"Tide Field" - art installation by Stacy Levy

In the summer of 2018, artist Stacy Levy installed two temporary site-specific works of public art along the banks of the Schuylkill River—Tide Field and River Rooms—to demonstrate a little-known fact about our city rivers - they are tidal!  Tide Field places strings of colorful buoys in clusters stretching from Center City at the north-most end, leading south to Bartram's Garden, where she installed several River Rooms—wooden platforms shaped like the prows of boats, with benches and illustrations of river factoids embedded in the flooring.

Levy's installations form the inaugural project of Art@Bartram’s, a multi-year initiative begun in 2015 as a collaboration between Mural Arts Philadelphia and Bartram’s Garden, focusing on the development and production of public art projects in and around Bartram’s Garden, Bartram’s Mile, and the surrounding neighborhood.

Tide Field and River Rooms celebrate the Schuylkill River by connecting the public to the river, enhancing the public’s awareness, understanding, and experience of the river and its surrounding landscape, raising awareness of water-related environmental concerns, and promoting environmental stewardship.

Tide Field and River Rooms run through October 2018.  For more information:  https://www.muralarts.org/artworks/artbartrams/

Art at Glow in the Park

In 2017 Fairmount Park Conservancy commissioned Philly artists David Guinn and Robert Goodman to create a site-specific new work of art for the annual summer fundraiser/party "Glow in the Park". Their piece, called "Glowing Gardens", was installed for one night in the reflecting pool at the Horticulture Center in Fairmount Park. "Glowing Gardens" played off the Horticultural Center's 19th century landscape design, juxtaposing classical elements with light and geometry, creating a mesmerizing futuristic vision.

A Very Philly Christmas: Veronica Underwood

During one of Fairmount Park Conservancy's "Very Philly Christmas" celebrations in the Historic Mansions of Fairmount Park, an amazing local chanteuse with a moving story about Philadelphia's Fairmount Park system was discovered: Veronica Underwood. Listen to her story, and hear her sing...

A Very Philly Christmas: Holiday Houses

This short video was produced for Fairmount Park Conservancy, an organization that promotes, stewards, maintains, and otherwise shepherd's Philadelphia's many parks, from grand vistas to corner plots in dense neighborhoods.  As part of their work, they maintain and restore the Historic Mansions of Fairmount Park.  Every winter holiday season, they decorate the mansions and open them for visitors, offering musical performances, seasonal foods, history experts in period costume and fun, festive decorations.  See what attendees have to say....

EVERY Neighborhood, EVERY Body, EVERY Season, ONE Fairmount Park Conservancy

This social media fundraising campaign was a really fun, challenging project for the team that formed late 2017 as a video production partnership between myself, James Wasserman and Tony Heriza.  Tony and James are both experienced, talented media makers and it was great working with them on these videos and solidifying our relatively new collaboration with Fairmount Park Conservancy.

The purpose of this particular campaign was to highlight FPC's accomplishments in 2017 in a 4-part series of short videos based on their slogan for the amazing variety of work that they do in and around Philadelphia's park system: EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD, EVERY BODY, EVERY SEASON, ONE FAIRMOUNT PARK CONSERVANCY.

The most challenging aspect was honing in on a clear, concise encapsulation of their projects, events and initiatives because their work is so multi-pronged and comprehensive.  Cinematographer James Wasserman traversed the city, shooting in the woods, at park cleanup days, at Fairmount Park historic mansions, at events from hundreds of people sampling local beer in inner-city parks to a half dozen people meditating and then going on a guided hike in the woods.  Then James and Tony and I had to find a way to distill all the footage into four videos of one minute or less.  There is so much to say about Fairmount Park Conservancy but I'll let the videos tell the rest of the story.

It's probably obvious that I'm really jazzed about Fairmount Park Conservancy as an organization, so much so that I myself became a member as part of my end-of-year giving.

Radius patient profile: Tina

This patient profile video tells the story of Tina, a carpenter and miniature diaorama maker, who was diagnosed with osteoporosis several years prior to getting a VCF – vertebral compression fracture. Because her job was very physical and she didn't experience any symptoms, she did not take the diagnosis seriously, which is apparently very common because you cannot feel the disease. This video brings attention to Radius' "Fractured Truth" campaign website, which provides information as well as a community to turn to.

Park Champions

In late 2017, I teamed up with cinematographer James Wasserman to create this video for Fairmount Park Conservancy's Centennial Gala, a night of celebration for members and donors to recount some of the past year's accomplishments.

This time, instead of the montage approach of past promos, giving an overview of programs and thanking members of the organization, the goal of this video was to highlight the unsung heroes of the Philly park system, the neighborhood volunteers who have been building up and maintaining their neighborhood parks out of love and community spirit, and whose efforts FPC supports and enhances.

While working on this video James and I came in contact with some amazing community members and their inspiring stories, which throw light on how important public open space can be to keep a community strong and provide peace and solace and safe play space. I love that FPC chose to focus on the volunteers who are so important to the success of their mission, and without whom they couldn't successfully steward Philly's parks and playgrounds.

The video was shown at the Gala dinner to a rapt audience. I think we met and exceeded the goal of the project and the focus on neighborhood volunteers, or "Park Champions" served to strengthen the community outreach spirit of Fairmount Park Conservancy.

Genentech Patient Proflie: Gianna

This profile of Gianna, visual artist and longest surviving heart transplant patient in the world, was created for a celebration of Genentech's Transplant Legacy Team to tell the story of how Gianna came to be commissioned to make a special work of art to honor Genentech's work in the field of transplantation.  She met with the Legacy Team and incorporated their stories into her art, blending them with her own experiences as a transplant patient.