Holiday Fabric Art

 Yesterday we made some beautiful fabric holiday cards with some of the fabric samples that were donated to the program. With so many different patterns and colors to choose from, there was an array of  possibilities. 

Charles decided to place a red bow at the top of his striped tree. Lene, our new direct support staff, and Kiarra helped him glue it in place. Kiarra is getting to be an expert with the hot glue gun!

 Charles was so happy with his finished cards and couldn't wait to take them home!

Jennifer carefully tied her blue ribbon to add to the top of her card. She cut out three trees from different patterned fabrics and placed them on a striped background. Others watched Jennifer as she skillfully designed her card and placed everything just right. A true perfectionist at work!

Molly and Richard designed their cards by carefully choosing their favorite patterns and fabrics. Richard was excited to give his to a special someone in his life. 

Winter Snow Paintings

 Tuesday was our first snowy day and many of us were eager to get outside and frolic in the winter wonderland. We mixed some tempera paints with water and loaded them into some spray bottles then had a blast spraying designs all over the white powder outside. Then we brought some of the snow inside to create spectacular frozen paintings!

 

 Marcos, Josh and Rasheed had so much fun spraying different colors on the snow to make tie-dyed type designs and watching the colors as they blended together to create new colors.

The only downfall to this project was that they couldn't take their beautiful paintings home!

Invisible River

The artists of PDDC's Cultural Arts Center are creating colorful site-specific sculptures for a public aerial dance and music performance in Fairmount Park this June. INVISIBLE RIVER was conceived and choreographed by former Cultural Arts Center dance teacher Alie Vidich.

The performances, which will be free and open to the public, take place on Saturday 6/15, Sunday 6/16, Saturday 6/22 and Sunday 6/23 at 8 pm.

Everyone has been working hard this past month making whimsical forest creatures to dot the landscape of this outdoor performance. Take a look!

James and Jason add layers of color to their paper mache fox

Diane wraps yarn, scarves, and cloth around tree branches to make birds

Franklin adds layers of newspaper to his paper mache chipmunk

Beyond Boundaries at Philadelphia's Magic Gardens

On Friday, March 8, over 200 people attended the opening reception for Beyond Boundaries, an exhibition at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens presenting work created by the artists of PDDC’s Cultural Arts Center and Oasis Art Center (RHD). Guests had the opportunity to meet many of these visionary artists while taking in over 80 paintings, drawings, and three dimensional pieces, including bodies of work by 10 featured artists. They also interacted with a gallery transformed with an archway and other dimensional works created collaboratively by artists from both programs specifically for this exhibition. The exhibition will be on view through April 14 in the galleries at the Magic Gardens, which is open every day from 11 am to 5 pm. Admission to the Magic Gardens is $7 for adults, and $5 for students and seniors, $3 for children ages 6-12, and free for children age 5 and under.
To see more photos from the opening reception, please visit SpArc's Flickr site.

Visitors check out work by the exhibition's featured artists

Cultural Arts director Linda with SpArc's CEO Laura Princiotta and artist Isaiah Zagar

Charlene and her friends Brenda and Tthomeqa look at her painting "The Black Lodge"

Rasheed with Joe, Mary, Sarah, Matt and Tom 

Mary, Joe and Sarah

Alonzo and Linda

Stephan and his drawing

Freddy and his drawing