Arts Street Textile Studio: handmade with the homeless invites you to join us on Friday August 26th for our last 4th Friday Reception at 706 South Street!  Where I Find Home features gorgeous photographs by Mary Johnson, a Printmaker and Photographer studying at Temple's Tyler School of the Arts. Mary's hauntingly beautiful photographs are of Philadelphia's hidden places - sites where some of our homeless friends find solace. The physical component that ties her photographs together is the nature of the abandoned and decrepit. Some locations are public, some are private, most are unknown. Some are in plain sight to be passed by and ignored, and some are hidden for only the adventurous to discover. Each location, though lonely and unused, carries a story that can only be pieced together by what remains on the inside. Also, we are building a city out of cardboard! Please come to help us by adding a row-home, skyscraper, school, factory or cottage!

Where I Find Home

Friday, August 26th 5:00 - 8:00pm

Arts Street Textile Studio

706 South Street

Philadelphia, PA 19147

Does it make any sense to me why our society allows people to fall thru the cracks? Why the disparity is so great? Is what any of us are doing making a difference at all? A friend said to me the other day that if you put a baby fish in a small fish bowl it won’t keep growing… you must offer the large tank of possibility. He also said that among 10 people we might have impact on one or two, but that those one or two will have impact on that many more, and so on.

With great respect and love I thank you for coming to tonight’s dedication of FINDING HOME. About two years ago, I was invited by the Mural Arts Program to partner with artist, Josh Sarantitis, and our assistants Shelby Donnelly & Al Tull to create this large-scale outdoor woven and painted mural (with other assorted technical details incorporating print, sheet metal & cable). The aim of the project was to shed light to issues around homelessness. Over the course of many months, (awesome) Shelby & I orchestrated weaving workshops at homeless shelters, safe havens and public spaces throughout Philadelphia where we wove the ‘mats’ that became the ‘canvas’ for the 12 ft x 50 ft section of the 2200 square foot mural. Many thanks to many. The goal was to bring people together with and without a home to weave side by side. That, perhaps in the process of making art and conversation together, one would recognize that of ‘mother father sister brother son daughter’ in the other, helping to break down the stigma around homelessness.

This past Wednesday, November 9, Institute Alumni and Faculty Kathryn Panenpacker presented at the FINDING HOME mural dedication, which was the genesis of the homemade with the homeless Arts Street Textile Studio. Like Arts Street Textile Studio on facebook, here, read the full speech on their page, and visit the mural at 13th and Ludlow in Center City.