Tonight was a busy night for me in Center City Philly. After busting hump all day in the studio I hopped the EL down to The Academy and met up with Echo as she was finishing her Cast Drawing Class, and I got my student ID for the school so I can start Monday with my CE Anatomy Class.
Next we attended the Student show opening in the Student Gallery which was pretty good. As usual it's a mixed bag, some really good strong peices and some that make you scratch your head. Then we hopped in the car, drove a few blocks over and parked and walked over to the Hewman Gallery on Walnut and 17th, but it was closed, dang it! I went there because I heard they had a few Dean Cornwell pieces, since were closed I'll have to go back.
Then we walked around the block to the Gross McCleaf gallery to see a new show which featured work by some of the teachers at the Academy, and one artist in particular who's work I've admired for a few years, Scott Noel, who just happens to be one of Echo's teachers. She introduced us and we chatted in the back of the gallery as he pulled out some paintings that were not hanging in the show and we talked a while about "north light", lead white vs titanium white and he explained about how he approached and worked on some of his paintings. It was great for me as I came across Noel's work a year or so back via some web searches I did on Philly area painters. I was immediately taken with his work and hoped to be able to take classes from him somehow. It looks like that will happen now as I plan on attending school at the Accademy where he teaches next September.
Next we were off to see my pal Chuck van Zyl's show of his evocative photos at Among Cenopaths and Angels at the AXD Gallery
Chuck is mostly known world wide for his electronic music as well as being the host of Stars End, the oldest electronic music show in the wolrd which runs Saturday nights on WXPN. Chuck's show of graveyards and statuary taken with infra-red film are haunty, evocative and very inviting at the same time. Echo said the picture made her feel like she wanted to be in them so she could see what everything in heaven might look like. Then we hooked up with my pal Steve and headed over to his cousin Effi's greek resturant on Pine and 12th for some awesome food. Echo and I had the lamd---mmmm-m. We were all done in from the walking all over the city, the excitement of meeting the artists and seeing such cool art--and my feet were dog tired,but it was fun despite the blustery cold wind. Seeing good art and meeting nice people always leaves one charged up.
it was a good night-out we have to do it again :}
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