Mark Jason Weston
My work explores the themes of race, identity and sexuality/desire, especially through the lens of colonialism and post colonialism.
Amanda Milz
I create improvisational textile pieces that are inspired by quilt blocks. I use repurposed and upcycled fabrics to create a juxtaposition between colors and textures. My work explores variations in color and form and how shapes create rhythm through repetition.
Sean Cote
“Touch” is a study of human connection. The simple action of reaching out for physical contact can hold many different purposes within our society and can say as much as full sentences. To help. To harm. To love. To take. A simple quick interaction can mean so many different things with only the subtlest of nuisances in its execution drastically changing the message it brings with it. It bridges gaps by left cultures and languages and speaks to us at our most base as animals. “Touch” seeks to explore the breadth of meanings this contact can hold within a single image and ask how it alters the context of them.
Crookedgarage Designs
Re-purposed aircraft parts, gears and bearing motions turned into one-of-a-kind lamps!
Laura Herring
Collage is the act of creation through unmaking. For years I let stacks of works on paper pile up; unfinished and waiting for some sort of inspiration to complete them.
Inspired by artists like Lee Kranser and running out of storage space in my apartment, I began tearing these stacks into pieces and creating something new from the scraps. Collages emerged, rough around the edges and more abstract than ever.
I sew down the pieces both to add to the texture and volume but also to bring my work full circle. Fiber arts are often reduced to “women’s work” or “craft”. At best, they’re seen as “folk art”; never fine art. By using sewing to fix my collages, I’m bridging the gap between the mediums.
Kait Waldman
Kait Waldman is a Chinese-American Illustrator, Printmaker, and Artist. She loves all things nature and was inspired to create these beaded sun-catchers after stumbling upon weathered animal remains in the woods of Philadelphia. These three pieces were made using reclaimed beads, findings, and ethically-sourced bone.
Hilary Henwood
I am fairly new to the Philadelphia art scene and tend to wander our beautiful city for inspiration. By day, I work as a special education teacher in Fishtown and by night I am a crafter that sets up shop in galleries, public parks, art studios, and any place else that allows me. My passion is collage, tye-dye, bookbinding, handmade journals, and upcycled vintage clothing. I enjoy using a limited amount of recycled materials which allows me to push my creativity to the limit. My style is fun, bright, and upbeat but you will find me exploring on the darker side at times.
Grace Yanaitis
This quilt was made with many scraps of fabric I got throughout the fibers studio at Tyler School of Art and Architecture and from my friends. Combining these fabrics with my own and dyeing them in natural indigo, I made a quilt based on water and my close relationship with my peers.
Matina Shakir Designs
I am an Interior Designer and mixed-media artist based in suburban Philadelphia. With a life-long passion for art and design, I found my creative voice in mixed media, fiber and textured art. An advocate of Sustainable Art, I am passionate about blending new with old, vintage and often discarded material with a variety of media to create dynamic compositions on unconventional surfaces. One aspect of my work explores the intricacies of nature, often incorporating whimsical, bohemian themes characterized by their bold use of color and texture, while another strives to convey deep human emotions and strong messages.
Mads Torres
Mads Torres is a queer illustrator, comics artist and designer based in Philadelphia, PA. Their collages merge illustration with found images to create bold, colorful, and odd works.
Kiera Faber & Jes Reyes
Collaborating interdisciplinary artists, Kiera Faber (Philadelphia) & Jes Reyes (Saint Paul), orchestrate visual dialogues that embrace vulnerability and trust while exploring implied narratives of loss, uncertainty, and the complexities of the natural world. Their unique practice of working back and forth on an individual piece, responding to the other’s mark and expression, has generated a raw, distinct visual vocabulary formed through blending their own individualistic styles into a unified language. Faber & Reyes’ vibrant textile works are constructed from salvaged remnants, creating something new from discarded materials; mindful of the environmental impact of making art.
Shoshana Gordon
I started making trash monsters – sculptures made of found and recycled objects – during the pandemic. My practice has expanded to collage and painting on found canvases.
Alan Lankin
My process is based on improvisation, in being in the moment and letting the current state of a work guide me to my next action.
This body of mixed media collage uses recycled scraps of paper as well as fragments of rejected works on paper that I have cut up and reused by incorporating them into these new pieces, thus diverting material from the waste stream.
Kim Knauer
Kim Knauer is a sculptor, textile artist and art educator. Her pieces combine her passions for rusty old things, shameless puns and social commentary. She uses vintage materials and found objects in the majority of her work, appreciating the story their worn surfaces tell. She looks for visual and conceptual relationships in her assemblages, using the past to think about the present. Her sculptures are an attempt to better understand people, their relationships to one another and the world around them. The work is whimsical and thought provoking. For some pieces, Kim collaborates with her husband, Aric Datesman, who adds technical know-how and helps “make things go”.
Esther Bisker
Mosaic art is a process of disassembly and reassembly, akin to the transformations and identity shifts that occur as a person grows and develops. It is a form of meditation for me; the world around me recedes as I create. I enjoy scouring thrift shops, antique stores, and my own recycling bin to repurpose materials for my work.
When I work with thrifted and recycled materials, I am challenged to work within the confines of the material (What textures and colors are already present? How much material do I have to work with?) as well as see the potential for the material to perform beyond its current role.