October 5, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

New Northwest Artists Collective: in unity, strength
by MARY PRICE LEE
and RICHARD S. LEE

Wendy Osterweil of Mt. Airy, a member of the collective, makes whole cloth quilts like this one with silkscreen printing, fiber reactive dyes and machine stitching.

Julie Zahn is a tall lady with a big smile. This East Gorgas Lane resident has a lot to smile about. Married and the mother of three, Julie is an accomplished watercolor artist and printmaker with a resume as sparkling as her work. A graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), she has exhibited at the Woodmere Art Museum’s Annual Juried Show, among a bakers’ dozen one-person and group shows in recent years. Her commissions have included woodblock prints for the Washington (DC) Area Printmakers Calendar for 2001, 2003, 2006 and 2007, and for a recent PAFA Women’s Committee calendar. One of Julie’s many awards was the J. Henry Schiedt Memorial Traveling Scholarship that took her to Japan, where she was apprenticed to a restorer of antique screens in Kyoto.

This is a mere sprinkling of the total awards, commissions and inclusion of her art in public collections. To say Julie’s work is that of a consummate professional is to belabor the obvious. As our interviewee, Julie perfectly represented the level of talent and experience to be found among the 18 professional artists who are members of the Northwest Artists Collective.

Mt. Airy’s Irene Spiewak, a member of the artists’ organization, is a colorist painter, mostly abstract expressionistic, multi-layered compositions. This is her “Still Life with Orange Flowers,” a 26” x 30” acrylic on canvas.

The Collective was started in October, 2005, as area artists visited each other’s studios as part of the annual POST event. POST stands for Philadelphia Open Studio Tours. POST is held two weekends every year when artists throughout the city open their studios to their fellow artists and to the public. (It’s free — and this year’s POST will be October 7 - 8 for studios west of Broad Street, which includes the Northwest; October 14 - 15 for studios East of Broad Street. See end of article for contact information.)

“In the course of promoting POST, several of us in Germantown, Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill realized there were many artists in our geographic area we didn’t know,” Julie explained. “We decided to form a cooperative organization, first, to get to know each other’s work (and each other) better; secondly, to help promote POST for 2006; and finally, to give greater recognition to Northwest artists by promoting through our own collective, supporting one another and sharing information.”

When asked how the Northwest Artists Collective would benefit her and its other artists, Julie explained, “As an artist, you’re stuck in your studio. So the Collective promotes camaraderie among our area’s artists — and by ‘artists,’ I mean sculptors, photographers, painters, ceramicists, printmakers and fiber artists, among others.

INCENSE & PEPPERMINTS: And a lot of other groovy goods were displayed at last weekend’s Fall for the Arts Festival. Pictured above, a few women (and a few heads) relax at one of the booths on Germantown Avenue that sold these funky hats. For more photos visit www.chlocalphotos.com. (Photos by Pack Jr.)

“By forming the Collective and supporting POST as a group, we hope to increase the public’s interest in our own area studios and our work, and help build interest in this year’s POST weekends throughout our area.

“The Collective has been fortunate in securing sponsors for several of our members’ art exhibits. Community Audio (8020 Germantown Ave.) showed our members’ work as part of Chestnut Hill’s Fall for the Arts Festival on October 1. There is a show of members’ work now at the Chestnut Hill Starbucks (8513 Germantown Ave.) and another at the High Point Cafe, Carpenter Lane across from the Weaver’s Way Co-Op (in Mount Airy).”

When asked how the Collective planned to grow, Julie said: “Sharing our enthusiasm is the key. A young artist joining the group can come along faster by interacting with more experienced artists than he or she could on their own. This is an invaluable service. We are social and supportive — and, yes, we do plan to stage and promote our own studio tours in the Northwest, in addition to giving major support to POST. Also, we welcome additional Northwest artists. We would like to grow the number of members from our present 18 to about 24. We range from very seasoned artists to those who have been doing this for just a few years.

“We are planning a group show this coming February at St. Asaph’s Gallery in Wynnewood. We will also increase our exhibition opportunities by presenting our artists through our ‘Brickyard Notebook.’ We will also use the Notebook to reach potential sources of work such as Art Bank.“

And what is “Brickyard Notebook”? It is an impressive catalog only in need of fine-tuning and binding to be complete. It showcases the work of the collective’s member artists, from A(ldrete) to Z(ahn), and its loose-leaf format allows for the addition of new artists. It gives each artist three pages on which to “exhibit” their work in color, along with contact information, plus an additional resumé page for each — an impressive and useful promotion tool for the artists, especially when seeking commissions and exhibitions. The group welcomes more Northwest artists to build up the “Brickyard.”

An excellent source of paintings, this lavish catalog features artists like Elena Maria Aldrete, who paints in bold colors, and Helene Halstuch, whose studies are evocative recreations of well-known French landmarks. Barbara Rosin creates evocative landscapes and still-lifes in oil on canvas. And this is only a sampling of painters and their styles.

But there’s more to art than painting. John Hollis showcases photography with a keen eye to nature’s beauty, while Jim Ulrich sculpts in mixed media, taking pleasure in dimensional creations with sly humor, such as lovebirds trifling before a “loveshack.” Cynthia Back finds, cuts and pastes everyday materials to make mixed-media collage landscapes. And Dr. Valarie Ena Swain, the Collective’s contact person (see end of story) creates in a variety of media.

Gina Michaels is a sculptress whose provocative pieces range from a “family plant” featuring hands and a foot to represent children, to “Hecate.” In Greek mythology, this underworld goddess could conjure up spirits of the dead, and was therefore Goddess of Ghosts. When she came to the upper world, she haunted graveyards and crossroads. (No wonder our art is so full of symbolism.) Let’s hope she leaves the Collective’s members strictly alone — and not just on Halloween!

For information about Northwest Artists Collective, contact Dr. Valarie Swain, 215-898-6081 or on the Web at cade@pobox.upenn.edu

For information about Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST), contact Andrew Piere, 215-546-7775, ext. 13, or on the Web at andrew@cfeva.org.