Philadelphia First Friday

One of my "new year's" resolutions (in this new life in a new city) has been seeing more art. Somehow despite my best efforts, I only inconsistently made it out to New York galleries during all the time that I lived there. But now that I've moved both getting out more and galleries to the top of my to-do list, we're getting somewhere. I've resolved to try to make it to most First Fridays in Philadelphia. For October's, I went first to Old City and wandered around and then went to 319 N. 11th Street which holds a number of galleries (including Vox Populi and Grizzly Grizzly) and studios. My favorite piece of the night was Katie Murken's Continua on the second floor. Seeing it first online did not do it justice. The tall dyed columns were beautiful in the details, and her specific color choices were better appreciated in person, as I suppose is to be expected. They were interesting on their own, but I absolutely loved the next room, filled with embossed and printed diagrams showing which hues were chosen for each dye lot and the ratios of each color based on the rolling of a die. I love seeing process and decision-making in the work itself, and I think she did a particularly good job of it- deliberate decisions shown subtly with consideration for process' place in the work. It completely made my night.