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Facts and Fables: Stories of the Natural WorldFeaturing works by
June 25 – October 30, 2011 Opening Reception : Saturday, June 25th, 4 pm - 7 pm Free to the public Featuring: Tour with the curator and artists of “Facts and Fables” and Storytelling Program with Stephen Noble.
Exhibition Statement About the Participating Artists
Jeremy Beaudry catalogs the ambivalence that defines humankind’s complex relationship to the natural environment with a printed guidebook and several physical markers placed along the trail. "Nature Study, An Ambivalent Guide" contains texts, field notes, sketches, photographs, interviews, and secondary research material. The physical markers provide an itinerant narrative touching upon the range of perspectives presented in the guidebook http://meaning.boxwith.com/projects/naturestudy 
Brian Collier replaces flocks of birds in the trees along the trail. Represented are two extinct bird species that were once common in this region, the Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet. This project is part of Collier’s larger series, “The Anthropogenic Ornithology of North America,” which questions the extent of human impact on bird populations and behaviors since European colonization. Through deforestation and hunting these birds for both food and fashion, these native birds were wiped out. In addition, by transforming the natural landscape to what we know as suburbia, we have changed the types of birds that can survive in our region. Visitors are also encouraged to participate in Collier’s “Bird Shift” project by filling out their own observation cards which will be installed in the gallery. 
Chad Curtis Investigates the relationship between The Schuylkill Center and its highly developed urban surroundings. Curtis created a simulated environmental microcosm within The Schuylkill Center. This work consists of a large sculptural mountain, created as an invitation to both wildlife and human visitors. All activity is “live streamed,” filmed with a solar powered camera, and broadcasted in real-time on Curtis’ website. http://chaddcurtis.com/schuylkill/ 
Blane De St. Croix creates a miniaturized landscape that reflects on the effect humans have on animal habitats. The faux landscape hovers above the existing terrain as a miniature subliminal still. The work is an invented conglomerate of varied landscapes that have been destroyed by human interference, including mountain top removal coal mining, soil erosion and deforestation. 
David Dempewolf presents a video (in the gallery) and a hand-stenciled panel (on the trail) that consist of visually translated mental images that are drawn from memory and reveries. The images relate to a text that the artist encountered about the meeting between the poet Paul Celan and the philosopher Martin Heidegger. 
Susan Hagen creates an outdoor installation of hand-carved wood sculptures of animals to memorialize the thousands of animals killed, harmed or endangered by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Hagen’s sculptures are carved from white cedar, weathered outdoors, and mounted on stainless steel rods emerging from the earth. This installation allows viewers to visualize the animals directly affected by the oil spill, as well as to consider the long-term repercussions of our reliance on fossil fuels. 
Jeanne Jaffe reconfigures the Little Red Riding Hood fable as a psychic crime scene set in the Pine Grove section of The Schuylkill Center, examining civilizations’ crimes against nature, reversing the roles of victim and victimizer.
About The Schuylkill Center Environmental Art Department This exhibition is made possible by a generous multi-year grant from The William Penn Foundation.
The Natural History of My Backyard
Mixed Media Works on Paper by MF Cardamone The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education is pleased to present The Natural History of My Backyard. This exhibition, by Philadelphia artist MF Cardamone, includes mixed media works on paper that whimsically record the life histories of plants throughout the world. Cardamone incorporated plants native to The Schulykill Center for Environmental Education when creating works included in The Natural History of My Backyard. 
Cardamone’s plant specimens are collected and combined with images and words that playfully modernize the traditions of specimen mounting and botanical illustration. The results are complex visual narratives that reveal the science, history, and beauty of their subjects. Original pieces are produced in small editions and printed on 100% rag watercolor paper using archival inks and individually embellished by hand. About the Artist Opening Reception For Sale 
Photographs by Joshua Marowitz 
Opening reception Saturday November 20, from 3 – 5 pm Marowitz pours a soft, loving light on his subjects. Using the historical “salt” printing process, the artist captures the exquisite detail and tone of these plants as well as the sense of regality and history that these native botanicals uphold. This sumptuous exhibition will delight and inform those who adore the brilliance which nature and photography can create. About the Artist Marowitz, a Philadelphia native himself, favors landscapes, both urban and rural, to dominate his subject matter, creating a painterly quality that timelessly resonates. Since receiving his BFA in photography from the University of the Arts, Marowitz has pursued his photographic work while co-founding The Lightroom, a Philadelphia-based non-profit photography studio and teaching facility designed to promote and stimulate the medium of fine-art photography for youths and adults alike. 
About the Salt Printing Process The practice of capturing nature’s stunning beauty and reflecting it back to a viewer is a long tradition in the visual arts. By choosing a process which evokes both history and contemporary techniques, Marowitz deepens his viewer’s enchantment and elevates these “Natives” to their rightful place in our visual canon.
Opening Reception
Ground Play: NEXUS at The Schuylkill Center Exhibiting Artists In Ground Play, The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education invites six artists from Nexus, a co-operative comprised of Philadelphia-based multi-disciplinary artists to respond to the history and physical space of its Second Site. The works in Ground Play includes video, collage, photography, textiles, sculpture and performance. The artists in the exhibition are Susan Abrams, Nick Cassway, Jebney Lewis, Michael McDermott, Leah Reynolds and Jennie Thwing. While each of works in Ground Play is unique, there is one constant: they are all created through play. Using color, scale, sound, texture, humor, fear, storytelling and performance the artists consider the relationship of play to the land. The works resonate with the topography, history, culture and vegetation found in the Schuylkill Valley, resulting in an exhibition that typifies and compliments the area. Ground Play is an expression of the insightful ways six artists utilize the land as their own artistic playground, creating experiences meant to delight and provoke visitors. The Schuylkill Center’s Second Site, also known as Brolo Hill Farm, was at one time an active farmstead. It includes an 18th-century farm house and barn and the remnants of a plowed field once used to grow feed hay for livestock. Artists are encouraged to consider both the agricultural and cultural conditions that might have existed on the site when the farm was active, and examine through art installations the implications of those dynamics in today’s environmental climate. By using found objects, photographing discoveries, researching the area’s history, or by weaving stories into their own work’s narrative, The Ground Play artists consider the relationship of play to their work within this context. The work in Ground Play is an expression of the curious and innovative ways these six artists use color, scale, sound, texture, humor, fear, storytelling and performance as their own artistic playground, coming up with new modes of expression and creating experiences meant to invite a deeper appreciation for the environment at Second Site . To view a documentary about the making of Ground Play, visit http://www.vimeo.com/14697993
Going Green – New Environmental Art from Taiwan
Elemental Energy: Art Powered by Nature Joe Chirchirillo Elemental Energy: Art Powered by Nature is The Schuylkill Center's 2010 On The Trails exhibition. Six artists or artist teams from around the country will present outdoor sculptural installations that engage a natural element - wind, water, sun - to create a dynamic or kinetic artwork. Each piece creates sound, movement, or both, using only the energy they harness from nature. These exciting works will be installed for visitors to The Schuylkill Center to discover along Widener, Woodcock, and Grey Fox Loop trails.
On May 12, 2010, Elemental Energy artists Jason Krugman and Christian Cerrito taught a Solar Bugbot Workshop. Held at Art in the Age in Old City Philadelphia, participants learned how to construct a circuit that gathers solar energy and releases it in bursts, and then use it in the creation of a small, light-powered, vibro-bot. These Bugbots respond directly to the intensity of the light that they are exposed to, using solar energy to power two vibrating pager motors. On a sunny day they skitter about frantically...On cloudy days they move intermittently as they build up energy.
Nest and Branch: A juried Gallery exhibition on Birds and their Habitats. Nest and Branch features artwork that explores the realities and mysteries of birds. The nine artists represented in this exhibition have taken their inspiration from The Schuylkill Center’s 340 acres of woodlands, fields, streams and ponds, which serve as an oasis for birds in Philadelphia. The works in the exhibition use printmaking, drawing, painting, digital media, installation art, and book arts, to explore themes of migration, flocking, and nesting, as well as presenting imagery relating to endangered and extinct species. Exhibiting Artists: Nest and Branch is curated by Zoë Cohen, Art Program Manager, The Schuylkill Center  
  
 
Down to Earth: Artists Create Edible Landscapes
Guest Curator: Amy Lipton of ecoartspace September 12th - November 23rd 2009 On View through Fall 2010. At The Schuylkill Center’s Second Site, Down to Earth: Artists Create Edible Landscapes is an exhibition that highlights the growing focus and emergence of “green” principles and sustainability in relationship to food, art, design and agriculture. The exhibition will include six artists or artist teams who are all working to create socially engaging interventions in the landscape related to food and agriculture, creating an aesthetic and cultural link between art and farming.
WillaJoan Bankemper(New York, NY) Willa - a contemporary “earthwork” which will function as a medicinal herb garden.
Not Drain AwayKnox Cummin(Philadelphia, PA) Not Drain Away- A rain water collection sculpture off of the roof of the existing farmhouse complete with rain barrels, piping and irrigation system, which waters the American Roots garden.
An American Roots GardenAnn Rosenthal and Steffi Domike(Pittsburgh, PA) An American Roots Garden - Foods common to early America, including Native American crops and those brought by settlers and immigrants.
Drawn to / Drawn from the GardenSimon Draper and the Habitat for Artists Collective, with Todd Sargood ( Hudson Valley, NY) , E. Odin Cathcart ( Burlington, VT), Jeff Bailey ( Phila, PA) and Cathy Lebowitz (New York, NY)Drawn to / Drawn from the Garden - A mini art studio, potting shed, and seven vegetable/flower gardens.
Kept OutStacy Levy(Spring Mills, PA) Kept Out - An enclosure of blue metal fencing that will exclude deer from a small piece of the woods as a way to investigate how the deer alter their own edible landscape.
Urban DefenseSusan Leibovitz Steinman(San Francisco, CA) Urban Defense - a five-sided permaculture urban forest orchard.
Down To Earth: Artists Create Edible Landscapes is supported by The William Penn Foundation, and an award from The National Endowment for the Arts.
Participating organizations include: The Waldorf School of Philadelphia, Lankenau School, Manayunk Academy, Teens for Good, ArtReach, Philadelphia University Engineering and Design Institute, and the Green Woods Charter School. Additional participation in the form of donated services and resources include: Art In City Hall, Philadelphia Orchard Project, Urban Girls Produce, Mill Creek Farm, Weavers Way, Greensgrow Farm, and Re-Store salvage.
Ephemerality Opening Reception: Saturday January 17th, 5-7 pm Artists:
Gimme Shelter Exhibition of the Twelve Semi-Finalist Designs Opening Reception and Announcement of the Six Finalist Designs
At Second Site:Brolo Hill Farm, Ghosts and Shadows Presented in Partnership by  Marisha Simons, Ghost Forest And The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education Guest Curated by Warren Angle Artists: Jennifer Chapman, Keiko Miyamori, Kara Rennert, Marisha Simons
University of the Arts Sculpture Students through December 12th, 2008 on the Gray Fox and Woodcock Trails Loop led by Professor Jeanne Jaffe, Fine Arts Department Chair
Each student has created a site-specific installation in response to the land and current environmental topics using a variety of materials.  Samantha Kanelstein If a Tree Falls in the Woods... cloth and yarn on Woodcock Trail  Alex Hollenbach We Are All Relatives mixed media in Pine Plantation on Gray Fox Loop  Jeanne Jaffe (center) and her art students with Zoe Cohen, Art Program Manager (center left)
 Talia Greene From Coiffed: A Typology of Entropic Variations (Courtesy of Kalogris Collection) SWARM is an exhibition that draws attention to the insect world by presenting artists’ perspectives on the relationship between insects and humans. In understanding the important role insects play in human welfare and survival, we find new reasons to commit ourselves to the survival of all species. SWARM presents seven artists who provide a closer look at insects’ physical beauty, habits, and impact on the human condition, as well as a few imagined scenarios in which the insect world demonstrates, rebels against, and confronts the stresses created by an overpopulated and over-developed natural world.
 Goal Orientation 1, John Karpinski The Schuylkill Center and The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CEVA) presents the opening of Relics, Myths and Yarn on Saturday, March 8 from 5:30 pm - 7 pm. Throughout history, humans have used animals, organic objects and other components of the natural world as powerful metaphors in storytelling and mythology--symbolizing worldly ideas, fears, and passions. The works featured in Relics, Myths and Yarn are five contemporary examples of iconic subjects as anchors in story, myth or tale that derive from deeply personal experiences. There will be an artists' talk, Nature and the Creative Process at 6 pm. Career Development Program Fellows at The Center for Emerging Visual Artists™ Darla Jackson
 Timebomb by Deb Hoy The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, in partnership with Philadelphia Sculptors, is hosting an exhibition of small sculptures by five artists whose art addresses the impact of climate change on our environment. Artists in “Tip of the Iceberg” have created small scale work as an allegory for the potential change that just one individual can affect. By combining found objects of contrasting origins, Deb Hoy juxtaposes the natural and the industrial in an attempt at co-existence, pointing a way to the possibility of post- industrial transformation and hybrid species. Carla Liguori’s delicate grouping of cast sheep portrays the fact that all life forms share the same matter. Showing the interconnectedness between animals and humans, her work suggests that it is not only the latter that follows one another blindly. Keiko Miyamori uses tree roots embedded in blocks of clear resin as a symbol of preservation to unite the natural with the man-made, and suggests the possibility of living in harmony. Emily Sullivan’s delicate and poetic works made from wire and black velvet are both tender and playful and convey presence and absence. Their blackness absorbs light but also reflects on the beauty and perhaps impending tragedy of the natural world. The fired and glazed clay works of Austin Tremellen physically convey the intensity of extreme heat, and the process of firing the clay represents the increased temperatures we feel as a direct result of global warming. The dripping and crawling glazes also resonate as metaphors for the spread of diseases caused by increasing temperatures.
Green Machine is a multi-media based exhibition that explores the relationship between nature and technology. Through site-specific installations and an interactive media lab, the viewer is invited to consider three very different reactions to the surrounding landscape. The selected works place emphasis on technology and the man-made, while simultaneously exploring the ephemeral nature of location, sound, universality and time.
This exhibit provides the opportunity to reflect on our agrarian cultural heritage with works that incorporate used garden tools. The pieces included provide a direct link to our history. The artists in this exhibit have rescued some well worn tools and created new art objects that encompass both functionality and fun!
The exhibition portrays work by four artists who interpret the landscape as it is, as it should be, or how it might become. The works bring us face to face with texture, color, and form, in addition to evoking an imaginary world where man and nature are in a true symbiotic relationship.
This presentation of images of delicate, fragile lichen formations in a large-scale format creates an environment in which the viewer becomes a participant rather than spectator. The surfaces of the rocks are aerial views of mountain plains and tundra and the fluidness of the colors moves us through the space as if floating on the water.
Organized in partnership with Philadelphia Sculptors, this gallery exhibition featured a new twist to the concept of conservation and preservation. Industrial byproducts and materials otherwise destined for environmentally destructive landfills took on new identities as they are creatively reincarnated into functional objects.
This exhibit included a collection of
The work in this exhibit combined the natural and the scientific in an imaginary world created with simple materials such as: fabric, wire, egg cartons, feathers and seed pods. The work explored the complex relationships between organisms and their environments through larger than life interpretations of the micro insect world, transforming the mundane into the extraordinary.
In her figurative works, isolated human figures interacted with elemental architectural and landform environments and reflected on the development and mastery of skills and knowledge to modify the natural environment.
University of the Arts Students - Jee Yoon Kim, Weng Kok Lee, Marianne Contreras, Lauren LeBlanc, Margie Manogue, Benjamin Quinn-Kerins, Jennifer Bradley, Nathaniel Butler, Jennie Johnson, Christopher Gauvain and Alexander Stanton As part of the Center’s educational commitment, the art program introduced a segment that encourages investigation by local university students interested in exploring environmental issues as part of their artistic vocabulary. These installations commented on issues such as historical shifts in land use, eradication of invasive species, and sustainable architecture. Working in teams the students used natural materials found at the Center.
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Facts and Fables: Stories of the Natural World
The Natural History of My Backyard
Traditional Chinese Medicine, Pop Art and Surrealism.
The Natives
Ground Play: NEXUS at The Schuylkill Center
Going Green – New Environmental Art from Taiwan
Elemental Energy: Art Powered by Nature
Ephemerality
Ephemerality is an experimental gallery exhibition that explores ways in which art, communication, and technology can be used to create a greater sense of connection and meaning within reclaimed wild spaces, natural time, weather, and seasons. In this exhibition, artists will present works that directly reflect the impact that 24 hours on the land of the Schuylkill Center can have on their own awareness, creative process, and use of visual material.
Gimme Shelter Semi-Finalist Designs at the Philadelphia Center for Architecture