Art in Philadelphia

Eileen Neff - Still Life

Okay, okay, so we have not posted in a while but with many exciting events coming up for Silicon and our artists it's time to get back on it. So, armed with a fancy new phone (well not that new) I am off and blogging.

First Fridays in Philadelphia we normally stay open a little late but with the our serious space constraints the gallery has taken a back seat to the printmaking studio. This First Friday we will be venturing out to three important galleries (to us anyway).

Eileen Neff has, what promises to be, an amazing show at Bridgette Mayer Gallery on Walnut Street, we printed and mounted a bunch of works for the show and they are stunningly beautiful. Can't wait to see it in a gallery setting.

Second on the list is "Fresh Impression" at the Projects Gallery in Northern Liberties, a show in partnership with the Brandywine Workshop

Shirley Steele

I was honored to be a juror for the show along with Raphael Damast, Exhibitions Director, Taller Puertorriqueño; Shelley Langdale, Associate Curator of Prints, Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Elizabeth F. Spungen, Executive Director, The Print Center. The show is intended to extend the impact of Full Spectrum at the Philadelphia Museum of Art of selected works from Brandywine. It's a great show and well worth a visit to the Museum.

Finally on our list is Gravy Studio where one of our friends and customers Mark Havens is showing Monster Factory a series of works uniquely printed on gold anodized aluminum sheets, very cool and apparently indestructible! One of Gravy's directors is our own Katie Tackman.



Mark Havens

Posted by Rick

PAFA and the PMA Here and Now Show

We could not miss Silicon'er Steven Dufala at PAFA as the Dufala Brothers in "Urbanism: Reimagining the Lived Environment".

The drawing pictured here was drawn on the wall and is no more, it was just for the show which is both sad and glorious.

The dumpster coffin will no doubt be harder to dispose of and I am sure that the actual size dumpster will re-emerge somewhere in all it's strange glory.

We also loved the installation by Amy Walsh which I dismissed on first glance and then I could not be drawn away from them. Again many things that you have to see in person, looking at images on a computer screnn just don't do it, but if you want to here's the link http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Exhibitions/Past-Exhibitions/Urbanism-Reimagining-the-Lived-Environment/989/

Again Steven was our primary motivation (he also got us the tickets) for going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art's reception for Here and Now a show of ten Philadelphia artists - prints, drawings and photographs. What a surprise to see a couple of our prints on the wall from Virgil Marty, including "Bunny Multiplication" a print we made for Philagrafika's Invitational Portfolio way back in 2001 which Virgil "flocked" after printing and one of my perosnal all time favorite prints we made with Cindi Ettinger of CR Ettinger Studio which is a combination digital print and embossment. We made a little film of some of our combination prints for a show that never happened which you can find on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmStWN5xC3U if you are interested.

A really nice touch from the PMA is that they actually credited us and Cindi as the printmakers, which is the second time we have been shocked by a major museum (the first was MOMA) to actually credit us as a printmaker (so maybe digital is not all bad!).

Anyway Here and Now is not to be missed, along with The Dufala Brothers are works by Astrid Bowlby, Vincent Feldman, Daniel Heyman, Isaac Tin Wei Lin, Virgil Marti, Joshua Mosley, Serena Perrone, Hannah Price, and Mia Rosenthal.

Interestingly of the ten artists chosen by the PMA for this show seven of them are Philagrafika Invitational Portfolio artists. If you are interested in collecting art you should really take a close look at past portfolios and I have seen this years work and it's one of the stongest we have done!

Posted by Rick

September First Friday

We closed Silicon early on First Friday so that we would have the opportunity to see some of the work we had printed and some of our friends work but we left Silicon literally buzzing; as a parting gift of art by our own Colleen Rudolf is an installation of rather nasty black rubber flies on our other double doors buzzing around Dominic Episcopo's meat images.  Colleen was off to a residency in Oregon and she left us to care for her flies and concrete pigeons.

Installation of Rubber Flies by Colleen Rudolf appropriately
buzzing around Dominic Episcopo's Meat America 

Close up - Rubber Flies; Colleen Rudolf, Meat America by Dominic Episcopo

Our first stop was at Trust, formerly FUEL where artist Lee Catoro's show The RAW Collection was on display. Trust is a fabulous but difficult space for a single artist because of it's size and grandeur but Lee's work transformed the space amazingly well. A large and thought provoking collection of black and white images seemed to be really well received from what I heard.

Lee Castoro's RAW Collection at Trust in Old City



On from Trust to ex Silicon'er Donna LoGrasso's show of paintings at the Rocket Cafe Hustle Gallery in Fishtown. I haven't seen Donna's work in person for many years and while her work is reminiscent of her ealier style the subject matter is not. Now her son Beau's influence is apparent and clowns and toys have replaced the steaminess of the past with bold energetic images which can't help make you smile and reminisce your own youth. 

Donna LoGrasso at the Rocket Cafe Hustle Gallery in Fishtown

On from Donna's show to Silicon'er Katie Tackman's gallery GRAVY which continues to support local emerging photographers. Outside GRAVY an excellent blues band played which added to the charm of the evening.

Lastly we tried to get to Butch Cordoba's show at Ven and Vada on 2nd Street in Old City but we were too late but his Warhol inspired prints and really worth checking out.

Butch Cordoba at Ven and Vaida

Posted by Rick

Diane Burko at Locks August 20th, 2011

Having a new baby seems to be a relatively easy thing except that everything you do takes several times longer than normal, even the simple act of getting up in the morning; instead of taking 15 - 20 minutes now takes more like an hour and a half.

That's my excuse anyway for not getting to Diane Burko's excellent show at Locks Gallery in Philadelphia sooner than the last day, August 20th.

These photographs echo Diane's better known paintings and are in my opinion her best so far and that's not to diminish her older photographs which are great. It's a shame that they were up at Locks in the summer and not at the more popular spring and fall seasons.

No matter I am sure that Locks would be pleased to show you some of the prints if you were interested and you can check them out on-line at http://www.locksgallery.com/exhibits_works.php?eid=128.

Of course looking at them on-line does not do them justice, the Internet may be great but looking at tiny images on a computer screen is nothing like the real thing.

Posted by Rick



Shame on the Met

Shame on the Met, last Sunday five of us drove up to New York to see the Alexander McQueen show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw that there was a two hour wait and were informed that if we joined we could skip the line. Not a really big deal since we go to the museum at least four times a year anyway; we joined, two individual memberships plus a "donation" for our guests came to the best part of $200.

The we saw the line, OMG as they say, it went on and on, I could not believe it. When we got to the front of the line, yup, you guessed it, there was another line for members. To be fair we only had to wait a few minutes and we were in.

That was the beginning of the worst experience I have ever had in a museum or for that matter a rock concert. The halls were jammed packed, like a Tokyo subway at rush hour, once in you could not move neither forward nor back just bodies packed in like sardines. I am lucky because I am relatively tall and could see the tops of the exhibits but since I was carrying my four week old daughter I decided I would get the hell out (and get buy catalogue. But. . . leaving was not that simple as the crowds were so intense that it took me a good 15 minutes to get out!

While attempting to leave as politely as possible I found myself wondering what would happen if there was any kind of panic, someone fainting or worse, if the Fire Marshall was there it would surely have been closed - a disaster waiting to happen.

Why the museum could not issue timed tickets - like the rest of the museums in the world - is beyond me but then again their membership has doubled as a result of the show (skip the line) in the same period as last year, even at the basic level that's $700,000 of extra income not to mention the 55,000 copies of the catalogue!

Posted by Rick

National Hot Dog Day - Big Success

Despite it being about 200 degrees in the shade outside of Silicon on Saturday tons of people braved the heat either for Scott's gourmet hot dogs or to drop off clothes and sample Rick's rather less special dog's.

Some guests were lucky enough to sample our unique Margaritas using fresh watermelon juice (made by our own Katie Tackman) skillfully blended with limes and 1800 Tequila. As you can see from the picture about we managed to collect a ton of stuff for Cradles to Crayons and many very generous cash donations. Among the donations were a box of new shoes, books, toys, and new and used clothes (some of which came in bags from other old city establishments.

Hawk Krall also sold a lot of hot dogs prints.

Thanks to help of Louis Zimmer, a Cradles to Crayons volunteer, we managed to get a bunch of press with articles appearing in  City Paper, Metro, Weekly Press and nine other places.



The tank of helium was a big hit with a kids that came in (some adults also had too much fun).

There is still time to donate, just visit Cradles to Crayons or drop off during normal hours at Silicon.

Thanks again to all those who took part and donated.

Posted by Rick

Hot Diggedy Dog Press Release - this Saturday 23rd.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For information, contact: Rick De Coyte, Silicon 215-238-6062/rick@fineartprint.com Old City Business to Offer Food for Good Thoughts On National Hot Dog Day, Saturday, July 23 OLD CITY, July 15 – Calling it our civic duty, Rick De Coyte is asking local residents to help Philadelphia move to number one among the top hot dog-consuming cities in the United States* by celebrating National Hot Dog Day, Saturday, July 23, from 1:00 – 6:00 p.m. , with a free hot dog** and beverage. The event will take place in front of Silicon (fineartprint.com), the fine art print studio at 139 N. Third Street, in Old City. * Philadelphia is currently ranked sixth according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, based on total retail sales in the United States, excluding Walmart, for the 2010 calendar year. Treat’s on him…as long as the diner-in-waiting brings some new or gently used clothes or any of a wide range of goods used by children, from infants through preteens. It will be donated to Cradles to Crayons, the area organization that served more than 25,000 low-income and/or homeless children in the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania region last year. If you don’t bring any clothes or donations, it could mean no free hot dog, but Rick says “not to worry. You’ll be able to buy the best dog in town from "Scott Dogs," a food cart from Scott Schroeder (acooknamedscott@hotmail.com), chef of the South Philadelphia Taproom, featuring homemade hot dogs and topping, including a chili dog and homemade mustard-relish dog, that will be premiering at the National Hot Dog Day event. In addition to getting a free hot dog for the children’s clothes donation or buying one of Scott Schroeder’s new edible hot dog creations, hot dog prints to purchase and take home will be on display at Silicon. The prints are created by local Illustrator, cartoonist (graphic below) and food writer Hawk Krall (hawkkrall.net/prints), who writes and illustrates a "Hot Dog Of The Week" column for Serious Eats, and wrote and illustrated an article, "America's Best Hot Dogs," for Rachel Ray magazine. De Coyte, Silicon’s proprietor, has enlisted some fellow members of the Old City Business Collective to join him on July 23 by complementing his offer of free eats by taking a 10 percent bite off the sale price of products through July 31. Bring more than 20 pounds of the children’s clothes items and the 10 percent discount at Silicon will be extended to all purchases through August 31. Bring in the most clothes that day between the event hours of 1:00 – 6:00 p.m. and receive a $100.00 Silicon gift certificate. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce officially designated July as National Hot Dog Month in 1957; The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council encourages all Americans to join in celebrating this national icon. About Cradles to Crayons Cradles to Crayons collects new and gently used essential items for children in low-income and homeless situations from birth to age 12 in the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania area. The items are contributed by families, corporations, schools and community partners who conduct local product collections and deliver them to Cradles to Crayons’ West Conshohocken warehouse. Volunteers inspect and sort the donated clothing, shoes, toys, books, and school supplies, and fill orders from social service agencies for individual KidPacks – a week’s worth of everyday essentials for a child. In 2010, more than 15,000 KidPacks, 10,000 backpacks, and 8,000 new coats were provided, free of charge, to needy children. www.cradlestocrayons.org. **While supplies last.	HELP US HELP LESS FORTUNATE KIDS
	Copyright Silicon Gallery Fine Art Prints Ltd 1995 - 2011 All rights reserved copyright notice

CFEVA at the Icebox

©Tim Portlock copyright notice

Tonight we went to the opening of "Construct" an Exhibition by CFEVA Career Development Fellows, curated by CFEVA's Amie Postic. The show was well worth going to with sculpture, paintings and digital images of a very high standard.

I say digital images because Tim Portlock's work is neither painting nor photograph, they are renderings of urban spaces that are vaguely recognisable as real places but only truly exist in Tim's computer. Such is the complexity of the 3 dimensional images that to render them at the size and resolution they are printed at he has to send the files to a supercomputer where they render them at off peak times and then send the huge files back.

We have been working with Tim on his images for some years now and they get better and better. I am sure that at some moment in the near future some fancy New York gallery will pick him up and they will suddenly attain stratospheric prices and he fame and fortune - you heard it here first!

©KImberly Witham - Still Life with Fox and Steak

On the photography side Noah Addis has some really nice images, as did Kimberly Witham - seen here Still Life with Steak and Fox whose work is whimsical and slightly sinister. On a professional note I have to wonder why she have them printed as digital C prints, this is where photographic paper is exposed using lasers, this used to be the way to print color glossy images but inkjet printing, especially Epson's have caught up and overtaken the quality in the last few years. Of course I may be just a little biased :)

The show is up at the Icebox until June 29th.

Posted by Rick

Art Institute Schmooze

©Corey Palmer 2011 see copyright notice Copyright Notice

 Tonight Michal Smith - ex Silicon and the Print Center, now doing good things at www.cradlestocrayons.com, visited the Sketch Club at 235 South Camac St., for the Art Institutes spring photography Schmooze, sponsored by the Art Institutes Photography department.

The event is designed for local photographers, designers and the like to get together, have a drink and generally mingle. Jill Sherman, another ex Silicon person, teaches as AI and was there along with a bunch of seniors showing off their final projects, very impressive, especially a series of images by Corey Palmer, which were beautifully presented and fabulously printed but I am too modest to say by whoom.

I took some pictures of the event with my fabulous and trusty Sony NEX-5 but forgot to put in the "film" (read memory stick)  . . .

Posted by Rick

First Friday June 2011 - Part 2

The second best show in town was at our own Katie Tackman's new gallery / work space in Fishtown; GRAVY.  Showing at Gravy fabulous prints (by Silicon, natch) all the more amazing because they are from the cell phone of Silicon Alum Kaitlin Mosley.

Left to right Kaitlin Mosley and Katie Tackman

This is the second show we have printed recently from cell phone images. The first was Tristin Lowe's highly erotic images at Fleisher Ollman Gallery.

It was quite a scene at GRAVY and the renowned Philly artist Rachel Bliss turned up with her kids. If you know Rachel's work you probably covet it, so the good news is that Rachel will be at Art For the Cash Poor this weekend, June 11 - 12 at the Crane Arts Building in Kensington, with stupendous prints of her work. The rule is everything must be under $200 so there are bargains to be had!

Left to right Freda, Rachel Bliss and Rosalie

Posted by Rick

First Friday June 2011

Busy, busy, busy First Friday in June, loads of shows around with prints by Silicon but I have to mention the two best shows in town. The first by our own Colleen Rudolf at Hollandia in Old City. Yes, yes, I know Hollandia is a place that sells high end beds but Stefan at Hollandia is committed to showing new work every month and I must day that he has had some pretty good shows so far. But, of course, none as good as Colleen's paintings of rescue dogs.



















And. . . not be be outdone she brought along a couple of her friends who came complete with wonderful dogs desperately in need of adoption. Below you can see the adorable Woolfgang with the equally adorable Kate - Woolgang's foster Mum - with Colleen in the background. No . . . that's Colleen behind the guy.





We are happy to report that Woolfgang was adopted on Saturday!
If you are interested in a fabulous loyal dog, or slightly less loyal stinking cat, just around the corner from Silicon is PAWS  Philadelphia's Animal Welfare Society. If you become a member of PAWS you get discounts at Silicon (don't tell anyone!)

Posted By Rick

Last Day in Japan - at Rate Hole Gallery

Our last day in Japan we managed to get together with our friend Caroline Elder who gave us a private tour of Rat Hole Gallery where she works.

Rat Hole Gallery is one of the few contemporary galleries in Tokyo and is currently showing Cheyney Thompson "Chronochromes, Data, Motifs".
The paintings are made so that they track their own time of creation using the Munsell Color System which is based on Hue, Lightness and Color Purity. It's kinda complicated but if you are really interested I would be happy to send you the abstract.

A few years ago we also made some very interesting prints using color, time and music as the basis for the imagery. Philadelphia artist Nancy Herman made some beautiful large format prints based on musical annotation, my favorite was Bach's Cello Suite. You can find Nancy's take on this at http://www.nancyherman.com/www.nancyherman.com/VISUAL_MUSIC.html.

Posted by Rick

Kyoto - Japan - May 25

Yet another temple in Kyoto which, like all of them, is made of wood and this one dated back to 1100, amazing that they survive really. (another one we went to was built in 1050, destroyed by fire in 1123 and rebuilt in 1245).
This one was notable for it's original drawings and ceiling decoration dating back over 800 years. The party looks amazingly contemporary as does the bulging eyed dragon.

We at Silicon have not been around quite that long and it remains to be seen if any of our prints will be around 800 years from now. We are told that if they are kept in a dark cool place there is a chance!

Posted by Rick

Kyoto - Japan - May 24

My how different is Kyoto from Tokyo, here there are ancient temples and shrines and it has an overall feeling of calm after Tokyo. This temple or shrine was interesting, it reminded me of Linda Brenner and (Silicon friend and aritst) Judy Gelles's show at Pentimenti in Old City check it out and you will see why.

At this and many of the other Japanese shrines visitor pay a small amount of money to purchase a bamboo tile and then record their prayers on the tile and hang it up. Of course most of the prayers were in Japanese but there were a surprising number in English, Spanish and a smattering of other languages.

Unlike European Temples, oh wait we call them churches, there is not the feeling of power and dread when you enter them more an overall impression of calm and meditation, very cool.

Posted by Rick 

Japan - Museum - May 23rd

Our recent trip to Japan included a visit to the main art museum in Tokyo and I must say we were both pretty disappointed with the collection it struck us more of the kind of museum you would find in a in third world country than one of the busiest and richest cities on the planet (the Ginza region of Tokyo has the most expensive real estate in the World). As we have been told many times by our Japanese friends modern art is not a part of the mainstream culture here.

A couple of things did strike my eye, one was this interesting painting of some geisha’s looking through what looks like a modern telescope. I think the image was from the 30’s which made it more interesting.

This series of images from Naoya Hatakeyama – River Series were, surprisingly, from 1993 – 1996, I say surprisingly because they are mounted on DiBond® which is all the rage at Silicon at the moment. They were also perfectly photographed and presented.

Posted by Rick

Our own Colleen Rudolf at Bird Park

It's very fitting that Colleen Rudolf was chosen to show her plaster (and lately concrete I understand) Pigeons at Old City's Bird Park. The little fenced in park has been empty for some time and the Old City Business Collective wanted to have something in the park for "Old City Design Night Out" (more about that in another post).

Enter Colleen, who works at Silicon, with her fab pigeons. Ever the recycler, Colleen tidied up the park and then made a nest under the chair of twigs and leaves from the site. It's a charming installation and you could be forgiven, on casual glance, that they were real pigeons who had found an endless supply of breadcrumbs.

Check it out, it's on the corner of 3rd and Arch Street across from the Starbucks.

Posted by Rick De Coyte

Edward McHugh at 339

Gallery 339's shows just get better and better, the last show by Tetsugo Hyakutake was great and Ed McHugh's continues in the same tradition..
Eds large scale work is printed on a smooth cotton rag and then mounted on white sintra (at Silicon - duh);  then they are "wax diffused" which adds to their ethereal quality. You can almost step inside the images and hear the water.

The internet is great but for looking at large works of art, especially large scale digital prints, it just does not do it. These works really have to be seen in person to appreciate them. You can check them out on-line at 339 but to really "see" them you have to visit in person.
The show runs to July 9th at Gallery 339, 339 South 21st Street.

Posted by Rick
(forgot my camera again!)

Silicon Print at the Met Featured in the New York Times

The New York Times on Friday May 8th Featured a print made by Silicon and CR Ettinger Studio in Philadelphia as part of the story on the Metropolitan Museum of New York's new exhibit Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine which does not open until September 13, 2011, but it seems is still worthy of a NYT article.

The print is a Chin Colle and a collaboration between the artists Enrique Chagoya, George Cruikshank (but I don't think he knew much about it since he died in the 1878), the Rosenbach Museum, Silicon and CR Ettinger Studio. We have one of the prints on display at Silicon if you would like to see it in person and they are also available for purchase at Philagrafika (www.philagrafika.org) for $1,200. 

What better way to impress your friends than to have the New York Times casually open next to your print or, if you prefer to be anonymously pretentious then go to the Met with your loved one and declare loudly "Oh Dahling don't we have the same print in our library at home!" (works better if you have the English accent). Of course you do have to buy the print first!

Posted by Rick De Coyte

Tristin Lowe - Voyeur

You really should not miss Trsitin Lowe's show at Fleisher Ollman Gallery apart from this amazing neon comet there are five large prints mounted in DiBond which really HAVE to be seen.

I can't spoil it by showing the images here, either check it out on line or go to the show, they are really thought provoking.

It runs through June 4th at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, 1616 Walnut, Suite 100

Posted by Rick

Picture from my Mobile phone (forgot my camera)

Philagrafika Book Launch

Thursday May 5th found us at Philgrafika's book launch for the new book / catalogue of "Philagrafika: The Graphic Unconscious" exhibition catalogue. From left to right that's Cindi Ettinger of CR Ettinger Studio, Jen from 2nd State Press and Sabrina DeTurk.

The book is well worth the $30 not to mention it's a great organization and they need our support.

and . . as a by the way, we are working on prints for the invitational portfolio 2011. Just let me say this you might want to get your pre-orders in!

Posted by Rick De Coyte