominently featured in esteemed collections.

Lee Lippman is a renowned Philadelphia artist with a rich artistic legacy. Lippman, whose career spanned several decades, was deeply rooted in the Philadelphia art scene. Lippman's work reflects his experiences in Mexico, the Mountain West, Philadelphia, New York City, and its environs.

Lippman's early works exhibit a distinctive style characterized by somber brushstrokes, demonstrating his foray into art brut-style abstraction. During his formative years, he studied under the tutelage of renowned muralists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros in Mexico. Additionally, he explored new artistic horizons at the Instituto Polytecnico Nacional. Following his time in Mexico, Lippman further honed his craft at the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts), where he earned recognition with the senior prize for painting.

Subsequently, Lippman embarked on a twelve-year sojourn in Mexico alongside his wife, Arlene Love, herself an accomplished artist. It was during this period that his artistic expression blossomed, infusing his work with vibrant hues and a newfound vitality. Lippman's paintings from this era vividly capture the essence of rural landscapes, employing bold color palettes to convey the luminosity and dynamism of his surroundings.

Throughout his career, which spanned from 1975 until his passing, Lippman remained dedicated to his craft, transitioning from canvas to paper mediums. His later works bear a modernist aesthetic with hints of abstraction, portraying ordinary moments in urban and rural settings. Characterized by swirling brushstrokes that evoke movement and texture, Lippman's signature landscapes exhibit elements of impressionism tinged with surrealism, featuring expansive skies and distinctive horizon lines.

Lippman's artistic legacy endures through the inclusion of his works in numerous private collections and esteemed institutions, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Woodmere Art Museum, James A. Michener Art Museum, Phillip Morris International, MAS Corporation, various universities and colleges, such as the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum at Ursinus College, among others.

Marguerita Hagan
Aquamarine Whisper, La Mer Marine Abstract, 2020
Ceramic
6-3/4 x 4 x 5"

Artist Statement

This Marine Abstract was inspired by sponges seen diving Cayman Island in 2019 and their brilliant engineering. Sponges are the filter system of the ocean clearing 90% of its bacteria, viruses and more while also producing oxygen.

While this series was in process, the pandemic lockdown occurred March 13, 2020 in the United States. Later that year the COVID vaccine was developed, modeled after compounds in a sea sponge.

All life on Earth began in the sea which continues to sustain us providing over 50% of the planet's oxygen. Sea sponges also modeled the first HIV treatment and first marine sourced drug for cancer. The list continues, making protecting our planet's largest element a crucial investment as if our lives depend on it, because they do.

Artist Bio
Marguerita Hagan is a ceramic sculptor based in Philadelphia. She is an activist for the thriving of all life in mutually sustainable communities and environments. The concept of interdependence plays throughout her sculpture, teaching and community arts.

Throughout her career, Hagan has brought to light the beauty and engineering of our planet's diverse ecosystems and our powerful role as stewards. At this climacteric time of change, her work focuses on the largest and essential element on earth, the ocean from micro to macro. The intricate ceramic forms shine light on the wonder and respect for the fragile, diverse life with which our lives are intrinsically linked. Hagan's practice is an ongoing discovery, magnifying our awareness, reciprocal responsibility and protection of each other and our planet.

She received her MFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and her BFA in Ceramics at James Madison University. University. Her projects include collaborations with scientists, artists and community, environmental art-science residencies and lectures. Her work is in private and public collections and exhibitions nationally and internationally.

Erlin Geffrard
Samson and jr., 2025
Mixed media
69-1/2 x 61-3/4"

Clarence Philbrick
Gunslinger of the Corner Three Sentinel, 2023
Rubber basketball, carbon-steel catcher's mask, shoes, cap-guns, baseball glove, yarn, and pine tar
18 x 16 x 10"

Asrtist Statement
Can be used for display or ritual.

Sentinels served various purposes, often equally invested in moving a team closer to championships as in helping athletes and fans deal with losses, psychological pain, and grief. These idols were created to represent supernatural beings and harness their uncanny powers. They were strategically placed in lockers, homes, sports bars, training facilities, or around the stadium, field, or court. Some guarded athletes and, in turn, teams and entire cities, from injuries and psychological trappings such as slumps, the yips, performance anxiety, or Steve Sax Syndrome. Others were designed to invite in flow-state, irrational confidence, unified swagger, or communal support.

This particular sentinel, as its name suggests, was/is/can be used to invite offensive fire power into ones life through confidence and mantras like "just let it go".

Artist Bio
Clarence Philbrick is a multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges visual arts, social practice, and relational research. His work investigates the transformative power of community, cultural dimensions of sports and play, and disassembling harmful patriarchal norms. Through ritual objects and social projects, Philbrick explores the violence and humor intertwined in dominant versions of masculinity.

Since graduating from Vassar College (BA) and The University of New Mexico (MFA), Philbrick has engaged with object making and a series of performance-based works, embodying themes of myth making, ritual, collective effort, play, and healing. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and his participatory projects have been featured by BBC, New Yorker Magazine, WHYY/NPR, Playboy, HuffPost, and Ethiopian TV.

Zakee Kuduro
Miss Brenda, 2022
Oil on canvas
76 x 76 cm (29.921 x 29.921")

Gerald Lang
Horse Photogravures Portfolio
Photogravure (set of seven prints)
15 x 19-1/4" each print
Edition #3 of 25

One print "Wolf Profile" Framed for display
Six prints in portfolio box.
Please use gloves to handle

Artist Statement
Gerald has an interest in vintage photographic process and explores, researches and applies this to his own photography. In this series of The Horse, his love of observing their own horses at play in the pastures, gestures of the foals they raised and social interactions between horses were the inspiration. Gerald chose photogravure for the limited edition of ink and archival papers to give an organic feel to the horses portrayed in the images.

Artist Bio
Gerald Lang is Professor emeritus and the founder of the first digital photography into curriculum for students enrolled in the College of Art and Architecture at Pennsylvania State University in mid 1990's. His work along with his wife, Jennifer Anne Tucker, spans six decades, individually and together they are collected globally and most recently in the permanant collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Bobbie D Adams
Ecstasy, 2024-2025
Monoprint
Paper size: 29-3/4 x 21"
Frame: 30-3/4 x 23-1/4"

Artist Statement
I am most interested in examining and pondering, and portraying aspects of the physical world. I have come to love the subjects of my childhood that I ignored back then - anatomy, physics, mathematics - and am intrigued with the challenge of portraying an essence or idea, of fundamental natural phenomena. My abstractions are intended to capture moments, movement, or place, and to create connections amongst seemingly disparate or unrelated elements.

The media of printmaking and paper making in particular attract me because of the many technical variables that affect the finished work. I use many different plates, and interweave many layers of transparent ink, assembling and embellishing, as well as overprinting. Every color is a separate plate and separate printing. The process and content are both meditative and labor-intensive. I have found this a satisfying way to develop the illusive and ghostly images I am most often seeking in this transient and turbulent world. I like to provide hints of subject matter in my titles, but leave specific narrative to the imagination of you the viewer.

Nancy Agati
Lago, 2002
Mixed media on paper (graphite, acrylic, watercolor)
Paper size: 17 x 13"
Frame: 32 x 24"

Artist Statement
Lago represents an investigation of the movement and flow of water that remains prevalent in my work.

The images visually describe the various views of a mountain top lake from a distance.
Through repetition, each individual vignette conveys the course of water through eddies and streams, with attention drawn to the changing light, reflection, and a blurred focus of the landscape.

Artist Bio

Nancy Agati is a Philadelphia based multidisciplinary artist. Her work includes works on paper, sculpture, site-specific installation, and public art. Agati holds a BFA from Alfred University School of Art & Design, NY, and an MFA from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. She has exhibited her work throughout Philadelphia and nationally, with select exhibitions at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Fairmount Water Works, Philadelphia, PA; Stockton University Gallery, Galloway, NJ; Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, NY; Hillyer Art Space, Washington, DC; and The Calandra Italian American Institute, NY.

Agati's work is featured in several collections, including The Pennsylvania Convention Center and Temple University. Her public projects about water and the environment include Aqua Terrace at the DaVinci Art Alliance, Basins and Borders for the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, Water Table for the New Jersey Coastal Climate Resilience Project, and FLOW at The Independence Seaport Museum. Agati has received two Leeway Foundation awards, along with project grants from the Hemera Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, the Atlantic City Arts Foundation, NOAA, NJDEP, and the City of Philadelphia. She has been an artist in residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute, NM; Lo Studio dei Nipoti, Italy; Main & Station, Nova Scotia; InLiquid/PHS/Meadowbrook Farm, PA; and Officina Stamperia Del Notaio, Tusa, Sicily.

Yoannyar
Sin titulo, 2024
Pintura (acrylic on canvas)
39-2/5 x 31-1/2"

La obra es acrílica sobre lienzo, con bastidor. Sin marco.

Artist Statement
YOANNY ALDAYA (HAVANA, CUBA, 1984) Visual Artist

Work with photography, video and performance dealing with topics about the plasticity of the individual identity and the effects of the social and political environment on the individual.

Materializing and embodying psychological states, Aldaya cuts, hides or disables the figures and forms, linking materiality and texture in a constant manipulation and transformation of that which portrays. His work uses references from religious iconography where we find rituals, sacred objects and representation of deities that are presented formally or metaphorical. The theatricality and the capacity for the hybridization of the self also play a role very important in his work where matter and the body become battlefields in the creation of individual, social, political and cultural identity.

Laurie Beck Peterson
Swash, 2025
Cyano-Phytogram, backlit box
Frame: 12-1/2 x 15-1/2"

This unique piece is on ortho lith film and is fixed, but as with all film, colors and tones could shift over time.

Artist Statement
The phytogram print, Swash, is part of the exhibition Actinic Traces, a body of work that explores the quiet, transformative interactions between light, plants, and time. I invite sunlight, water, and organic matter to participate in image-making, blurring the boundary between artist and environment. This is a collaborative act with the more-than-human world.

When making a phytogram, plants are first used to make a plant-based developer and then are pressed onto light-sensitive film, where their own biochemical signatures of tannins, oils, moisture, etch abstract forms and textures onto the surface. The backlit box presentation illuminates the true qualities of film by allowing light to pass through, almost like looking through a microscope. This reveals magnified textures and details that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Bio

Laurie Beck Peterson (b. 1962) is a U.S.-based artist known for her work with 19th-century photographic processes. Her practice explores impermanence, ephemerality, and the cycles of growth and decay in the natural world. In her most recent projects, she incorporates sustainable, plant-based printing techniques that align with her environmental themes.

Peterson is currently on faculty at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, PA, where she teaches contemporary applications of historical photographic methods. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and is held in numerous public and private collections.

Notably, she was selected to exhibit at the Royal Photographic Society's International Photography Exhibition 164 (IPE 164) in Bristol, UK. In 2025 this work was also on view at The Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock Abbey and is now in the museums collection. Other exhibition venues include the Woodmere Art Museum, The Delaware Contemporary, FotoNostrum Gallery, and The Museum of Gloucester.

Her work has been featured in publications such as Rfotofolio, The Hand Magazine, Gum Printing: A Step-by-Step Manual, Santa Fe Photographic Workshop Portraits, and Anthotype Emulsions (Volumes 1 and 3) and most recently is featured in the book Eroding Forms, launched at the 2025 Ephemere Photo Fest, Tokyo, Japan. She is represented by UpStart Modern Gallery in Sausalito, California.

Joel Katz
Gibellina, Sicily / Cinecittá, Rome
Photograph
Paper: 13 x 19"

Artist Bio

Joel Katz is a designer, photographer, and educator known for his work in information design, graphic design, and wayfinding. A recipient of the Rome Prize in 2002, he spent a year at the American Academy in Rome, marking his transition from film to digital photography.

His book And I Said No Lord, documenting Mississippi in 1964, was published by the University of Alabama Press in 2014. Katz studied at Yale University with Walker Evans. His design work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

Katz has lectured internationally and taught design at the University of the Arts.

William Bowser
Stacked with 2 ears, 1974
Stoneware / wood-fired
14 x 6 x 6"

Artist Statement
I have a long-standing interest and involvement with clay which is now a basic starting point for my art practice. I have had the very good fortune and privilege to have learned from some of the most well-known and highly knowledgeable instructors throughout my path through college and university, most especially Alfred University.

I have also worked very closely with curators, designers, and artists, as well as paintings and objects of all eras and from many cultures as a result of close to 30 years with design departments in two Smithsonian Museums, and finally with the National Gallery of Art, all located in Washington, D.C.

I'm interested in making "things," objects made in clay. Ceramic objects have been critical in human survival and art through their use in food utensils and food storage, the making of durable shelter, and territorial barriers, as well as sculpture, for millennia.

Clay has also been, and remains, critical in human culture in many areas - industry, art, ritual and metaphorical use. It is in these areas of the ceramic tradition that I am presently most interested.

I have also returned to drawing, primarily with gouache and pastel. The medium of drawing allows me to use a wider range of color than is possible in ceramic work (primarily because of the significant technical restraints in the firing of ceramic work) and allows me the ability to use my imagination more freely.

Bio
Born in Washington, D.C.

Cynthia Goodman Brantley
Half Empty, Half Full, 2017
Prismacolor color pencil drawing on Canson Mi Teintes drawing board
16 x 20"
Frame: 23 x 27"

Artist Statement
This work was done at a time when life was quite challenging for me. The idea of looking at life from a "half full" perspective was needed, but not always available. It is for me a humorous take on the concept.

Artist Bio
I am a Symbolist and a minimalist. I work from my imagination; finding images to express my experiences of life. The representation of an emotion as form and color is what compels me to do art. I began as a figurative artist, doing paintings and drawings of women. I later began incorporating natural objects with the women and finally painted or drew the objects themselves omitting the figures.

As I worked from the natural objects; for example, a twisted stick, I observed the objects and the effects of light on them closely. I endeavored to achieve a result of 3-dimensionality which I carried over into my subsequent geometric work.

It is the geometric work that I continue with now. I am still occupied with light and color and their effect on form. I do work with cones, triangles and sphere, still using natural objects from time to time. My work doesn't adhere to geometric forms, I use images as they come to me, so they might more properly be called "non-representational".

Diane Burko

Off Faga'alu Coast, January 6, 2018, 2018
Archival pigment print
15 x 15"
Edition 1 of 3

Courtesy of Cristin Tierney Gallery

Artist Statement
After focusing for several decades on monumental geological formations and waterways through landscape painting, Burko has shifted in the past 20 years to analyze the impact of industrial and colonial activity on those same landscapes. Burko's practice seeks to visually emulsify interconnected subjects- extraction, deforestation, environmental justice, indigenous genocide, ecological degradation- so the connection between them becomes impossible to ignore. While her work deals with impending climate catastrophe, rather than lingering in dystopia, it celebrates the sublimity of the landscape by honoring the intricate geological and political webs that shape the identity of a place. Her current body of work uses large-scale mixed media painting to examine climate issues impacting the Amazon Rainforest.

Artist Bio
Diane Burko (b. 1945, Brooklyn) is an American artist based in Philadelphia whose practice is situated at the intersection of art, science, and the environment. Burko has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, including shows at the Royal Academy of Art in London, Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Minneapolis Art Institute, National Academy of Sciences, Phillips Collection, Palmer Museum of Art, RISD Museum of Art, Tang Museum, Wesleyan University Center for the Arts. She has been awarded residencies in Giverny, Bellagio, the Arctic Circle, the Amazon Rainforest and the Atlantic Rainforest. In 2021, her solo exhibition Seeing Climate Change at the American University Museum was cited in the New York Times as one of the best shows of 2021. Throughout her practice, Burko especially cherishes her collaborations with researchers in the sciences. She learns the most from "bearing witness" to the land.

Andrew Chalfen
Canopy, 2025
Acrylic and paper on wood panel
24 x 24"

Artist Statement
"Canopy" represents a recent departure from my 3-D wall-mounted sculptures of the last few years. However, my creative process is somewhat similar in that I still trust a combination of randomization strategies and intentionality, along with experimentation and iteration. The psychedelic paper gingko leaves in "Canopy" were cut out from papers pressed pressed together with paint blobs and drops between them, yielding unexpected and often thrilling results. The overall gradient effect of the piece is intentional, but there was no way to plan out the thousands of interactions between the leaves, also unexpected and thrilling.

Artist Bio
Andrew Chalfen is a visual artist and musician living and working in Philadelphia. His work has appeared at many shows nationally and in and around Pennsylvania, such as the Abington Art Center, The Hoyt Center, and the Delaware Contemporary. His work has appeared on book jackets and album covers. He is the recipient of several awards, including winner of the Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series Mid-Atlantic Regional for 2018 and his piece "Vibration Lands" was displayed at SCOPE Miami during the Art Basel/Art Miami fair.

Julia Clift
Connected, 2024
Natural inks made from foraged walnut, goldenrod, and hibiscus, and synthetic carmine ink on paper
Custom frame: 12-1/2 x 13-3/4"
museum glass

Artist Statement
My work overall reflects on current American culture, my own mediated perception of reality, and humankind's fraught relationship with the natural world. Often appearing like collages, my oil paintings combine imagery from different American regions with invention and abstraction, envisioning new worlds and offering a sense of possibility. My smaller works on paper, like Connected, incorporate natural inks that I make from foraged plants. These pieces meditate particularly on ephemerality, on tensions between ecology and the built environment, and on the potential of hybrid, natural/human-made systems.

Artist Bio
Julia Clift is a Philadelphia-based artist using painting, drawing, and collage to grapple with current American culture, her own mediated perception of reality, and humankind's fraught relationship with the natural world. Her work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States, at locations including Massey Klein Gallery, Pentimenti Gallery, Fleisher Art Memorial, MassoniArt, Bloomfield Richwood Gallery, GreenHill Center for NC Art, Philip Slein Gallery, and Arnot Art Museum. Her pieces are held in permanent collections at Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, NY, and Penn Medicine's Clifton Center for Medical Breakthroughs in Philadelphia. Recently, she was named a 2026 CFEVA Fellowship Finalist. A passionate educator, Julia has taught painting and drawing at The Pennsylvania State University, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Maryland Institute College of Art, and West Chester University. At Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Julia co-created and continues to teach Visualizing Anatomy, a course that deepens medical students' understanding of anatomy through visual arts curriculum. In 2023, she conceived and curated Seeing the Anthropocene, a multi-venue exhibition in Philadelphia featuring works by over a dozen international artists, scientists, and musicians all grappling with urgent environmental issues. Julia received her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and her MFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University. She additionally studied under the painter Odd Nerdrum from 2009-2010. Her writing has been featured in BOMB, Hyperallergic, and Title Magazine.

Mel D. Cole
Black Ball, 2020
Archival digital print
12 x 18"

Karen Cooper
Sparkle City, 2024
Japanese Washi paper on Bristol vellum
Paper size: 4 x 6"
Frame: 6-1/2 x 8-1/2"

Artist Statement
The work is quiet and constructed from washi papers purchased in Japan. The elements have been added one by one until the work and its story is complete. The final composition emphasizes form but the white spaces play an important role.

My work is quiet. I take a meditative approach. My desk is cluttered with fractured pieces, but then I'll take a piece and put it next to another and it begins to tell me something... to tell a story. When I add the next element the story may change. Sometimes, as I add to the story, finding the next element becomes more and more difficult. I'll put the work aside for days, weeks or months. Then, suddenly, the solution will appear, like an insight that solves a mathematical puzzle. The work contains color and form, but also white space, which plays an equally powerful and important role. I recently started to add thread to collages as a connective tool; a way to help the eye move around the work in a balanced way.

Artist Bio
My background is graphic design. While living in NYC I took evening classes at The School of Visual Arts and free-lanced at prominent graphic design companies before founding my own studio. After New York my family moved to the South, Midwest and then Philadelphia. In 2014 we moved overseas, spending 2 years in Shanghai, then 2 years in Tokyo and returned to Shanghai for 2 years. While in Japan I fell in love with handmade washi paper and began to make small abstract collages incorporating found paper, thread, cloth and other everyday materials such as confectionary wrappers. My work on these collages continues to this day. I hope my work conveys the quiet, thoughtful, beauty of those source materials.

Peter Cunicelli
But His Face, 2025
Ceramic
13 x 10 x 9"
This piece is lined and holds water

Artist Statement
I hand build objects with intent. This piece was made for a show in Texas in April. It's a tongue in cheek name to address the severe lack of empathy among much of our population. I turned the phrase so that instead the harsh judgment is of a man instead of a woman. One side of the piece is really fluid and lovely, while the other is awkward.

Artist Bio
Peter Cunicelli is a Philadelphia artist who has been working with clay since 2000. As a student at The Clay Studio, he discovered hand built vessels and soon began rolling out slabs of his own. During this time, he began developing forms by studying traditional thrown forms and cutting templates. He has experimented with a variety of glazes and techniques and has worked in Raku, wood fire, porcelain, paper clay, cassius bassalt and other stonewares. His current studio practice builds and expands upon the desire to create forms that push the boundaries of form that are balanced between the dramatic and the refined.

Abel Dolby
Museum View Series (PMA), 2026
Oil on linen
25 x 29-3/4"

Artist Statement
Recently, I've been spending more time looking at the windows between artworks at museums. The windows become almost counter-programming to what's displayed in the galleries. This pallet cleanser now becomes the subject matter, and I'll be curious what the view from the window will be for this exhibit.

Artist Bio
Abel Dolby is a Philadelphia-based artist born and raised primarily in Indiana. He received his BFA in Studio Art from Indiana University and his MFA in Studio Art from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Since 2008, he has exhibited his work nationally in galleries and juried exhibitions.

Recent exhibitions include The Juried Show at Prince Street Gallery in New York (2025); A-Sides at Atelier Gallery(2024); and No Synthetic Colors at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2023). In 2022, he presented the solo exhibition Travelogue at Gamut Gallery.

Vincent D. Feldman
Convention Hall, Philadelphia, 2005
Archival pigment print from a large format film negative
21 x 32"
20/20

Provenance: Print was framed by the Philadelphia Atheneum for the exhibition City Abandoned: Selected Photographs by Vincent D. Feldman, September 11 - October 31, 2015

Artist Statement
The photograph of the demolition of Convention Hall is from the series City Abandoned, Charting the Loss of Civic Institutions in Philadelphia. This photograph appears in a double page spread on pages 107-108 in the 2014 award winning monograph book by the photographer.

Artist Bio
Vincent D. Feldman has photographed architecture and the urban landscape for nearly three decades. After receiving his B. A. from George Washington University in 1989, he spent several months visiting and photographing youth squatter communities throughout Europe. These autonomous movements have been redeveloping abandon government, military and industrial sites across Europe since the 1960's. As examples of urban historic preservation and culture building executed with little or no funds they left a lasting impression on Feldman.

When he returned to Philadelphia in 1991 his experiences in Europe began to help magnify and focus his insights on architectural subject matter, particularly the myriad issues that can confront historic buildings. The codes and questions, the particulars of design and adaptations, the marks of success and failure in both public and private architecture, are some of the principal motifs found in Feldman's body of work.

From 1993 to 2006 Feldman worked extensively on his Philadelphia: City Abandoned portfolio. This photographic collection of cast off civic buildings and infrastructure is a personal journey and investigation into what had become of this once teaming metropolis. This detailed exploration of early to mid-modern society in Philadelphia, through the looking glass of it's architectural presence is also a parallel examination of this nations tragic decline of the Common Good.

Feldman's master's thesis at the Tyler School of Art (1997) represented his first compilation of this work in gelatin silver prints. In 2001 he was the recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. This grant was significant in aiding much of the location shooting and cataloging as well as also being critical in providing the resources to make high quality digital prints culled from nearly two thousand 4 x 5 inch negatives. City Abandoned: Charting the Loss of Civic Institutions in Philadelphia, was published by Paul Dry Books in the Fall of 2013 and contains over 90 duotone plates and 60 pages of text.

Feldman lives and works in Philadelphia. His work is in the collections of the The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Allentown Art Museum, the Free Library of Philadelphia, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Zeit-Foto Salon, KOWA, Tokyo as well as in numerous private collections.

Kirby Fredendall
Conversation Between Trees 5, 2021
Oil and graphite on panel
16 x 16"

Artist Statement
My work on acid-etched tin grows out of years working with my mother, who crafted colonial lighting fixtures from tin and copper. Using acid washes and layered oil glazes, I create surfaces that suggest water, weather, and shifting landscapes.

The process allows the material itself to guide the image, producing atmospheric forms that move between abstraction and landscape. The work reflects both the craft traditions I grew up with and the river valley where I live and work.

Artist Bio
Kirby Fredendall (b. 1966) is an artist based in New Hope, Pennsylvania, along the Delaware River in Bucks County, a region historically associated with Pennsylvania Impressionism. Raised in a household of artisans and surrounded by the area's long artistic tradition, she developed an early interest in landscape and material process.

She earned a BA in Art History from Duke University and later completed an M.Ed. in Art Education with painting coursework at Arcadia University. Fredendall lives and works in New Hope, where her studio occupies a restored building that once served as a general store.

Timothy Gierschick II
Worm Food, 2024
Mixed media on paper
25 x 32" (framed)

Artist Statement
Worm Food is a meditation on mortality, and the "way of all things", including humans. It's rooted in my love of gardening and ecological processes but also brings it a little closer to home while maintaining a sense of playfulness and wryness.

Artist Bio
Timothy Gierschick II (b. 1976, Reading, PA) is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. His paintings and works on paper have been exhibited and collected both nationally and internationally, including by Duane Morris LLP offices worldwide, and Capital One Bank NA. Timothy earned his Bachelor of Arts, concentrating in Printmaking, from Messiah College in 2000. He has also been employed since 2004 by the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, as preparator.

Elissa Glassgold
The Visitor, 2022
Gouache paper
22-1/2 x 28-1/2"

Artist Statement
This image is part of a series I've been working on that relates to prescience, to premonition. It is about the quiet of snow, the sweetness of a moment, a fated encounter. That encounter is suggested in an out-of-the-ordinary, unexpected character waiting outside, just about to be seen by a child coming to look out at the snow. There are shapes being formed by the snowflakes … circles and house shapes. And shadows on the roof …of two figures not there. Of course, like most ofmy work, it is a self-portrait of sorts, a page from a visual journal.

Artist Bio

Elissa Glassgold received her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980. She earned a BFA and BA in Art Education from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Prior to that, she spent four years studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she was awarded a Cresson European Travelling Scholarship. In 1987, Glassgold was awarded an IndividualArtist grant from the Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts. She was a founding member of Nexus Gallery in Philadelphia, and has participated in group and solo shows in Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and North Carolina since 1984. In addition, Elissa has worked as a courtroom illustrator for CBS, and from 1990 until 2010 produced sculpted prototypes for the European and American toy industry. These works were widely acclaimed, and she received a number of international awards for her designs.

Since 2019, Ms. Glassgold has participated in residencies at The Vermont Studio Center and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Elissa taught at Temple/Tyler University in Philadelphia for several years as a full-time adjunct instructor of Painting and Drawing, and from 1981 to 2010 taught Figure Painting at The Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia. In addition, she wrote an undergraduate Liberal Arts course in Visual Language and Art History, which she taught at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, and at the Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia. Concurrent with College Teaching, Elissa was involved in early elementary art education for several years, working primarily with underserved communities in thePhiladelphia/New Jersey areas. Elissa divides her time between her home in Ontario, Canada, and Philadelphia, PA.

John Joyce
Ian, Mexico City, 2025
Platinum palladium print
Image: 2-1/2 x 2-1/2"
Frame: 14 x 11"
Variable edition

Artist Statement

This image is from an ongoing series of portraits taken in Mexico City for over a decade.

Artist Bio

John Joyce (Collingswood, NJ) is a photographer specializing in traditional and alternative processes, including gum bichromate, cyanotype, and his preferred medium, platinum-palladium. Recently, he has also explored sustainable plant-based methods such as anthotypes and chlorophyll printing. Working primarily with medium format film, Joyce creates small contact prints-often no larger than 2½" × 2½"-rich in detail and delicacy, inviting close engagement from the viewer.

Joyce has worked in alternative process photography for over twenty-five years. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, PIX: The Print and Picture Collection of The Free Library of Philadelphia, and private collections including those of artists Ann Hamilton and Pedro Slim.

Susan Abrams
December Woods #1
Copper toned silver print on paper handmade by the artist
15-1/2 x 19"

About
I am a photographer and a papermaker. My work melds the spontaneous playfulness and fluidity of paper making with the discipline inherent in the darkroom. Making my own paper accentuates the organic nature of the work. The complex interaction of paper and process results in textural, sensual prints, each of which are unique. A fascination with natural cycles, patterns and textures runs through my work and seeks to capture the beauty of a still point in life's chaos.

There are subjects that are better suited to printing on other media and I have work that is printed on standard papers (silver or digital) and on non-traditional materials such as silk. The project and the imagery determine my choice and I always attempt to have my printing method and media enhance the final work.

My training as an artist has been self-directed rather than formal. Through workshops, exchanging ideas with fellow artists, and much experimentation, I have evolved as an artist and developed my unique working methods and voice.

Lupien LaMountain
3D Pipes, 2023
Mixed media collage, acrylic, marker, sketchbook pages and found images on canvas
23 x 25 x 7/8˝

Artist Statement

My work merges painting and collage to explore themes of intensity, transformation, and popular culture. I'm drawn to the contrast and constant motion that defines contemporary life, nothing stays still for long. Through my practice, I aim to capture that energy and remind viewers that life is fluid, layered, and ever-changing.

Artist Bio
Jeremy "Lupien" LaMountain is a self-taught artist based in Philadelphia, PA. Born in 1997 in New Haven, CT, he discovered his passion for art early in life, inspired by both of his grandmothers who pushed him to explore the arts through multiple mediums. His work primarily incorporates acrylic paint, collage, and mixed media, exploring themes of contrast and popular culture, particularly through the lens of cartoons, advertisements, and urban life.

Lupien's artistic development has been shaped by his experiences living in Baltimore, New York City, and Philadelphia-cities that have influenced the rhythm, energy, and intensity of his work. His time creating art alongside college students and graffiti artists in Baltimore encouraged him to embrace both traditional and nontraditional materials and techniques.

His work has been exhibited in four group shows and one duo show in Baltimore and New York, and he has completed large-scale public murals, including a commissioned original piece painted directly onto a living room wall in a New York City loft.

Ron Rumford
Screen, 1998
Linocut
Image: 14 x 23"
Paper 22-1/2 x 30"

Ron Rumford is a printmaking artist influenced by modernism and minimalism, with a unique approach to monoprint, intaglio, and relief.

Ron Rumford sees his prints as maps or tracings of abstract journeys. They can be metaphors for real, physical travels, or completely imagined. He likes the tension that develops between the line and the shapes the line makes. The irregular shapes of the printing plates further imply that time and space are distorted and are never what we think they are. He does not want to prescribe how the prints should be viewed. His best hope is that the viewer will simply think less, and therefore see more. Mr. Rumford received a B.F.A. at the University of the Arts and studied at the Tyler School of Art, Rome, Italy. He lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

Stuart Lehrman
Without Hesitation, 2015
Acrylic enamel and oil paint on PVC panel
28 x 28"

Artist Statement
In my artistic practice, I navigate the shifting terrain between order and chaos, welcoming missteps, accidents, and unexpected revelations as guides toward discovery. Each experiment becomes a dialogue with material and chance, where the physical world offers its own contradictions and possibilities. Through this unfolding process, I pursue inventive solutions to the questions I pose, allowing intuition and uncertainty to shape the work as much as intention.

Artist Bio
Stuart Lehrman began his career on the West Coast, showing his work at galleries in San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles, and Dallas. His early work focused on richly colored ceramics and painted wooden and found object sculptures. He relocated to upstate New York in the 1990s and worked as art director for the New York State Health Department. Twelve years ago, he moved to Philadelphia to teach design courses at Jefferson University (now retired). He lives with his wife and works in his home/studio in Cherry Hill, NJ.

Lehrman's artwork is in numerous public collections.

Amanda Elle Lewis
Girasol (Sunflower), 2024
Gouache on vellum
22 x 17" (framed)

Picture on site unframed

Artist Statement
Meditating on the perfection inherent in nature, this piece merges geometric precision reminiscent of the Fibonacci sequence in the head of a sunflower through careful draftsmanship with petal-like flourishes in dazzling colors, representing the artist's imagination.

About
Amanda Elle Lewis is an artist and textile designer whose work is deeply influenced by the history of craft and ornamentation. Her handwoven and printed textiles often begin with hand drawing and painting, exploring geometry in whimsical colors and reflecting the meditative and spiritual aspects of art-making.

The daughter of a fashion design professor, Lewis trained in classical art from a young age and pursued a Textiles degree at Rhode Island School of Design. She has since worked as a textile and fashion designer for independent, corporate, and high-fashion clients.

Wendy Liss
Zigzag, 2026
Ceramic
6 x 13 x 13"

Wendy Liss currently has work on view at the Hyatt Centric Divine Fragments - Meet the Maker Series, now through May 11.

Artist Statement
Wendy Liss creates hand-built ceramic sculptures that delve into the formal elements of line, form, texture, color and composition. Drawing inspiration from nature, architecture and the human figure, her work emphasizes the contrast between soft contours and sharp angles, the interplay of the interior and exterior and the construction of gestural, dynamic edges. This harmonious interaction of opposing forces embodies the physical essence of her work. Liss uses tinted clay in order to reveal the material's natural surface, allowing the inherent beauty of the medium to shine. Her studio practice relies on a balance between conscious intention with spontaneous response, bringing a sense of immediacy and vitality to each piece.

Artist Bio
Liss graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and an Art Education certificate from Moore College of Art in Philadelphia. She has worked in fine art restoration, interior design, and the curation of local art exhibitions. Liss has sculptures in public and private collections and currently teaches "Find Your Edge" at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford, Pennsylvania.

Jacque Liu
Forsythe, 2009
Mylar, paper, paint
20 x 20"

Artist Statement

Throughout all of my work, there seems to be a desire to understand the notion of place. This began with a condition of constant travel for many years: born in Taipei, Taiwan; raised in St. Louis; two years of adulthood in Germany; six years in Detroit Area; et al. In 2008, I moved to Philadelphia and have lived here ever since, the longest residence since childhood.

To understand place, my eye gravitates towards everyday architectural elements, often focusing on windows, doors, vents, staircases, chairs and abandoned houses in the vastness of a cityscape. My work, following my eye, becomes an abstraction of details within my encountered landscapes. The process is personal. I recast the imprints of my history of places, but I also re-contextualize a history of the object or site at hand. My works are purposely slow, seeking to be deliberate in its sense of engagement.

Artist Bio
Jacque Liu is a Philadelphia-based artist, educator, and arts administrator committed to using the arts to foster positive community impact. He has over 20 years of experience in public art, grantmaking, and community development, including serving as Philadelphia's Percent for Art Program Manager and Program Manager at Forecast Public Art. He has also worked at the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and served on panels for the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and Redevelopment Authority.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Liu earned a BFA from Alfred University, an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a Fulbright at Universität der Künste Berlin. His artwork has been widely exhibited and reviewed in The New York Times, Newsweek, NPR, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mark Loughney
SWAT Descending A Staircase, 2022
Acrylic on MDF panel
Panel: 30 x 24"
Frame: 34 x 28"

Artist Statement
The inspiration for this piece hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a piece by Marcel Duchamp titled Nude Descending A Staircase. His was a groundbreaking work of art in the Futurism movement. Today the likelihood of a SWAT Team descending one's staircase seems just as likely as a beautiful nude woman. The Dark figure depicted in my piece is reminiscent of Darth Vader, an ominous presence. The SWAT member's laser scope is analogous to Vader's lightsaber. We live in a time of overpricing and state control, which is the central theme of this piece.

About
I'm a Philly based artist using absurdism to expose the need for change in our social systems.

Dominique Lutringer
Chochikikyo #12321, 2021
Pigment, acrylic on paper
21.4 x 15.5"

Artist Statement
The Villa Chochikukyo
This series of abstract paintings offers a personal interpretation of Chochikukyo, a Kyoto villa designed by architect Koji Fujii in 1928. Through a carefully balanced interplay of color, texture, and geometric composition, the works translate the architectural harmony of the villa into a pictorial language.

The vertical and horizontal divisions recall the structure of traditional Japanese interiors, where sliding panels and wooden frameworks define spatial relationships. The restrained color palette-deep blacks, warm reds, and earthy tones-evokes the natural materials and atmospheric depth of the space. Layers of pigment create a tactile surface, referencing both the aged patina of the villa and the organic interaction of light and shadow within its walls.

The use of a small, uniform paper format enhances the intimacy of the series, reinforcing the personal and contemplative nature of the work.

Benjamin MacMaster
American Dreams, 2016
Photograph on Hahnemuhle Baryta paper
Paper: 8 x 12"
Frame: 12 x 16"
open

Artist Statement
This image is part of a body of work titled American Dreams.

About
Freelance photographer from Philadelphia, PA.

Caitlin McCormack
Pulled Through a Portal Into a Place Where No One Wants to Be, 2023
Hand-crocheted cotton string, glue, foraged pigment, faux fur, and fringe on mixed-media base
18 x 17 x 9" (dimension variable)

Artist Statement
My work is constructed from hand-crocheted cotton thread, dredged in glues and foraged pigments, and fashioned into sculptural forms. Drawing from folkloric botanical motifs, institutional osteological displays, sci-fi and body-horror cinema, and extended periods spent alone with an overactive imagination, I consider society's reluctance to legitimize gendered craft and interpret crochet as a behavioral response to apocalyptic conditions. Repetitively generating, saturating, and stiffening each unit transforms soft material into static compositions, recontextualizing despair and rage as ornate, provocative, and occasionally comical specimens. With the addition of materials and objects obscured by overgrowths of fibrous vines and lace-like flowers, each object's integrity is reinforced by complex networks, just as we are strengthened by the calcified scars of lived experience.

Artist Bio
Philadelphia-based fiber artist and educator Caitlin McCormack has contributed works to solo and group exhibitions at Elijah Wheat Showroom, Field Projects, Hashimoto Contemporary, The Mütter Museum, Museum Rijswijk, The Mesa Contemporary Art Museum, The Taubman Museum of Art, The Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Feinkünst Krüger, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Future Fair, and with BravinLee Programs in NYC. Their sculptures have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Hyperallergic, BOMB, Juxtapoz, Whitehot Magazine, Smithsonian, and Bust Magazine. In addition to holding teaching positions at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Hussian College of Art and Design, McCormack has participated in artist residencies at The Vermont Studio Center, Monson Arts, The Peter Bullough Foundation, The Wassaic Project, Byrdcliffe Artist Colony, Kimmel Harding Nelson, and The C-Scape Dune Shack Artist Residency Program in Provincetown, MA. McCormack was the recipient of a Joseph Robert Foundation grant in 2021 and received the Woodmere Art Museum's Maurice Freed Memorial Prize in 2023.

Thomas Miles
Hands up., 2021
Bronze patinated urethane
14 x 3-1/2 x 2-1/2"
1 of 8

Artist Statement
As a visual artist I am interested in organic forms. The figure has been the driving force behind my work. For over four decades I have been making artwork for public spaces both independently and collaboratively. This figure was a study of form. Although I had no intention of creating a form that would be relevant to todays cultural climate of discourse, this figure with her "Hands Up" seems to be here to recognize and honor the vulnerability and fear innocent people are experiencing.

Artist Bio
In my professional career, I owned an art fabrication business for large artwork and public sculpture. During that time I used a breadth of material and processes to create durable, long lasting sculpture that became part of the architecture and their environments. I have worked with a range of artist including Jeff Koons, Frank Stella, and Nancy Graves. Locally, Big Ben at Franklin Town (co-created with Alexander L. Generalis) and The Sign Boy, are among the most viewed works of public art in Philadelphia. I have worked with both traditional and contemporary tools and technologies. As an early adopter of 3D scanning and CNC machining for enlarging sculpture, I was a sought after problem-solver for enlarging skills. In the past I served on the boards of numerous arts organizations and institutions, including The University of the Arts, Philadelphia Game Lab (PGL), and TILT. I am an active board member of Avenue of the Arts Inc. (AAI), and White Box Theatre.

Marianne Mitchell
North Node, 2022
Oil on panel
24 x 24"

Artist Statement
Compelled by elemental polarities at the core of the cosmos, planet earth and human behavior, my work conveys the essence of opposing realities that when brought together, create a harmonious sense of wholeness that resonates with universal truth. The paintings are at once intuitively familiar yet definitively unrecognizable, and embody the reciprocity between our tangible existence and the intangible realm.

Artist Bio
Marianne earned a BFA in painting from Washington University in Saint Louis, with post-graduate work in Japan, China, and at the Vermont Studio Center. A Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Fellowship recipient, Marianne has shown work nationally in New York, Washington DC, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Denver, and internationally in Scotland and Germany. She was represented by the Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia for 19 years until the gallery closed in 2015. Her work hangs in many important collections including The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Pew Charitable Trust, and Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Center. Marianne's paintings are in private collections across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia.

Michael Morgan
Kensington Apotheosis #19, 2024
Ceramic sherds, resin
10-1/2 x 8 x 6"

Artist Statement
During the past few years, I have been systematically digging up the alley behind my property, which was the site of a dump from mid 19th century to mid 20th century . My finds sometimes include old ceramic pipes and dolls, but the vast majority of objects I have found are mismatched pieces of broken ceramic objects. I decided to give these discarded, broken, long forgotten, buried pieces of ceramic trash a new life. I call this series of work "Apotheosis". By creating objects from these sherds, the rubbish of the past is transformed into a series of small scale assemblages. These sculptures borrow from the Japanese practice of kintsugi, in that they embrace the marks of wear as part of the whole life of the object. The break is celebrated as one more event in the life of the ceramic object. Similarly, I fix these broken sherds together using a shiny, precious looking material to illuminate each broken piece. Where my work differs from kintsugi is that I am making sculptures from disparate ceramic sherds that ascend, swirl, or even appear to dance. I am animating the buried trash of yesterday. This is the 22nd sculpture in that series.

Artist Bio
I am a ceramic sculptor, originally from Portsmouth, England. I completed my BA (Hons) in Ceramics in 1988, at The Polytechnic Wolverhapton UK, where I first began to develop my interest in using Brick as a sculptural medium. I was a Resident artist at The Clay Studio, in Philadelphia from 1988-90. I received my MFA Ceramics at University of Nebraska Lincoln in 1993. Until this year I taught Ceramics at Rutgers University in Camden NJ.

I have completed many brick sculptures for both public and private clients throughout the USA and UK. I live in Philadelphia PA, where I continue to make a living as a practicing artist. My work has been featured in a number of publications such as Neue Keramik, American Craft, Ceramics Monthly, Landscape Architecture, Landscape Architect, Rockland Magazine and Dallas Morning News.

I work with brick as my primary medium. We are all familiar with this geometric building unit, so if it is used to create sculpture it can help us see the specialness of the everyday world.

I also make sculptural assemblages from ceramic sherds that I have excavated.

Iwan (John) Nazarewycz
Noose (Untitled), 1993/94
Oil on birch panel
35-1/2 x 25-5/8"

Artist Statement
Painting for me is both a thanksgiving and a plea: gratitude for the act itself, together with a petition to find that hidden place where, in Samuel Beckett's words, "the magic necessity hides."

Rooted in Judeo-Christian themes such as sacrifice, redemption, and transformation, each piece holds a narrative, often one that is as much felt as understood. A narrative built on a scaffolding of geometry which has always served as my guardian against the arbitrary. It's a structure that keeps the work grounded in intention rather than indulgence; the enforcer that helps repel meretricious distractions that threaten the integrity of the forms.

Artist Bio
Painter John Nazarewycz earned a B.F.A from the University of Pennsylvania in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He showed with Larry Becker Gallery, Philadelphia, for over a decade, as well as with galleries in New York and Washington, DC. Nazarewycz's work has been exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the Delaware Art Museum; and Woodmere Art Museum (Philadelphia, PA). His paintings are held in private collections throughout the country.

Joseph Opshinsky
Bull Moose At The Blue Horizon, 2026
Cut paper collage
33 x 37" (framed)

Artist Statement
Bull Moose at the Blue Horizon is an original cut paper collage depicting the moose head the sits atop the entrance to the Blue Horizon Boxing Venue on the 1300 block of North Broad Street.

Originally constructed in 1865 as private homes, the building was altered in the early 20th century as a lodge for the Loyal Order of Moose. By the 1960's, it was renamed the Blue Horizon and became a renowned Boxing Arena until its closing in 2010. Since that time the building has been vacant with development surrounding the historic property.

Artist Bio
Joseph Opshinsky draws inspiration from the landscapes of Pennsylvania and the surrounding environs. His cut paper collages utilize vibrant colors and pattern to depict the natural world and its convergence with remnants of the region's industrial past.

In addition to corporate and private collections, Joseph Opshinsky's award-winning collages have been exhibited at numerous museums and galleries over the past decade. Recent exhibitions include a feature exhibition at the Roberson Museum in Binghamton, New York, and juried exhibitions at the Philadelphia Sketch Club and the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, where his piece was selected for inclusion in the museum's permanent collection.

A Scranton native, Opshinsky is a fine arts graduate of Keystone College and The University of the Arts. He currently resides outside of Philadelphia.

Danny Simmons
Can't We Just Get Alone?, 2019
Oil and fabric
22-1/2 x 29-1/2"
Frame: 29 x 37"

Artwork courtesy of the Gallery's Collection

Artist Bio

Danny Simmons, Jr., is an American abstract painter from Queens, NY, who once coined his particular style of painting as "neo-African Abstract Expressionism." Simmons' visual artworks are held in public collections including The Smithsonian, the United Nations, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Museum, Chase Manhattan Bank, Deutsche Bank, Schomburg Center for Black Culture, along with numerous private collections. Simmonsis co-founder along with his siblings, Russell and Joseph Simmons, and president of the Rush Arts Gallery. He is also founder and VP of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation. Recently featured in Black Art in America, "Danny Simmons: A Critical Path" by Howard McCalebb.

Danny Simmons holds a Bachelor's degree in social work from New York University, a Masters in public finance from Long Island University, and is the recipient of an honorary Ph.D. from Long Island University. He continues to thrive at his 'home gallery' in Philadelphia, PA.

Danny Simmons is represented by WESTWOOD GALLERY NYC

Val Rossman
Words Were Cautious, 2018
Pastel
20 x 20" (framed)

Artist Statement
My work is a blend of careful planning and unpredictable interruptions. For me this is an apt metaphor for life. As much as each of us tries to script our lives there are often "curve balls" that take us by surprise. This concept is incorporated into visual representations which consist of multiple layers of painted shapes, empty spaces and a variety of marks to create a lush and deep surface.

My love of color has always been a driving force in my work. The dialogue between seemingly random gestures, textures, and shapes provide a visual adventure. My process is dynamic and "in the moment"….a conversation with the piece. I believe that the journey is as important as the destination.

Artist Bio

Val Rossman is a Philadelphia-based painter whose career spans more than 40 years, including over 28 solo exhibitions and numerous group shows throughout the United States. She has received several awards, including the Award for Excellence at the State Museum of Pennsylvania.

In addition to her studio practice, Rossman teaches at Wayne Art Center and the Woodmere Art Museum, and has lectured and led programs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Barnes Foundation.

Her paintings are known for their vibrant color, lyrical sensibility, and embrace of spontaneity. Rossman's work is held in numerous private and corporate collections in the U.S. and abroad.

Mel Salli
Trust your technolust., 2026
Textile, basted and bound quilt wall hanging
33-1/4 x 53"

Dry clean only. Can use a lint roller.

Artist Statement
An acknowledgement of the anthropocene we are currently inhabiting.

About
Mel is a textile artist based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

BLOSSOMROT, the name of their evolving project, is both a concept and a guiding principle. It refers to the organic imperfection that strikes the tomato flower at the cusp of its maturation-decay arriving at the moment of ripeness. For Salli, blossomrot speaks to the tension between dissolution and renewal, fragility and potential, loss and becoming. It is through this lens that they approach both quilting and tattooing-acts of marking, mending, and recording.

Tattooing, like quilting, is a tactile, embodied form of storytelling. Both practices involve a physical intimacy with material and memory: skin and thread become sites of preservation, resistance, and reinvention. Salli engages tattooing not just as a visual tool, but as a method of imprinting identity, claiming space, and transforming pain into narrative.
Their quilts are modern, punk-infused reimaginings of a historical craft, intertwining abstract forms with visceral, autobiographical content. They challenge the conventions of quilting while honoring the traditions that inform it. The compositions that emerge within each piece subvert expectations, revealing the layered complexity of survival and embodiment.

blossomrot is an invitation to engage with the untold-to examine the beauty in breakdown, the truth within distortion, and the possibility of regeneration through creative rupture. It is an ongoing confrontation with what grows, what decays, and what remains. Mel Salli is a multidisciplinary artist based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a region steeped in the tradition of Pennsylvania Dutch quilting. A graduate of Bennington College ('22), Salli works at the intersection of textile, tattoo, and narrative to explore identity, diaspora, and transformation. Their practice is rooted in a punk sensibility and DIY ethos, drawing from both personal experience and inherited histories to create work that is raw, layered, and deeply intentional.

YaTii Talisman
Bugibatuki James, 2025
Acrylic on papoer
21 x 17" (framed)

Artist Statement
Landing his space shuttle in the heart of Central Park, Bugibatuki James touched down in New York, ready to ignite a movement of renewal and light across the United States. The mayor electrified by this bold new wave of hope, called him a true hero the Batman of the cosmos James.

Artist Bio
Carlotta Schiavio aka YaTii Talisman, is an artist with a diverse heritage. Born in Italy and raised in Africa, her cultural background has deeply influenced her artistic journey. Carlotta began her creative path in jewelry design before transitioning to painting in 1998.
Her work spans continents and explores various artistic expressions, culminating in a permanent exhibition at the National Library "Abrehot" in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2022. Today, Carlotta is a full-time artist and recipient of "The Extraordinary Talent in the Arts Visa". Her latest creation, "The Bugibatuki," inhabitants of planet YaTii Talisman, where peace and harmony reign.

Carlotta has now entered the literary world - The first book, Bugibatuki Watershed Awareness, is now available online. In addition to her artistic practice she is the founder of two online Bugibatuki Merchandise Shops, where everyday objects become portals - wearables, journals, clocks, décor and gadgets infused with meaning.

Alex Spalding
Duo, 2024
Flashe on gessobord
9 x 9"

Artist Statement
This work is part of an expanding series I've titled "Wild Side" that celebrates emotional complexity, feminine rebellion, and individual autonomy through the mode of iconic portraiture.

Artist Bio
Alex Spalding (b. 1985, Springfield, MO) is a self-taught figurative painter specializing in vibrant, stylized portraiture of women. Drawing from his love for commercial illustration and contemporary art, he merges those influences with expressive techniques and the innovative use of technology.

Before dedicating himself to the visual arts in 2023, Alex was immersed in a diverse range of creative pursuits, including dance music, managing indie record labels, and writing. This multidisciplinary background continues to inform the eclectic style of his work today. Alex lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

Krista Svalbonas
In the Presence of Memory 8, 2014
Steel photo-serigraph and mixed media on industrial felt
15 x 9"

Artist Statement
I grew up in an area of Pennsylvania dominated by the steel industry, and have long been interested in industrial architecture as an expression of cultural history. "In the Presence of Memory" explores the architectural vestiges of a far more ancient industry: agriculture. The disappearing vernacular architecture of barns in rural Pennsylvania reveals their varied European lineages: specific structural elements reflect the building traditions of the home countries of the immigrant families who built them. A typology of these barn structures bears witness to centuries of migration. But what once seemed a stable and permanent destination is now in flux, as the family farm gives way to industrial farming, and farmland is converted to residential or commercial developments. For the past year I have been traveling throughout my home state to document these agricultural structures: abandoned, re-purposed, or - occasionally - still in use. These photographic images have become the source material for this body of work. Using industrial felt (manufactured in Pennsylvania) as a substrate, I silk-screen images of architectural details of the barns using industrial pigments such as steel, iron and copper. I paint each piece individually using oil and cold wax, and cut into the felt, echoing the empty and thatched spaces of the often-dilapidated structures I have photographed. I "patch" these cut areas with colored sections of serigraph negatives, mimicking the splashes of incongruous color on the weathered surfaces that have been repaired again and again. The colors, forms and shapes of the felt panels all refer to the original structures; even in their abstraction, these paintings document the vanishing rural industrial landscape.

Artist Bio
Krista Svalbonas holds a BFA in Photography and an MFA in Interdisciplinary studies. Her work has been shown in a number of exhibitions including: the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Spartanburg Art Museum in South Carolina, Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston, Marshall Gallery in Los Angeles, Klompching Gallery and ISE Cultural Foundation in New York. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Cesis Art Museum in Latvia, the Gregg Museum of Art and Design in North Carolina, the Woodmere Art Museum and Temple University in Philadelphia. Recent awards include a Center for Photographic Art Artist Grant (2022), Baumanis Creative Projects Grant (2020), Rhonda Wilson Award (2017), Puffin Foundation Grant (2016) and a Bemis Fellowship (2015) among others. In 2022/23 Svalbonas had solo exhibitions of her series Displacement, at the Copenhagen Photography festival in Denmark, the Tallinn city museum in Tallinn, Estonia, Museum of Textile and Industry in Augsburg Germany and the National Museum in Vilnius Lithuania. She is an associate professor of photography at St. Joseph's University. She lives and works in Philadelphia.

Steven Taylor
Lamu Vibes, 2021
Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag metallic fine art inkjet paper
Paper: 26 x 38"
Framed: 31 x 43"
AP #2

Artist Statement
My photographic work studies freedom through immersive cultural exploration. Having explored and photographed across 18 countries, documenting how people live, move, and find liberation in vastly different circumstances.

Artist Bio
Steven CW Taylor is an award-winning documentary and landscape photographer who uses a sociological lens to explore freedom. An avid explorer having photographed across 18 countries, 3 US national parks, and his beloved philadelphia, his work bridges global perspectives with local impact, pairing images from opposite sides of the world to reveal universal human connection. As the 2023 Visual Journalist of the Year (Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists) and founder of Ubuntu Fine Art Gallery, America's first Black-owned single-artist fine art photography gallery, Taylor creates what he calls "portals": immersive images that transport viewers to global places while inspiring his Germantown community to imagine freer possibilities through the Ubuntu philosophy: I am, because we are.

Mat Tomezsko
TOP DOLLAR, 2025
Ink on paper mounted on panel
7 x 5"

Artist Statement

Part of the Kensington Sketchbook Series. For 4 years, Tomezsko has been an Artist in Residence with the Mural Arts' Color Me Back: Same Day Work and Pay Program, located at the intersection of Kensington and Allegheny. While engaged with making collaborative art within the community, Tomezsko also maintains an active painting practice, often drawing from observation and reflecting on the environment in which he works.

Artist Bio

Mat Tomezsko is an artist creating paintings, murals, and community art projects based around participation, collaboration, and empowerment. He does not center himself in his work, rather he creates a structure in which other people can genuinely contribute to something greater than the sum of its parts. His artwork is based on observation and his approach to composition is informed by formalism and conceptualism. His work was recognized by the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network for outstanding public art.

Tomezsko's artwork has been exhibited at numerous art spaces regionally and nationally, including the Thomas Hunter Projects in New York, NY; Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, IL; and the Crane Arts, Woodmere Art Museum, and Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia.

His works are included in several public collections including The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania, Fox School of Business at Temple University, and Purdue University as well as numerous private and corporate collections such as Capital One in Wilmington, DE; and Deloitte in Philadelphia, PA.

His murals are located in Kensington, Manayunk, Temple University Main Campus, Frankford, Tacony, and more.

Nicolas Tosi
No Name, 2014
Fine art print
18 x 24"
Edition 3/15

Artist Bio
Nicolas Tosi is a French photographer renowned for his work in interior design and travel. Born in Paris, France, he currently resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with various French magazines, contributing to publications such as Elle Décoration and Marie Claire Maison.

Andrea Calderise
Uncanny fireside at Indian Cove Campground, 2025
Oil paint on wood panel
Panel: 12 x 16"
Framed: 13 x 17"

Artist Statement

Andrea Bartine Caldarise is a contemporary landscape painter drawing inspiration from natural and built environments. Her studio practice investigates the psychological connection between landscape and people through visual storytelling. Caldarise uncovers the extraordinary hidden in plain sight through the exploration of landscapes, conversations, and research. Using the language of landscape, her art explores the tension between real and surreal encouraging viewers to question their surroundings.

There's a moment when you blink and your perspective shifts, the artwork is situated in that transitional moment. Encapsulated therein is an examination of movement, creating an experience for the viewer to feel that "each space seems like we've just arrived at the scene of...". Caldarise's paintings evolve over time, possessing a mutable yet distinct character - akin to the changing impressions one gets when revisiting a favorite book. The experience alters with each encounter, enriched by previous engagements. The paintings perform as an oculus, to utilize environments as entry points for open-ended narratives drawing on the collective consciousness. Layered with happiness, trauma, and inequity, landscapes function as mirrors of our present. By investigating various viewpoints--historical, personal, and imagined--we create empathy within our ever-changing world. These paintings are derived from experiences within the social and physical environments around us.

Caldarise's paintings are inspired by research trips to national parks, including Olympic, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Big Sur, Petrified Forest, and Yosemite. Many of these works emerged from the artist's experiences, informed by research into geological history, ecological studies, and folklore among other research tangents. These artworks look closely at iconic vistas to delve into the emotions and histories of these distinctive environments.

Peggy Washburn
Memory Fragments, 2025
Mixed media on paper
30 x 24"

Artist Statement
When I was a child, I thought an artist was someone who could draw representationally. Whereas I myself, could not. I did however, have an artist studio - my childhood closet. Drawing on memory and relevant happenings, I would paste items I collected into old books, to create a newer version of an older story. They pieced together narratives that address aspects of disorder, time and their inseparability. They honored my many irrational superstitions, weaving past with present to construct an imagined world inside of a perceived reality. I still paste things together. The act of doing so helps me to see and create an illusory order. Through layers of acrylic, graphite, ink, pigment and wax, I strive to convert a familiar chaos into something relatively tidy. The elements are fused together in a nonlinear progression, until the process takes on a life of its own, often divergent from my original plan.

This work is about the inner conflict that comes with embracing imperfection, while simultaneously resisting what I cannot accept. It's a means of navigating a relevant and seemingly shared uncertainty, while separating my own perceptions from a collective disquiet. It allows me to rewrite the language of time, replacing disorder with snippets of thought, memory and intentional ambiguity. Through it, I'm able to reach into a blurry yet calculated void, and make tangible what I'm otherwise unable to control.

Artist Bio
Peggy Washburn is an interdisciplinary artist, photographer and educator whose work has been acquired by permanent collections, including the Bibliothéque Nationale de France, The Harry Ransom Center, Museo Nazionale della Fotografia and The Ralph Lauren Collection. In addition to numerous gallery shows, her work has been exhibited at The Woodmere Art Museum, The Rose Lehrman Art Center, The Frye Art Museum, The Seattle Art Museum Gallery, The Whatcom Museum of History and Art, and Aperture NYC. Her work has been published in Frames Magazine, Lenscratch, Od Review, One Twelve, BETA Developments In Photography, Musée Magazine and Art New York. She works on both East and West coasts, and currently lives in Philadelphia.

Christopher Williams The Black Davinci
"Oil Study Series One", 2024
Oil on canvas
20 x 16"

Artist Statement
A study conducted on a Liberian woman with pink hair and traditional attire, examining the effects of wet oil on the Black skin.

Artist Bio

Christopher Adam Williams is a visual artist whose practice utilizes portraiture and figurative painting to convey complex narratives, including that of race and gender. Born in Oakland, California, Christopher's current studio base in New Jersey, where he resides with his wife. His drawings, paintings and films have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, television, museums and galleries, including The L Word Generation Q season 2 & 3, Root Division: Black artist fellow, Tunnels of the Mind (Times Square, NY), Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA), Spark+Echo Arts (New York, NY), My Studio Gallery (Sacramento, CA) and The Golden One Center (Sacramento, CA). His art practice focuses on Black Joy- a spiritual feeling that has uplifted the African Diaspora through countless trials and tribulations in the quest for freedom and equity.

Christopher received his Bachelors in Fine Arts and Masters in Fine Arts from San Francisco Art Institute, where he was awarded Best in Show, MFA and a finalist for the Headlands Arts Center Graduate Residency. 2020 Winner of The Black Artists Fund Sower award and 2022 AICAD Fellow. Christopher is an Assistant professor at Moore College of Art & Design.

Elizabeth Wilson
Road To Gay Head, 1999
Gouache on paper
Image: 8-3/4 x 9-1/2"
Framed: 15-3/4 x 16-1/2"

Artist Statement
I am a representational painter based in Philadelphia, known mostly for my intimate gouache landscape paintings of the British Isles. My paintings have been described as small gems, luminous and having a quiet energy which I think is apt. Largely inspired by travel, my work is a direct response to the environment. Predominantly a landscape painter, I have also worked extensively with the figure and still life. The painting "Road To Gay Head" evolved out of a series of gouache paintings that began in the United Kingdom several years earlier. A visit to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts in the early 1990's inspired a small series of paintings in both oil and in gouache after returning which were created off and on over the next several years. I was particularly struck by the town of Gay Head and recall stopping on the side of the road to take photographs--I knew it would make a great painting. I was intrigued by the juxtapositions of the road, patch of water, patches of greenery, electric posts, rocks, overcast sky and the little New England house in the distance. That little house, subtle in the painting hidden in the shadows was really the focus and the heart of the painting. It is ubiquitous with New England architecture. The town of Gay Head has since been renamed Aquinnah, in honor of the Native American Indian Wampanoag Tribe, the original inhabitants of the area.

Artist Bio
Elizabeth Wilson is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and attended the Corcoran School of Art and University of Pennsylvania. She has exhibited extensively throughout the United States in curated, juried and solo exhibitions, including a solo museum exhibition at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in 2022. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Academy of Design and Asheville Art Museum. Gallery affiliations have included Marian Locks Gallery (Philadelphia), The More Gallery (Philadelphia), Gallery Henoch (New York), Gross McCleaf Gallery (Philadelphia), Mulligan Shanoski Gallery (San Francisco), F.A.N. Gallery (Philadelphia). Permanent public collections include the Woodmere Art Museum, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Convention Center Art Collection, McGraw Hill Publishing Company, Bryn Mawr College, among others. Her work is in numerous private collections throughout the United States and United Kingdom. She was a longtime drawing and design professor at several universities in Philadelphia and invited to teach painting workshops at the Art Students League of New York and JSS in Civita in Italy, where she also had a residency. Reviews, interviews and profiles of her work have appeared in numerous printed and online publications including The Philadelphia Inquirer, ARTnews Magazine, Painting Perceptions, Philadelphia Magazine, Stories from PAFA, Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine, Catamaran Arts & Literature Magazine, The Jewish Exponent, John Thornton films via the RustyScupperton Network, among many others.

John Y. Wind
Blue Jay, 2022
Assemblage
17 x 12 x 12"

Artist Statement
Blue Jay is from my "Whiskey Rebellion" series, in which I embellished a series of figurative whiskey decanters originally produced as collectibles by Jim Beam and their competitors in the 1960s and 70s. While most of "Whiskey Rebellion" focuses on Revolutionary War heroes, the birds serve as companions to the generals and soldiers, and are embellished in similar manner--teasing the flamboyance of military regalia by using charms, social action pins, and other contemporary materials to recontextualize and engage them in the current moment.
The use of birds has another reference as well, and that is to my 'day job' in the gift world. "Put a bird on it," was a refrain popularized by the TV show Portlandia, and refers to the timeless appeal of bird imagery at retail~ A factor at play in my selection of this work for the InLiquid benefit as well ;)

Artist Bio
John Y. Wind is a multi-disciplinary artist, creating narrative portraits, assemblages and installations. He is also the co-founder of Maximal Art Inc, known for 40 years of 'Modern Vintage' fashion jewelry and gifts, sold internationally under the John Wind brand. His work has been shown and collected by the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of the American Revolution and Woodmere Art Museum. A new exhibition, "Dear John: John Frederick Lewis, John Yaron Wind and the Rosenbach Brothers", is currently on view at the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia through December 2026.

John B. Woolsey
Arroyo's and Salt Pan, 2023
Acrylic and flashe on woodcut collage on canvas
17 x 13"

Artist Statement
The work consists of a collage of pieces of a 18" x 18" woodcut from 2019, part of a series of works based on tree trunks/roots/bark, mounted on canvas and painted with acrylic and Flashe. The works in this series, which were in a 2023 solo exhibit at the Zillman Art Museum in Bangor Maine, are visual metaphors for the scales of time, as well as transformations--In this case, from a close-up of a tree to an imaginary aerial landscape created over many thousands of years.

Artist Bio

John Woolsey grew up in southern Wisconsin where he spent much of his time exploring the rich natural world around him. At age thirteen, he started to paint from nature. As a teenager he was an avid bird-watcher and at the age 16 had his first job as a scientific artist. His art has explored the natural world since then, first painting the landscape broadly and then focusing on its myriad details.

John studied art and biology at the University of Wisconsin (BS, Art) and painting and printmaking at the University of Pennsylvania (BFA, MFA) where he studied with Neil Welliver, Alex Katz, Elaine de Kooning, Hitoshi Nakazato, James Brooks, Yvonne Jacquette, Rackstraw Downes and others.

He taught at the University of the Arts and the Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. He had a long career as a scientific illustrator and a developer of art programs for many best-selling college science texts, and he developed science animations and interactive multimedia projects in the life sciences.

During his fine-art career, he has had over 20 one-person exhibitions and exhibited in many group shows throughout the US and internationally. His work is represented in many public and private collections.

John maintains a studio in Philadelphia and has had a summer studio in a small village in coastal Maine for many years. His work has been represented by galleries in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago and Maine.

Wendee Yudis
Play Nice! 2024
Photo-Silkscreen, spraypaint and acrylic on wood panel
12 x 18"

Artist Statement
This piece combines photo-silkscreen and painting. The halftone texture and layered pattern reference vintage advertising and decorative "feminine" aesthetics, while the pin-up pose and exaggerated palette point to the performance of beauty and desirability. It is meant to feel playful at first but also to suggest how women's bodies and identities are turned into visual products.

In my work in general, I layer photo-silkscreens, painting, typography, and pattern to re-contextualize pop culture imagery and explore gender bias, objectification, and empowerment. By combining seductive imagery with graphic pattern and irony, I aim to challenge normalized stereotypes and objectification while also reclaiming it and turning what is meant to be consumed, into something confrontational, empowered, and self-aware.

Artist Bio
Wendee Yudis is a Serigraph Mixed Media Artist whose paintings and prints have been exhibited in solo and group shows in galleries in NYC, Chicago, and Philadelphia since the mid-1990's. Solo exhibitions include James Oliver Gallery (Phila), Ceres Gallery (NYC), Black Moth Gallery (Phila), and Gallery 1633 (Chicago). A selection of group exhibitions includes The Albright/Knox Museum (NY), Manhattan Graphics Center (NYC), Philadelphia Art Alliance, University of Pennsylvania: Penn Medicine, DaVinci Art Alliance in PA, and The Trenton Museum(NJ) and Pheonix Gallery (NYC).

Wendee Yudis received an MFA in Printmaking and Painting from Pratt Institute and BFA in Printmaking and Photography from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She also studied archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and photography at Richmond College in London.

In addition to being a visual artist, Wendee works as a Graphic Designer & Art Director for agencies and non-profits in NYC and Philadelphia.

Deborah Gross Zuchman
Ode to Wolf Kahn, 2024
Oil on paper
Framed: 30 x 22.5"

Artist Statement
I greatly admire the simplicity of the paintings of Wolf Kahn and, of course, his use of color. After painting the landscape for many years (en plein air), I now work in my studio simplifying the landscape to (almost) abstraction. I want my work to relate the feeling of "being there."

About
I have been painting since attending The Philadelphia High School for Girls, Temple University (BA in Painting) and Goddard College (MA in Painting). I was an Art Demonstration Teacher for the School District of Philadelphia and, upon retirement, a Project Manager for the Mural Arts Program. I now spend my time painting, reading, swimming, cooking and meeting with friends and family.

Demeter Blooming
White Missi Vase, 2023
Ceramic
8 x 11 x 11"

Artist Statement

Hand-coiled and built from clay, this white ceramic vase reflects Chloë's cross-cultural background and her interest in blending Asian and Western aesthetics. Influenced in part by the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, the work embraces restraint, natural irregularity, and the beauty of imperfection. The surface and form retain subtle variations that reveal the handmade process and the character of the material, the rawness of nature balanced with the uniformity of white.

This vase was Part of a series created for Altuzarra, East Hampton (Summer 2023), in collaboration with Missi Flowers. It was designed as a functional vessel that supports floral arrangements in a way that feels structured yet organic in line with Missi's brand and style.

Artist Bio

Chloë Le Pichon is a ceramic artist of French and Chinese heritage, born in London and raised primarily in Hong Kong within a French educational tradition. Her work exists at the intersection of Asian and Western sensibilities, exploring the dynamic tensions between the worked and the raw, elegant and elemental, permanent and impermanent. Grounded in close observation of the natural world, her practice reflects an ongoing cross-cultural dialogue that shapes both her life and her forms.

Working primarily with hand-coiled clay, Chloë embraces a slow, meditative process rooted in one of humanity's oldest techniques. Attentive to the material's strengths and vulnerabilities, she allows intuition and improvisation to guide each piece. Once fired to permanence, her vessels become quiet, enduring markers of time, culture, and shared humanity-objects that hold both fragility and resilience.

Chloë graduated from Swarthmore College, where she fell in love with ceramics under the guidance of Professor Syd Carpenter and teacher Doug Herren. For more than twenty years, she has maintained a dedicated studio practice, exhibiting in local juried shows and selling through galleries, design stores, and private commissions while navigating the evolving stages of life and work. Her recent collaborations include a floral project with Missi Flowers for Altuzarra. She continues to pursue intensive study-particularly in France-where traditional ceramic techniques and modern design aesthetics resonate deeply with her sensibilities and further refine her artistic language.

In addition to her studio work, Chloë has served as a technician and teaching artist with The Clay Studio's Claymobile program, and she teaches private lessons to both children and adults. Her early explorations into earthen building and sustainable architecture using clay continue to inform her material understanding and environmental awareness. For the past three plus years, she has served as Assistant and then Director of Gravers Lane Gallery, a contemporary studio craft gallery in Philadelphia. There, she deepened her engagement with the field through curating exhibitions, supporting artists, and fostering dialogue around contemporary craft-experiences that continue to nourish and expand her own artistic practice.

Jack Ramsdale
"621", 2010
Printed photograph
18 x 21"
Edition 1 of 5

Artist Statement

This image evokes a quiet psychological tension between intimacy and exposure. The small turquoise house feels personal and vulnerable-its bright trim and compact form suggesting individuality and care-yet it stands beneath a towering transmission mast and a web of power lines that seem to press in from above. The vertical steel structure introduces a sense of surveillance, reach, and unseen presence, as if invisible currents move through the air while the street remains still.

​The scene feels contemplative and slightly isolating. The parked car, empty windows, and muted sky contribute to a subdued atmosphere, where time appears slowed. The contrast between warm autumn foliage and cold industrial metal suggests the coexistence of human warmth and mechanical indifference.

​The image speaks to modern life-how private domestic spaces exist within vast networks of communication and infrastructure. It reflects the paradox of being both grounded and connected, sheltered yet exposed, solitary yet constantly transmitting and receiving signals beyond view.

Artist Bio
John (Jack) Ramsdale has been exhibiting his work since the late 1970s. He received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1981. His multidisciplinary practice spans photography, multimedia installation, sculpture, video, and performance.

While living in Ontario, Ramsdale was awarded a solo exhibition at the Canadian Centre of International Photography in Toronto and received multiple grants from the Ontario Arts Council.

More recently, his work was included in The Pennsylvania Landscape in Impressionism and Contemporary Art, curated by Brian Peterson at the Woodmere Museum of Art in Philadelphia. His photographs were also featured in JUST IN, an exhibition highlighting recent acquisitions to Woodmere's permanent collection.

Ramsdale currently lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Amanda Stevenson Photography
Bartrams-Sarracenia-Pitcher, 2024
Archival photograph printed on metal
24" x 24"
Edition 1 of 10

Artist Statement
Isolating the historic Batrams gardens flowers in the studio to capture their beauty and the intricate details of nature.

About
Amanda Stevenson is a native of Philadelphia and a graduate of Community College of Philadelphia, Rochester Institute of Technology and Pennsylvania Academy Of The Fine Arts. Amanda has logged over 35 years of professional photographic experience throughout the US and across the globe. She uses light effectively to enhance her clients' goals, be they portraits, stuffed animals for children's catalogues or models holding cans of beer for highway billboards. Despite her professional proficiency, she was unsatisfied with a career that began as a twelve year old with an Instamatic camera and by fifteen was rising in the dark to capture the dawn light on the Schuylkill River. Throughout her work as a photographer she seemed to be trying to paint with a camera, using increasing complex arrangements of different colored lights to add depth and character to static forms. While her skills were sufficient for a professional career, she came to find the limitations of the photographic medium confining as a means of personal expression and has been exploring with the digital medium and software to enhance her whimsical imagery.

Joel Katz
Untitled (horses), 1963
Photograph
Paper: 16 x 20"

Artist Bio

Joel Katz is a designer, photographer, and educator known for his work in information design, graphic design, and wayfinding. A recipient of the Rome Prize in 2002, he spent a year at the American Academy in Rome, marking his transition from film to digital photography.

His book And I Said No Lord, documenting Mississippi in 1964, was published by the University of Alabama Press in 2014. Katz studied at Yale University with Walker Evans. His design work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

Katz has lectured internationally and taught design at the University of the Arts.

Al-baseer Holly (ABH)
small thing to a giant, 2024
Loose canvas collage, acrylic on wood panel
42˝ × 28˝

Palindrome Princess (Aviva Gordon)

Art Deco Ho Necklace

Multimedia, repurposed jewelry. One of a kind

Artist Biography

Palindrome Princess is the brand I created for the accessories I make.

Basically I am a recycling plant.
ALL of our pieces are made using repurposed jewelry and found materials.

Nini Mosiashvili

Beam Ring 2, 2026

A sculptural sterling silver ring with a strong, self-contained form. Designed to function as a standalone statement piece.

Artist Statement

The Beam Collection, a sterling silver jewelry series inspired by special friendships, memory, and music.

The Beam Collection began as a one-of-a-kind necklace created as a birthday gift for a close friend during our annual trip to Ibiza, Spain; an island deeply rooted in music, dance, and freedom. The piece was inspired by the song "Beam Me Up," which became the emotional soundtrack of that trip and I wanted to recreate that emotion by crafting little sun beam from recycled sterling silver. What started as a personal object quickly became a symbol of connection, light, and wearable art that suits every season.

The collection is now expanding into a series of pieces such as necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets and ear-cuffs. Each piece is designed to feel like a small beam of light you wear and carry with you.

Nini Mosiashvili

Beam Brooch, 2026

Silver plated Bronze and sterling silver

Artist Statement

The Beam Collection, a sterling silver jewelry series inspired by special friendships, memory, and music.

The Beam Collection began as a one-of-a-kind necklace created as a birthday gift for a close friend during our annual trip to Ibiza, Spain; an island deeply rooted in music, dance, and freedom. The piece was inspired by the song "Beam Me Up," which became the emotional soundtrack of that trip and I wanted to recreate that emotion by crafting little sun beam from recycled sterling silver. What started as a personal object quickly became a symbol of connection, light, and wearable art that suits every season.

The collection is now expanding into a series of pieces such as necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets and ear-cuffs. Each piece is designed to feel like a small beam of light you wear and carry with you.

Unbranded - Bela Shehu

Black Bag

Artist Statement

We bring together high fashion and artistic expression to create a truly unique clothing line. Unlike other fashion brands, we believe that fashion goes beyond mere clothing-it should be a reflection of your individuality, passions, and creativity. Our collection is crafted to inspire, featuring designs influenced by travel, nature, architecture, and music.

Unbranded - Bela Shehu

White Bag

Artist Statement

We bring together high fashion and artistic expression to create a truly unique clothing line. Unlike other fashion brands, we believe that fashion goes beyond mere clothing-it should be a reflection of your individuality, passions, and creativity. Our collection is crafted to inspire, featuring designs influenced by travel, nature, architecture, and music.

Tiantian Li
Love Me More 30, 2017
Archival print of a watercolor
14" x 16"
Edition 2/12

Artist Statement

Tiantian Li is an artist based in New York and Philadelphia. Originally from Guangdong Province, China, Li received her first master's degree in 2016 from the elite Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Moving to Philadelphia, she received her second MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2018, and now exhibits regularly in the Philadelphia area, Europe, and Asia. Recent highlights include shows at the Philadelphia International Airport, InLiquid Art+Design, and the Rowan University Art Gallery.