Tyler Kline at Chimaera Gallery plus comedy show

SHIFT in Narberth

RMMB Curatorial Fellowship at Allens Lane

Electronics Faire @ Temple – Low Tech @ Huddle215

ADSS Versescape Experience @ Philadelphia Small Works Gallery by Armstead Dickerson at Partners and Son

Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture – Music Behind the Bars

Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

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

Roberta: on Artblog Radio.

Ryan: What did I do this weekend? Probably really great. Stuff.

Roberta: Ryan, have you had enough coffee this morning?

Ryan: I am on my second cup. I’m doing just fine. It was the bike expo last weekend and that’s a lot of fun. A lot of interesting designers come out and put out their new shapes and sizes and, I enjoy bikes, so it’s kind of fun to go see different stuff and all the ancillary pieces that go along with it as well.

Roberta: You enjoy bikes. That was the understatement of the year, Ryan, you realize that, right?

Ryan: I don’t know about that, the most top? maybe in the top 10, but maybe not the most. And then also my daughter Amelia was at the Women’s Empowerment Cup at the soccer tournament at Temple.

Roberta: Wow. Yeah. Playing? Playing for whom?

Ryan: She participates with Safe Hub.

Roberta: Is that local?

Ryan: Yeah, it’s all local groups. But it’s a yearly event that they have. And they have, they have other events throughout the year, but this is the big one that they go to every year. And then I lost an hour of sleep.

Yes. That was very exciting.

Roberta: Yes. That was really bad. Hard to take.

Ryan: I didn’t notice the first day, but the second day I’m like, oh man, this is, I could have used another hour. Yeah. How was your weekend?

Roberta: It was lively and uproarious because we had our delayed or belated Christmas and birthday parties.

We do family birthday parties like the winter. In our family there’s several that have birthdays in December and February and March for some reason. So we celebrate all that. Plus Christmas, my daughter Oona and her family came up from Virginia. Stayed with us and then everybody else came over and we had brunch on Sunday.

It was very nice. Three kids, a lot of up and down and roaring around, and a lot of love. It’s so wonderful. I love my family. They’re sweet people. And so we had a lot of talk and I found out my son, the lawyer Max and his wife Kim, the lawyer

Ryan: Judge,

Roberta: Yes…Max is a judge… Kim’s Villanova. Max is, Dickinson/Penn State. They are really, I mean like everybody kind of glued to the news these days and with horror, eyeballs sort of glued open in disbelief. And we were talking about reading on Substack and they both looked horrified and said, “Substack has a Nazi problem.” And we said, what?! And they explained…

There is an article that they had read that says exactly that –  Substack has a Nazi problem. That they apparently have some Nazi content creators on the site who are monetizing their words. And Substack, of course, gets a cut. So you’re subsidizing the Nazis by supporting those people that are on there, and Substack has no problem with that. You know, free speech, yada, yada. That was an eye-opener. That was a big kind of conversation opener and closer at the same time.

Ryan: Does that change your feelings on Substack? or, yes, it did.

Roberta: Yes it did. I quit paid subscriptions to two of them. Two of the things I’m following on Substack, they’re still coming to me in my email.

So I guess I’m still a subscriber, but I’m not paying for it anymore.

Ryan: Wow. So

Roberta: That, and joining Costco and boycotting Target and you know, all the other things that I don’t really shop at anyway, anyway, economic boycott is a good thing to do, so I’m doing it.

Ryan: I am surprised Target has decided to be so blatantly…

Roberta: Me too. Minnesota, get it together. Come on. Are you with us or against us?

Ryan: Yeah, I’m surprised by that one.

Roberta: Yeah. Because they were previously quite good.

Ryan: Yeah, I think so too. I remember a lot of different things that they were like, yeah, we don’t, we’re just going to do our thing and y’all can have your political fight.

We’re just going to, but now they’re very, I don’t quite know what’s changed, but it definitely feels like it’s almost becoming like a battle between the haves and the have-nots somehow. It’s like, here’s the billionaires, and then here’s everybody else. Yeah. This is, it’s an interesting time. Things have changed a little bit in the perspectives of things. But you know, it’s all things, it’ll come around again somewhere else.

Roberta: Well, we, we have had very bad presidents in the past. Richard Nixon, I think Warren G. Harding, who Trump is always talking about. Some of the others were not really good presidents. They were in the pockets of big oil.

So we’ve been here before. It just is exaggerated now because we can’t turn our media off. You know, we’re in the mediated age where back in even the seventies, you didn’t get half the news. Even a quarter, a 10th, of the news you get now. Yeah. And so now we know everything instantaneously, unfiltered or filtered through whatever the media, major media outlet that you’re reading it from or listening to, filtered through their bullhorn, you know, makes you a different kind of witness to what’s going on.

You’re not only a witness, but you’re sort of a victim, you know? The mass onslaught of the news, it victimizes you in addition to just bombarding you.

Ryan: Yeah. It’s a lot. I think that’s kind of the point though, is that whole shock and awe kind of thinking of whatever I’ve been hearing a lot about, so.

Roberta: Yeah, well I wonder about that with Trump and his tariffs. One day, no tariffs, another day, tariffs. And the market goes up and down and up and down like a rollercoaster in response to that, and mostly down lately, but it keeps people on edge. I mean, you’re gritting your teeth, you don’t know what’s coming next.

Shock and awe. That’s the right words.

Meanwhile, here is the news from Artblog, from Philadelphia.

Chimaera Gallery, which we know and love, it’s in East Falls Run by Angela McQuillan has two things of interest this month. One is Artblog favorite, Tyler Klein has a solo show there called Skybound as Titans. We’ve been following Tyler’s work for a long time.

There’s at least one, if not more podcasts, with Tyler talking about his art and his thinking. He’s a cosmologist and believes in kinship of the species and a lot of mythology, along with it. But from that description, you would think, ‘Oh, mired in the past, Dungeons and Dragons.’ You know, analog, not digital, but no, he uses AI assisted software in portraiture and in landscapes and maps.

I saw a show of his at Pink Noise that was maps that he had made with the assistance of AI. Also, in sculpture, he makes some wonderful 3-D sculptures with Cad programs. Cad assisted sculpture, and he does the bronze pours, too. He is both the Iron Man and the digital guy, so, you know, crosses all boundaries. It should be very interesting.

Chimaera Gallery is a beautiful space. If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend. The gallery space has a high ceiling, very large space that they sometimes break up with a curtain to separate it into two spaces. It’s very well done. I want to recommend Tyler Klein’s show.

Also, the gallery is having a comedy show on March 21st at 7:30. It’s called Its Art! A Comedy Show.

Ryan: At Chimaera?

Roberta: Yeah. So they’ll set up chairs and tickets are $10 in advance. $15 at the door. We’ll put the link in to get tickets if you want. (See links list at the top) The comics are Chris Cusack, Ty Wood. Zach Hammond is the headliner and hosted by Seth Ruddick. and presented by All Set Comedy.

How about that? I mean, events in galleries I think are a really good thing, and I know Vox Populi has always had a lot of events in the galleries. Maybe even comedy, I don’t recall. But possibly. This one sounded really good.

Next I want to talk about a sustainability and recycling-promotional shop in Narberth, little Narberth, Main Street in Narberth. It’s called Shift, S-H-I-F-T. I want to put their website into your mind. It’s just mainlineshift.com and you should look at it. They have events like crazy, and some of them are extremely useful, such as knife sharpening. Every third Wednesday they have a same-day, knife sharpening event,  so you bring your knives, they get sharpened while you’re there and you take them home.

It’s a pop-up sharpening. Every third Wednesday of the month. Also, they have a person who comes in to do mending by machine. So you have something you need mended, bring it in. They’re doing candle wax collection if you want to contribute. If you have old candle stubs, you want to not just throw in the trash, you want to have them recycled.

You can bring them in. That’s through April 2nd, they’re collecting, and I think they’re going to have a candle making kind of thing. They have educational stuff like intro to low waste living. I could use some of that. They have repurposed saris. You can come in and shop the redone sari clothing, and then, they have refill stations so you can refill your liquid soaps, your powdered soaps, your whatever kind of things you want, honey, peanut butter, I think. I’m not sure what all, salt and pepper, probably herbs, I highly recommend them. I’ve been in there a couple of times. They’re run by local people, local women who are board members of the school board and this and that. They’re very connected in their community and very dedicated to this. Check out SHIFT. I know there’s something like this and I can’t remember the name of it in South Philly. (((It’s Good Buy Supply.))) Do you remember the name? We met them Ryan up at RAIR one time when we did the tour of Rair with the sponsors of the Rair fundraiser event that they were having and the couple who runs Good Buy Supply was there. I can’t remember their names (((Emily and Jason))), but it is in South Philly,(((1737 Passyunk Ave))) …for those who can’t make it out to Narberth, but could make it to South Philly. It’s the same exact kind of place (((Correction: It seems to not have events like the shop in Narberth, but it’s all about refillables))).

Ryan: Good to know about.

Roberta: Finally, this is an opportunity. There’s a curatorial fellowship from CFEVA and Allen’s Lane Art Center, together. They’re pooling their organizations. This is for artist-curators and curator curators. It’s called the RMMB curatorial Fellowship in honor of the life and memory of Rebecca Milena Maia Blum, a celebrated curator of a Berlin-based gallery with a Philly connection.

She lived in Center City, attended school here, and she did a lot with the Allen’s Lane Arts Center Day Camp. We’ll put the link in. (((See links list above))) They have an information session May 4, 1PM March 12th, and we’ll put the final date for applying (((May 31, 2025))), et cetera, and the link to where you apply. (((Details here and here application at slide room here.)))

And that is it for me. Over to you, Ryan.

Ryan: I have three events that I want to talk about and bring up. So February is Black History Month and we have a lot of shows that covered that. Now we’re getting into March, which is Women’s History Month. So there’s a lot of different events that are focused on that. Last week was first Friday, so there were a lot of openings.

I hope you were able to get out. The weather is starting to turn into a nice direction it feels like. Here’s fingers crossed,

Roberta: 17 degrees above normal though. That is something to make Note of. 17.

Ryan: I feel like two weeks ago we were 17 under, so it’s, it’s a little bipolar. It’s just bouncing around.

There are some great openings this week.

There are shows that are ongoing right now that opened at the beginning of the month that are having their openings, particularly at Crane. And that area along American. There is a lot of new openings because of second Thursday, which is happening this week. But I’m just going to point out a few things and I also want to try to stay ahead as well.

A show happening at Tyler is the Electronics Faire. That’s happening the 13th and 14th at Temple, and there’s some offsites, so they’re happening at different venues as well. So one show that I wanted to shout out — these people have been ringing my bell a lot — so I wanted to shout them out. It’s a show called Low Tech that’s happening at Huddle, which is 338 Brown Street, on March 13th from 6 to 8:00 PM It is going to be in conjunction with the Electronics Faire.

So part of that’s done at Tyler and some of that’s done in different spaces. So you can see they’re on Instagram as well. You can find them at Temple Scholar Studio and see a lot of different things and events that are happening. That’s happening on the 13th and the 14th. So take a look at that. You can find them on Instagram, you can find them on their website. Could be a lot of fun. Take a look at that. (See links list at top for links to Electonics Faire and Low Tech)

One show that is coming up on the 15th is a performance by, I’m not quite sure how to quite describe it. So, I did an interview with Armstead Dickerson and it’s all different shapes and sizes. A DSS, it is immersive poetry. It is experimental language architecture. I have a forthcoming interview with him that’s going to be released shortly. It sounds really interesting, even after talking to him, I think I have to just see it for myself and experience what it is, but I am excited to see it.

It’s coming up on the 15th. It’s, it’s also a gallery exhibit. This will be at Philadelphia Small Works Gallery. That’s 1609 North Delaware Ave. The opening is the 15th and it runs through the 22nd. The show is at seven, so take a look at that. That one’s going to be really interesting and also see my upcoming conversation with Armstead Dickerson about that.

A show that’s coming up next week that I wanted to mention. Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture is hosting music behind the bars. It is a group of musicians that were all Syrian prisoners who made music. While in prison, during all of that long time incarcerated peoples. Finding music to find that joy to keep on going, which I think is just incredibly powerful.

This show is happening March 22nd at 7:00 PM They’re located at three 10 West Master Street. Those are my picks of the week, and those are all available on Artblog Connect. Artblog Connect is also approaching a thousand events, which is pretty exciting — events we posted on our calendar. So we’re pretty excited about that.

It’s pretty great the usage and people putting up their stuff and all the amazing programs and events different things that people are offering in, in the city. And, you know, Artblog Connect is, is a pretty young site, so it’s, it’s really great that people are using it. And it’s been received so positively.

We really appreciate that.

Roberta: I want to ask about the Syrian prisoners. Were they prisoners in the United States or in Syria?

Ryan: In Syria, yeah. They were prisoners in Syria in a prison called Sednaya, which Amnesty International dubbed the Human slaughterhouse. So the writeup is that they were using makeshift instruments, crafted from food scraps, clothing threads, and other prison materials.

Roberta: Wow. Pretty amazing. And are they going to be present or how is the music going to be presented?

Ryan: It says they have seven musicians that will be featured at this event.

Roberta: Okay. But it’s not the prisoners themselves, it’s people representing them.

Ryan: I think they are prisoners. I think they are former prisoners.

Roberta: Okay. Okay, well that’s, that all sounds great.

Ryan: Yeah. So those are my picks of the week. Lots of big events. Lots of different things happening. We’ll work out to do our best to keep us up to date on what’s going on and you can always post your events for free on ArtblogConnect.org.

Roberta: Okay, well, if there’s nothing else, Ryan, is there anything else?

Ryan: No, those are my picks of the week.

Roberta: Thank you for listening everybody. It’s Roberta saying bye-bye. Come back next week.

Ryan: and this is Ryan and this has been Artblog’s Midweek News. Thanks for listening everyone. We’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.