Gardens of Mosaics

Philadelphia is known for many things, mostly having to do with the early history of our country.  It's where Benjamin Franklin made his home, where the first flag was stitched, where the Declaration of Independence was signed.  I grew up here and have seen all these amazing sites.  On this stop over I was looking for things I haven't seen before and what I found was based on mosaics.

If you are in the Ancient Art History class we recently saw quite a few mosaics from ancient Rome and if you are in Art Appreciation we learned about Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass a few weeks ago when we learned about crafts.

"The Dream Garden" was a collaboration between the painter Mayfield Parrish and stained glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany created for the lobby of the Curtis Building in 1914-1915

Created in panels and installed in 1916 where it has been ever since, not lit from behind, only natural light coming in through the doors and one row of spotlights.

The Philadelphia Magic Garden is the work of Isaiah Zagar an 80 year old resident of the South Street neighborhood, who had embellished walls and this contained environment.  In 2004 the owner of the studio and neighboring buildings decided to sell them and that would have resulted in destruction of this art.  The Philadelphia Magic Garden is a non-profit open to the public so we can all enjoy this "magical"place.  Think of the work of Antoni Gaudi and even the patterns we've been talking about this week in Islamic art.  Enjoy!