Spring has arrived at Awbury Arboretum

It was a damp and chilly Friday, but that didn't stop us from volunteering at the Awbury Arboretum to help beautify their grounds in preparation for spring! We raked the Victorian garden free of leaves and also planted pansies in the planters in front of the Francis Cope House.

Bridges Reception at the PMA

On Wednesday, September 3, a reception was held in the Education Corridor at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to celebrate Bridges, an exhibition featuring artists from SpArc Services' Cultural Arts Center. The Bridges program is an art-making project that connects community programs like the Cultural Arts Center with the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collections. Participants have guided tours of the Museum’s collections throughout the year, then create their own works of art in their program’s studios and exhibit them at the Museum.

The artists of the Cultural Arts Center viewed many highlights from the museum's collection during their tours, including still life, landscapes, surrealist art, and modern and contemporary works. Many of the artists responded most profoundly to portraits from eras spanning the 19th century to the present. When they returned to the Cultural Arts studio they worked on self-portraits, as well as portraits inspired by various cultural references including direct interpretation of works they had seen in person at the museum.

Artist Francis with his mother and grandparents

Artist Jennifer and her painting

Cultural Arts Director Linda Price, artist Mike M., and SpArc Philadelphia CEO Laura Princiotta

Artist Morgan with her mother and Laura

Artist Robbie S. with the PMA's Manager of Accessible Programs Street Thoma

Street and Laura with museum docent Dina

Cultural Arts staff past and present Felica, Sarah and Cody with guests

Cultural Arts program specialist Heather Robb with Jo Viviani and Lynne Horoschak of Moore College of Art

Linda and Jennifer

Laura with Arc of Philadelphia Board Chair Norma Carter and Board Member Jim Wilson

Morgan with portraits of her nieces

Solar Powered Ovens

     

We worked all week on making these colorful solar powered ovens. Everyone had fun painting their ovens bright colors on the outside and black on the inside to absorb the heat. Then we applied some aluminum foil to the top to reflect the sunlight down into the oven. Today we made double chocolate cookies to make in the ovens!










Cici, Ron and Jennifer helped find a nice sunny spot for the ovens (filled with chocolate cookies).











 Robert and Gigi help to face the aluminum flaps towards the sun so the rays of sunlight will reflect into the ovens.









 
Morgan was excited to see if the cookies were   done!

Sunshine Happiness

"Sunshine Happiness" is a great summary of the activities we do in the Cultural Arts Center! It was filmed during classes at SpArc Philadelphia, as well as during our volunteer hours at the Awbury Arboretum. Michael M., a visual artist and participant in the Cultural Arts Center, edited this video using footage filmed by him and other program participants. 

Watercolor on Fabric

For the past few weeks, Cultural Arts Center artists have been working with art teacher Christina Lukac to create beautiful watercolor paintings on silk.

Andrea's painting

Detail from Andrea's painting

George's painting in progress

Jennifer's scarf

Details from Jennifer's painting

A Toast to Talent!

On May 16th, SpArc Philadelphia hosted A Toast to Talent!, an annual talent show celebrating everyone's abilities. Hundreds of audience members enjoyed a matinee show and an evening show. Both shows featured the enthusiasm and talent of Cultural Arts Center artists, including a drum circle, a rousing rendition of "Down by the Riverside," and Morgan Taraska reinterpreting the classic song "My Heart Will Go On."

Volunteering at Awbury Arboretum

For the past two months program participants from Cultural Arts have been volunteering at Awbury Arboretum in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. The Arboretum has 55 acres of green space including open meadows, ponds, woods, and lawns.

Today we saved five trees by removing invasive ivy from their trunks and branches. We also explored the grounds to see all the beautiful flowering bushes and trees that spring has produced.

Terence smells a flowering tree by the Cope House

Walking the arboretum grounds

Volunteer coordinator Leslie explains how to remove ivy from a tree

Cierra cuts an ivy branch attached to a tree

Terence holds up a branch of ivory he just removed

Things to do with your friends in the spring

As the weather gets warmer, we've been embracing the sunshine by doing many activities outdoors.

Karly read The Sun Also Rises to Robbie, Eric, Mike S., Phoebe, Richard and Tim during Book Club. 

We have also been creating outdoor murals in our back garden that will be able to be seen from the SEPTA commuter trains that pass behind our building. 

Robbie and Rodney participated in newly reinstated Graffiti Club.

Therapy Dog Visits

Over the past month we have been visited by sweet and friendly dogs that come to us through Therapy Dogs International. Both the program participants and the dogs enjoyed spending time with each other!

Everyone meets Raffi for the first time

Ernest and Raffi

Charlene and Raffi

Rytecka and Duxie

Alexis, Sharay and Duxie

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