Local Artists Take Part in Philly’s Largest Annual Studio Tour

Two area artists – Kirsten Fischler and Erica Brown – will take part in Philadelphia’s largest annual, self-guided tour this weekend.  Known as the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, or POST, the event takes place the first two weekends in October  and involves hundreds of professional visual artists in all of Philadelphia’s neighborhood east and west of Broad Street.  

Fischler, a native of West Chester, moved to Philly’s Fairmount neighborhood last June.  Her  studio will be open to the public this weekend, from 12 noon to 6 p.m. both days, October 1st and 2nd. 

Brown has maintained a studio in West Chester for many years,  but she will be displaying her work at the Fischler’s studio for the weekend.

Both artists are known for their large scale, abstract work but both work in entirely different mediums  - Brown works in mixed media and encaustic, an age-old paint made from hot beeswax and pigment. Fischler is a self-styled mixed media artist who often lets her representational images merge out of different surfaces pieced together like jigsaw puzzles.

Fischler describes her imagery as focused on nature including landscapes, and seascapes,  but also “colorful wood-grained abstractions and neuronial imagery.”  (The latter can especially be seen in her paintings displayed in the photo gallery).

Nature, she said, also includes  root vegetables. “Many of the vegetable paintings were inspired from the produce I pulled out of my own garden in West Chester,” she says.

 One of these paintings, which she will have on view at her upcoming open studio, is of a beet, entitled: Ukrainian Food Staple #1. When asked about this title she explains, “My grandmother moved in with us when I was about four years old, and I spent most of my childhood cooking with her. Since she was Ukrainian, we cooked a lot of beets, potatoes and cabbage to make borscht, pierogis, and holopchi.”

What Fischler did not realize when she moved to this neighborhood, was that her grandparents met here when they lived just two blocks from her new studio at 871 N 21st Street. “They came from two different parts of the Ukraine, my grandfather’s family was from the Carpathian mountains in an area known as 'Lemko', while my grandmother’s family was from a town called Hrymailiv. They moved to Fairmount to be a part of a familiar community,” Fischler said.

She adds: “My grandmother had actually lived in Fairmount twice, once as a young girl when she first arrived to the US from L’viv, her home in the Ukraine before moving to the United States, and then again as a young adult.”

As Fischler suggests,  her work must be seen in person to full appreciate its complexity.

POST :  Artists Studio Tours

• Where:   The Fairmount Tour of POST begins at the Ukrainian League at 800 North 23rd Street, Philadelphia, and includes stops throughout the neighborhoods including galleries and studios. Fischler‘s studio is located at 871 N 21st Street and is listed as stop #2 on the Fairmount Tour of POST.

           Date:   October 1st and 2nd

•        Time: 12 noon to 6 p.m. both days

•        Features:  Free and open to the public.  The tours are self-guided but special trolley tours are also available. See the web site.

Fairmount sits just North of Center City West, and features a strong network of neighborhood artists. This lovely, tree-lined neighborhood is home to the Philadelphia Museum of Art,  and  numerous studio spaces tucked into rowhomes and converted historic buildings.

POST is a program of The Center for Emerging Visual Artists, a nonprofit career development organization that creates opportunities for artists to reach their professional goals.

Website:   www.philaopenstudios.com

Phone: 215-208-3412 (Number for the first stop,  the Ukrainian League.)

• Price: Free