Midweek News, Marta Sanchez, Mickalene Thomas, Theater by Development, Arden, Frank Maya, Wilma and book reviews

Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

Ryan: And this is Ryan and this is the Midweek News

Roberta: on Artblog Radio. So Ryan, hello, how are you this week?

Ryan: I’m doing fine, Roberta, how are you doing?

Roberta: I’m doing okay. Hanging in. I love the weather. Are you having a good time? Are you out on your bicycle looking at fall colors and whatnot?

Ryan: Yeah, the colors are good. I feel like they were, they peaked maybe a week ago.

Roberta: Oh no. From where did I, I mean, I was miss it. Oh my God.

Ryan: I don’t know. We live in different neighborhoods, so maybe it’s different time in yours.

Roberta: Yeah, that’s true. That is true. Micro climates, we, we do live in different micro climates.

I’m always amazed that sometimes it’s raining here where I live and. A mile away in the next little town over in Arbor. It’s not raining. So what’s going on? It just is, it’s interesting

Ryan: Indeed.

Roberta: And how was your weekend and your week so far?

Ryan: My week was good. Got my bathroom retiled, so that’s exciting.

Roberta: Oh, bravo. The floor you’re talking about, or the walls too. Did you tile the walls?

Ryan: No those I had already done. But the floor and the walls now clashed. So, so I needed to fix that. So now I need to come up with a, so I haven’t put it entirely back together and I, I just need to, I want to repaint and change some of the lighting.

So a little bit of, a bit of update on that

Roberta: big project.

Ryan: How is to ends up taking longer than you expect in part of its motivation?

Roberta: Yes. Well, for sure, for sure. You’re doing it by yourself. Do you have any buddies helping you? Are you conscripting children? I.

Ryan: No, this one’s, you know, it’s a smallish space.

It’s just the bathroom, so it doesn’t lend itself to a lot of multiple, A crowd person work. Yeah. Yeah. Many hands wouldn’t make short work on this. Getting the materials up and in is usually the biggest help and then passed that. It’s fine. Cuts and moving things around and,

Roberta: well, you’re very ambitious.

Well, I got out and I filled two tall paper bags with leaves. So that was my weekend.

Ryan: Yeah. I also I went on a, a, a date with a person, which is always interesting. We should do a whole segment of like, my dating experiences. I think people would find that very humorous and maybe I’d find a cathartic

Roberta: Yes.

I think we should use some time for catharsis here. Why not?

Ryan: Yeah, for sure.

Roberta: Where did you go on, on your date?

Ryan: Oh, it was such a beautiful day. We ended up going along the river. So we met at Cosmic Cafe and then walked along the river.

Roberta: Nice. Yeah, I love that. That’s kind of date. I like take a walk, get a walk, coffee, get lunch, whatever.

Ryan: And this is the first one, you never know if you need to run for it or not.

Roberta: Well, did it go okay? Were you running by the end?

Ryan: No, it, it went great. Yeah, they seem really nice. So we’ll see. Stay tuned until next week and we’ll see how it goes.

Roberta: Okay, that’s a promise. We’ll get back to this. Oh. Yeah. Or a threat. I don’t know, Ryan, is it a threat or a promise?

Ryan: I think this is the cathartic part where like you’re processing through life and you know, I’ve been encouraged to be vulnerable and open and available. So, but it is, it is a scary proposition. I tell you what, yes. But yes, but just like, you know, you make an art and putting it out there and putting it out on a show and waiting for the reception, and then you get crickets except for all your friends say, it’s really great.

You know, it’s nice when your friends say it’s really great. It’s weird, you know, you also want someone who has no idea who you are to say, wow, that was really amazing. Or really moved me.

Roberta: Yeah. Yes.

Ryan: So similar experience I find art and dating.

Roberta: I had never put those two together in the same sentence, but Wow.

Okay. It’s a new thought. Me neither.

Ryan: Me neither. But there it is.

Roberta: I have some news this week. Not a lot. And it mainly is about two exhibitions. And ancillary programs that I’m very excited for by women artists. First I’ll tell you about is Marta Sanchez. Marta is a Latina artist who is a longtime Philadelphia resident, although she’s from San Antonio, Texas, and makes art that is like re Tablo.

She was very influenced by growing up in. Her Latina Latino community in San Antonio. She’s got a show right now, solo show at Brandywine Workshop and Archives on South Broad Street. They have a wonderful gallery up on their second floor if you haven’t been. It’s, it’s a very nice place to see art and it, her show is called Retablos and Images of the Loved.

Marta has the biggest heart. Retablos are honorific paintings and artworks that are in honor of a person or persons or events. In Marta’s case, the show offers some COVID Retablos, where she’s sort of mourning an honoring the people that passed during Covid and that were dealing with Covid and all of that horrible time.

And then she has many more that are very personal. Like to her mother, the Tablo of her mother on a beach, very beautiful color. She’s a colorist. And so, you know, every color of the palette is in there. And it’s lush oils and acrylics. And prince, she’s a print maker. Marta, has been on the board of the Brandy Wine Workshop for a long time, and she’s now the program manager there.

This show was curated by Bill Valerio. Marta has, if you haven’t been to her studio, she has a cornucopia of works on her, like from floor to ceiling lined up against the walls. She’s a prolific art maker, and that’s just the first floor. Then you get down to the basement and that’s where she works, and that’s got shelves and shelves and shelves of painted artwork.

So Bill Valerio selected from her ra. Put together a very spare but beautiful show, like not overwhelming, but just enough lovely color, beautiful sentiment Act, heartrending re tablos in some cases, and then Prince that are very personal also to her and her loved ones that are print for Tablos. In a way, I highly recommend this show.

It’s open. I think Monday through Friday. But check the, we’ll put the link to the gallery in so you can check the gallery hours. And on November 21st, if you want to mark your calendar, there’ll be a panel with Marta talking with the curator, bill Valerio, who, I don’t know if I mentioned this. He’s the director of the Woodmere Art Museum if you don’t know who he is a really great curator and director of a museum.

And Patty Smith. We’ll be talking in an open conversation that I believe will be recorded afterwards and be on their website. It’d be nice to go in person and hear them speak. I’m looking forward to that. And we happen to do a studio visit with Marta recently, Ryan and I and our two university of Pennsylvania students who are helping us with the art market this year.

Because we were selecting art. From Marta to be in our art market. So you can see a small sample of Marta’s work in the art market. If you go to Mark Moore College and check out what’s on the walls there, there are four small pieces, beautiful paintings, and one, yeah, one’s a painting on tin and the others are on panels, wood panels, I believe.

Second show I want to mention is the Mickalene Thomas at the Barnes Foundation. Which looks like a lovely, lovely show. Mickalene Thomas is an artist who was born in Camden, I believe is based in New York now, but has roots in this area and the Barnes is honoring her with a solo show now until January mid-January, I think.

And I want to give a shout out to all the events that are being put together. To surround and amplify her work. Her work is all about love and pleasure, empowerment of women. She’s a very women empowered artist and empowering women is a beautiful thing. First Fridays, November 1st coming up, they have a jazz saxophonist, Emmanuel Wilkins, who.

We know through Morgan who used to work for Artblog Morgan Nitz. Shout out to Morgan, was a classmate of Emmanuel Wilkins at Upper Darby High School. Emmanuel is a Accoladed saxophonist, and he’s going to be the featured saxophonist on November 1st at the Barnes first Friday. Next on December 6th.

First Friday, Yolanda Wisher and the Afro Eaters are performing Now. This is an Afrofuturist group, which I think would be amazing to see. And then on January 3rd, black butterfly, butterfly singer songwriter will be performing. At that first Friday and first Fridays are six to 9:00 PM at the Barnes.

I’m not sure what the pay is on first Friday, if it’s pay what you wish like at the art museum, but we’ll put that in the transcript so you can figure that out. And a link to tickets if you need tickets. Anyway, those are my two shout outs in the. News department. Okay, over to you, Ryan.

Ryan: Okay, so my three things are, we had a comic event scheduled at Moore College this Saturday, and we are changing that date to November 30th.

So we hope that you can adjust your calendars and make that event. So we had previously posted it for October 26th, but we’re moving it to November 30th. It’ll still be one to 3:00 PM Adjust your calendars for that. Make sure you have that added to your event list coming up. Also on Saturday the 26th, a film that I’m curious to see is Bye-Bye Tabius.

It’s a documentary about Palestine. That looks very interesting, quite an interesting show. We’ll, I’ll put the links into that. And then also on September 26th is Big Ramps opening. Their show opens at 6:00 PM That looks like a a lot of fun show there as well.

Roberta: Is that, is that the Kitty Cat show? The Cat, the Hanging You?

Yeah.

Ryan: Yeah. It looks really interesting because of the political connections to it as well. So I am. I’m curious and fascinated what that could potentially be, because whenever you take a theme like Katz and you’re going to make that the, the theme of the show. Yeah, I’ll put the link in there. because it, it does look really interesting.

It, I don’t quite know what it is going to be, but it, it looks really interesting. You know, the, the flyer has the hang in there, kitty. The show is called The Sublime is Meow.

Roberta: I love that. I just love that.

Ryan: I think it’s going to be really funny. So take a look at that. That’s a big ramp. That’s 2024 East Westmoreland, and there’s quite a few different artists that are participating in this show. So it could be a, a wild, crazy cat feline time.

Roberta: I want to know if they’re going to actually have cats. The gallery at the opening.

Ryan: I think there’s a lot of allergy issues with that.

Roberta: oh right. Yes you are right.

Ryan: But it could be a lot of fun if they had in a separate room.

Maybe people would be fine with that there Halloween is coming up next week. I. So people are already thinking about that. I know. People in my house are already thinking about that.

Roberta: You mean the children?

Ryan: Yeah. And myself. You know, it’s always kind of coordinate, we got to coordinate some good ones.

Vox Populi has a show that is running October 24th through the 26th. It is theater by development, TBD. It’s a Halloween engagement of no breakfast. That could be a very interesting show that’s coming up 24, 25 and 26. At Vox Populi three 19 North 11th at their, in their black box. So it could be a lot of fun.

Its premise is that three students are trapped in the eternal detention because what’s worse than hell High school. So that could be like, so this

Roberta: is a play It’s a skits, yeah. Or play.

Ryan: Yeah. It’s going to be a theater show in their black box. And it’s, it looks like they’ve been working on it for some time and they’re going to be bringing it out.

Looks like a lot of fun. Could be perfectly timely and, and a good, a good time for theater lovers and those who are interested in these kind of shows in general performance art.

Roberta: So, who, who is the theater company? Is it the members of Vox Populi or is it a traveling company of some sort or,

Ryan: it’s theater by development.

TBD

Roberta: is, that’s the name of the company and they’re local. Mm-Hmm

Ryan: mm-Hmm. So then that’s that Vox Populi 24, 25 and 26. Wilma is putting on a two day show that is an honorarium to Frank Maya, Maya was one of the first out gay comedians that performed on TV in, in the eighties, in the nineties. An interesting throwback piece to that.

I’m not quite sure what exactly. It’s an homage piece, but it looks interesting. If you’ve seen Frank Maya performance, it’s an interesting, he’s engaging. Take a look at that. That’s at the Wilma. That’s October 25th and 26th.

A lot of openings for theater, Intimate Apparel at Arden Theater. That is opening on the 24th. That’s Thursday the 24th. It opens at seven and it is 1905. And it’s about Esther Mills, an African American seamstress that looks like an interesting show that’s running through the 1st of December. So you have the month of November to see that show. All the links are going to be in there in our show notes.

So take a look at that with all the links to tickets and availability for those shows. So those are my big items that I’m curious about seeing this week.

Roberta: This is the start, isn’t it, of the theater season. Doesn’t theater have a season, like the art has a season that starts in the fall?

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. I think for most things, things start ramping up in the fall.

It’s, I think theater also kind of goes through its phases. I. And just like dance and other performances have their seasons. So like we’re not so far away from Swan Lake. I know people who are already performing or getting excited for Swan Lake.

Roberta: Sure. Nutcrackers right behind it.

Ryan: Nutcracker, yeah. Oh man. Tradition, right?

Roberta: We should mention we have a dance writer now on Artblog, Megan Bridge and Dancer educator. Coach and writer. And so I’m hoping Megan, Megan wrote a fantastic history of experimental dance in Philadelphia from her point of view and perspective, and based on interviews with many, many people.

And I’m looking forward to more forward coverage of dance from Meghan in the future. She’s a very thoughtful, very good writer.

Ryan: Yeah, I, I enjoyed the piece. I thought it was like, a warmup to a book that she’s envisioning.

Roberta: It could have been a book. I mean, what she turned in to begin with was about four times longer than what actually wound up on Artblog.

We worked on it back and forth and back and forth, and she worked very hard and did a fantastic job, but it could have been a, the start of a book. Yes, indeed.

Ryan: It definitely feels like it has the bones there. Mm-Hmm. Like she’s thinking about that as she wrote that, for sure.

Roberta: Absolutely, absolutely. One thing that I’m, I’m going to mention two books quickly here.

One thing that I learned through a review of a new book by Paul Yune, I read this, he’s got a book, I can’t remember the name of it, but the book involves three main characters that are animals, two dogs and a horse. So it was all about what were your influences? How did you get there? You, you haven’t done a book like this before.

And he said, well, John Berger, one of my all time big influences, had a book, at least one where a dog was the main character. And this book is called King. And I said to myself, John Berger, ways of seeing. Right. Fantastic. I had no idea he was a fiction writer. But he is also a fiction writer, and if you Google him up, you’ll see all kinds of fiction books to his name as well as the art criticism books and that wonderful BBC series that he did, which is Drop Dead Amazing.

If you haven’t seen it, rush right out to your library or YouTube, wherever it’s available and watch it. It is the best like monologues about art. So anyway. He’s a fiction writer in addition to an amazing critic. So all you critics out there, just warm up your pens and pencils and start writing fiction.

It’s in you.

Ryan: Interesting. Yeah. I know him from ways of seeing as well.

Roberta: Mm-Hmm.

Ryan: But I don’t think I’ve read any of his fiction work before.

Roberta: I didn’t even know he was a fiction writer. I mean you, I’m sorry. That’s probably my prejudice. You tend to. Silo people, right? With what you know them for. Oh, this person is a critic and so that’s all they do and that’s wrong.

They do so much more than that. I mean, he was still a writer. Writing is maybe a bigger silo, but he was an amazing breadth of subject matter. The other book I wanted to mention is the book that you got from me, dark Forest. Which I finished. Oh, nice. What did you think of it? Oh, I loved it. Yeah. I liked it better than the three body problem.

I thought that was sort of chaotic the way it should have been. Right? The three body problem, which is about chaos. It was a really chaotic book. I enjoyed it. But this one I thought was psychologically more in depth. Mm-Hmm. And I loved that it was about alienation escaping and anger. And love and in the end we, I no spoiler alerts here, but in, in the end, love wins and I just, I didn’t see that coming, but I Did You like it?

Ryan: I did. Yeah. I thought the, I thought all the books were really good and they stand alone as well. There’s a through line, but they are individual pieces of work.

Roberta: They sure are. This guy needs a Nobel Prize or something. A Booker prize, for sure. I thought they were just fabulous. And there’s a third book right in the series,

Ryan: right?

Roberta: Yeah, yeah. This is science fiction. An alien world that has three sons spinning around it, which is automatic chaos. And they are a cer, they go up to a certain level, and then there’s chaos and everybody dehydrates, which is this crazy concept of a body dehydrating. Yeah. And then they wake up again.

When the next Okay. Period. The calm period, I forget what they call it. There’s stable, I guess the stable era comes along. It, it’s quite fascinating and I can’t imagine the mind, there’s a lot of physics talk in it, which I just sort of Okay. Onto the next page.

Ryan: Yeah.

Roberta: But you can get the story without.

Physics. I mean, you sort of absorb some of the physics by osmosis, but not really.

Ryan: Yeah. I think you understand that the challenges that are faced or that it is challenging, the math makes it like they’re problem solving and trying to work it through. And yeah, the three body problem is actually a physics conundrum.

So

Roberta: I live next door to a physics professor at Penn. You know, accoladed guy. Very high theoretical physics. I was walking home from the train with him one day and I said, I’m reading a book called The Three Body Problem. And he looked at me because that’s a physics thing, and he said, yeah, total chaos.

Ryan: Yeah. I said, yes. That’s, that’s what I understand. Yeah. So do you have deaths and the, the last one in the series?

Roberta: No, I have to get hold of that.

Ryan: Okay.

Roberta: Do you have a source?

Ryan: I’m not sure. I could take a look. Deaths End is the name of the, the third book,

Roberta: deaths End

Ryan: Uhhuh.

Roberta: Wow. At least that’s the

Ryan: English translation.

Roberta: Yes. Yes. Yeah. The, we should say these are written in Chinese to begin with. That’s right. The author is, I can’t even pronounce his name. Chinese National. Or however

Ryan: you would say, Leo. Yeah, that’s good, Leo. Yeah, they, they’re great books and I think you’re going to enjoy the third one as well.

Roberta: Oh

Ryan: boy. If you enjoyed the second one, you’re definitely going to enjoy the third one. And the ending, the ending is really good, I

Roberta: think as

Ryan: well. No spoilers.

Roberta: Oh, okay. All good. And then I’m going to read John Berger’s king. Yeah. And also try to get hold of Paul Yon, whatever the name of the book is. I’ll look it up and I’ll put it in the transcript, which also sounded marvelous.

Ryan: I’m reading a book that’s it’s a, it’s a unique book. I can’t quite figure out where we’re going to go yet. It’s also has death in the title, it’s called Masters of Death.

Roberta: Hmm.

Ryan: BA Vie Blake. It’s the nom de plume. So far the, the main character, or at least the book jacket, the main characters have been or elic as the godson of death and a vampire realtor. It’s been a, that’s

Roberta: redundant, vampire and read one of those words has got to go. Yeah.

Ryan: Yeah. It, it’s been an interesting, it’s been an interesting journal journey so far in this book. The jury’s out if I would read it again, but so far it’s, it’s an easy read. So that’s fun.

Roberta: That’s an interesting thought.

What books would you read a second time and what books would you not

Ryan: sure.

Roberta: I’m a, I am, I go back to books all the time and reread them. I’m rather limited in what I accept as acceptable reading.

Ryan: Yeah.

Roberta: You know, slow to come to science fiction and now I’m an a devotee, but I was like, no, I’m not going to read science fiction.

Ryan: Yeah. Science fiction. I, I love science fiction because you can add the, the scientific part and you can change worlds, which allows you a lot more freedom. It allows the reader to kind of separate themselves, I think is really the point. Separate themselves from the current Yes. Their current existence and then, oh my God.

Yeah. Then you can bring up the topics you want to talk about in kind of like isolation. Mm-Hmm. Yes. It’s, I feel like it’s like the the literary double blind where you can do a test and, and study something that you want to study as, as specifically as you can by isolating that specific thing you want to talk about.

By removing the reader and the, and the narrative from what’s known to something that’s unknown.

Roberta: I agree. That’s great. Well put. Thank you for listening, everybody. This is Roberto signing off from our, Artblog radio.

Ryan: Thanks everybody. This is Ryan signing off as well. This has been Artblog’s, midweek News.

Roberta: Bye. See you next time.