October 4, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Hill area artists’ collective ready for huge October
by MARIE FOWLER

“Autumn Fire,” a photo taken in the Wissahickon Valley, is by John F. Hollis of Germantown, a member of the Northwest Artists’ Collective.

“It sounds like such a cliché,” remarks Chestnut Hill painted Barbara Rosin, just back from a European trip, “but the arts are so apparent there and such an integral part of the community.”

Noting that there’s architecture on the Euro banknotes and that “they used to have artists on the franc,” adds fellow artist Anne Boysen of Germantown, “and who do we have? Politicians!”

“There is such a reverence for art in Europe,” Rosin continues, pointing out that art and music can reverse a mindset attuned to war and fear. “But,” she observes, “you have to start locally.”

Rosin and Boysen are among some 20 artists who have formed the Northwest Artists Collective. Creating in Philadelphia’s northwestern corridor — Mt. Airy, Germantown and Chestnut Hill — these painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and fiber artists have come together not only to support each other, but also to bring the arts to their communities.

Indeed, the group has launched a flurry of fall activity participating in a number of exhibitions in October alone. In addition to the POST (Philadelphia Open Studio Tours) program, which will feature open houses west of Broad Street the weekend of Oct. 27 and 28, the Northwest Artists Collective will exhibit throughout the month at Valley Green Bank, Avenue Arts & Framing and the Geechee Girl Rice Café. Also, on Oct. 5 and 6, the collective will have a show at the Sedgwick Cultural Center and will show at the Chestnut Hill Fall for the Arts Festival on Sunday, Oct. 7. The Chestnut Hill Gallery will host collective artists on Oct. 27 and 28.

The collective was formed around the time of the 2005 POST tours. “The irony was,” Rosin recalls, “that because we were all manning our own studios, we could not visit the others.” They then set aside a Sunday to tour each others’ studios. “It was amazing,” Rosin remembers. “We just went from one terrific studio to another. Everyone was a first-quality professional with years of experience.” Thus, the group coalesced and has been meeting monthly since.

Barbara Rosin, of Chestnut Hill; Anne Boysen, of Germantown; Deborah Curtiss, of Germantown, and printmaker Julie Zahn of Mt. Airy, all members of the Northwest Artists Collective, prepare for their October exhibits and Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, also this month. Dates, times and maps for the POST program are accessible on the Web at www.philaopenstudios.com.

Deborah Curtiss is a member of the group, as well as a founder of the Greene Street Artists Corporation, located in a warehouse at 5225 Greene St. which had been home to many industries over the years, including Philco. Artists who’d sought out cheap studio space were being evicted as soon as their landlords had an opportunity to redevelop.

“So,” Curtiss remarks, “we did a very unartistic thing. We formed a corporation.” The corporation purchased the building, which provides 17 units that have both studio and living space. Most of the units are now occupied by artists who are members of the non-profit corporation. “I can sit up in bed and see my studio wall,” Curtiss says, smiling.

Curtiss will be showing works on silk this fall. “I thought I would never tire of the magnificent human figure,” the artist muses. “It’s a metaphor for all experiences, inner and alternative realities, dreams and peak experiences.” But in her nearly 50 years of creating, Curtiss has broadened her horizons. One body of work, Ceiling of Studio Mine, a series of paintings of human figures on silk, celebrates her studio. Undone by a computer crash, Curtiss collapsed on the floor in disgust, then found herself mesmerized by “the wonderful factory ceiling.” Her propensity for silk is due in part to three months of studying Chinese ink painting in Hong Kong.

Printmaker Julie Zahn of Mt. Airy, another collective artist, also bases much of her work on Far Eastern art. She spent a number of years in Japan, both before and after studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Currently, she is “in a groove of doing katazome,” which she explains is an old textile dyeing technique using rice flour. She studied it extensively in Japan, and is convinced her favorite woodblock artist, Munakata Shiko, the subject of a retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art a few years ago, was also inspired by katazome.

Boysen is a landscape painter, once accustomed to leaving home by 7 a.m., schlepping the great bundles of equipment necessary to paint en plein air. This vibrant artist, by her own account, loved communing with nature, but the crazies in the parks and the ticks finally drove her to her own garden. Boysen’s palette is high-keyed and joyful. It literally sings. And, as the painter admits, “Damn, this is fun. If I’m not having fun, the hell with it.”

Rosin is also a landscape painter. ‘I just always loved painting trees,” she confesses “My work has certainly gotten more abstract, and that’s exciting.”

As for the Northwest Artists Collective, I left these four artists around Rosin’s easel totally absorbed in a brainstorming session. One creative approach gave way to another as excited voices pitched higher and higher. And I wondered to myself: “Is this the way Renoir, Monet, Pissarro and their colleagues sounded when they gathered at the Café Guerbois in Paris in the mid-19th century?”

Dates, times and maps for the POST program are accessible on the Web at www.philaopenstudios.com. Inquiries about the Northwest Artists Collective can be made to Dr. Valarie Swain at 215-898-6081 or cade@pobox.upenn.edu.