Mothers Day

Beautiful People of Manayunk!

Well it’s been a while since we’ve posted on the blog so lots to talk about. First off this Sunday is Mother’s Day and as always any mom who comes into Orbit this weekend Sunday gets a free tulip . The flowers shown on this blog are from our local florist in Manayunk called Fleur. If you haven’t checked them out you should. Fleur has a great array of choices and flowers that are fresh not like some places where you know they’ve been recently thawed after being frozen around the time of  Twin Peaks! We have a lot of really nice gifts for mom including sterling silver jewelry by Emily Kiefer and nationally known metals artist Suzanne Stone. Orbit is open right through Sunday evening so swing by and say hello!   Orbit Galley 4312 Main Street in beautiful down town Manayunk.  So here’s shout out to moms everywhere: Happy Mothers Day!

I Know It’s Only Rock n’ Roll

   Beautiful people of Manayunk!`

Let’s take a look back at the year to date. We’ve had a tsunami, an earth quake in Pennsylvania (which is too weird to even think about)  27 inches of rain in August,  two floods on Main Street and to top it off  an inch + of snow on Halloween weekend!  I’m ready for Christmas! To get in the right mood I put on Let It Bleed on the stereo (don’t pretend like you don’t still have one in your living room !) and let ‘er rip at 11!  To keep the buzz going we now have rock n’ roll journals for sale at Orbit.  We ran across Katie Pietrak at the Eco Fest on Main Street. She takes old albums and uses both the album and the actual record to create  rock n roll journals for every type of music fan. Katie cruises all manner of flea markets and back yard sales looking  to repurpose unwanted rock n’ roll records! So whether you like Elvis ( or Elvis) the Beatles or the Stones,  Joni or Janis we have you covered!. Sandy and I have some  really groovy things headed to the gallery for the holidays so stop by and remember “You know it’s getting better /  getting so much better all the time!”  David Decca out

Manayunk Arts Fest Post Game Wrap Up!

Beautiful people of Manayunk!

It’s been a while since my lost blog so a ton of new things to talk about. First off, a big shout out to the staff of the MDC for putting on a helluva an arts festival. I do not have helicopter to like the state police to confirm this but I bet 300,000 people attended that show over the course of the weekend. The weather was great, the food  wonderful and the level of artists this year was top flight. When myself, Joan Denenberg , Jane  Lipton, Martha Vidauri and Howard Moseley got involved with running this show the first order of business was to raise the bar as to the level of who exhibited.  No more cap snafflers, Budweiser can art, sand in a Coke bottle art or “I Love You This Much” dog tags!  We even excised the dude who had 8000 ” hand made” hats in his booth. They were hand made alright,  just not by him!  One of the stand out jewelers we spotted at the show was Kat Gannon. Sandy (my partner in Orbit gallery) came back from wandering the show and said, “David we have to get this woman’s work in here!”  Kat works in both 14 k gold and sterling silver with diamond and semi precious stones. As you can see her jewelry is meticulous in execution and classic in design. It is work that is enternal, to be given to your children and enjoyed for generations. Orbit gallery is open during the summer every day but Monday. If you’r in Manayunk please stop by the gallery and check out Kat’s work. You’ll be duly impressed, I promise. One last closing thought; currently Manayunk is under assault  from both the water department and the streets department. Various big projects that involve the resurrection of Venice Island have finally come to fruition.  This is a good thing but be prepared for some detours and funky roads. The good news is that when finished Venice Island will have a fully functional ampitheater and various ways for people to interact and enjoy the canal and the river.  OK,  that’s all the new that fits but keep an eye out for the next  installment when we get back from the New York Gift Fair, August 15th  We’ll be cruising for lots of cool stuff for the gallery. As always it’s easy to spend money but finding truly unique things people willwnt, well that’s an art!

Manayunk Where People Come to Race

May 17th 2011:   Beautiful people of Mananayuk, although the little perv with the bow tie on TV says it’s going to rain all week, I can safely say Spring has sprung!  We are expecting new work any day from a great jewler named Jenny Gaynor who works in lattcino glass and sterling silver.  Also due are pieces from new artists Amuck Studios, L B Originals along with old favorites like Mary Dieter and Suzanne Stone! However no spring blog would be complete without  exploring the rich territory of the Philadelphia Pro-Cycling event or what is universally known as the Manayunk Bike Race.  Orbit Gallery is going to be open this year 11:00 AM -3:00 PM or at least until the suds overwhelm us!  We will be selling signed editions of the print shown above by Charles Cushing.  There are a lot of good people from Philadelphia city government, the MDC and the  surrounding neighorhood civics who are committed to and working hard on making it a family friendly event again.  This is a little having Charlies Sheen morph into Tony Randall but what the hey, I think it’s worth trying.  The print shown at the top of this posting  is Charles Cushing’s take on The Wall which is the famous hill climb  up Lyceum Street.  He really captures the tortured effort it takes to ride a bike up a 12% grade 10 times ( fact check but I know I’m close) on a hot summer day. In the last few years the race through Manayunk as devolved into freightening–sub-bacchanalian–three day chug- a-thon replete with all manner of out door metabolic functions.  We are hoping all the efforts to respect thy neighbor and rein in the culture of  drinking produces a great race and a slightly less hung over populace! And remember we will be open that day until Sandy finally flashes me the secret sign that says “David it’s time to close and head down to Yunkers for a real ground zero view of the day’s festivities!” 

Prosit David Decca

Spring Interupted!!

 Beautiful People of Manayunk!

Well, as Barry White  crooned in a low, low register, ” Love Is In The Air and April’s storms are about to give way to the warming sun of May… And man it couldn’t come soon enough!  I don’t know about anyone else but this winter  being here in the gallery was a lot like hiding out in that igloo in Ice Station Zebra!  (Any movie starring running back Jim Brown is alright in my book!)   OK,  let’s get rolling!  Sandy and I are back from trolling all the really good art art shows ( ACC, Buyers Market,  Art Expo NYC etc and lots of great art and just super cool stuff heading to the gallery.  I want to talk today about making contact with Chris Sherwin again.  Chris is a kick ass glass blower from Vermont.  We will be featuring his work for the Get Married In Manayunk event coming May 14th.  Chris does pefume bottles where  can inscribe the date of the wedding on the bottom of the bottle. Makes for a really unique cool brides maids gift.  He also does wedding cake figurines in glass along with great wedding gifts like hand blown flower vases and and candlesticks. The photo on the left is a great example of one of his cobalt perfume bottles.  OK  here’s a crazy story of how we get Chris’s work into the gallery.  My buddy Eric who at 38 started dating this 22 yr old  WASP/ Vixen /Draculetta last year and well  he just got married to her…… mazoltoff!  They now hang upsiode down in their apartment until the sun goes down!    The girl’s father collects anything in the shape of a “guinea fowl” and asked us if we had anything like that here at Orbit.  Truth be told I never heard of the bird and I’m fairly confident there’s not a big market for replica guinea fowl!   We trolled through the internet endlessly for a glass blower who did artistic  animals and hit on Chris Sherwin.  He did amazing interuptations of all kinds of animals in glass. After a year of working on the piece we finally delivered one commssioned guines fowl to this guy. When he picked up it up we asked this girl’s father why the fascination with guinea fowl?  Here it turns out they use the bird in some kind of wild religious ceremony down in Brazil where they sacrifice the bird and use it in some kind of wild fertility rite!  Man I thought my Catholic family was intense!  So good luck Eric with your new inlaws, I look forward to seeing on an episode of Dateline! Pretty crazy  but hopefully love conquers all.  Before signing off,  May is coming and there are two great events coming;  First Mother’s Day is on the horizon and Main Street will once again do “Manayunk Loves Mom”  Any mom who comes into our gallery gets a rose on the house!.   The second event (even though we touched on it earlier) is Get Married in Manayunk. This is happening the same day as Second Saturday May 14th.  Many great specials are coming from the stores on Main Street that day along with  great music being performed on the street.  So, we look forward to seeing you all of yo out there soon and remember my blog is just like tweeting only for adults! ( no nasty e-mails from you tweeners!) 

   David  

O

Happy New Year

Beautiful people of Manayunk!  January 6y 2011, the sun is shining,  it’s above 40 degrees and well, for January who could ask for more!  Lot’s of new art coming this year including an increased focus on serious fine art. One artist who is not new but has been with us a long time is Becky Brams. We discovered Becky’s pieces while wandering the halls of my mom’s retirement home! Most of the art in these places is meant as combination sedative and advanced wall paper but Becky’s art really jumped off the walls!  Her water colors of  flowers and pastoral landscapes are really strong but her interprutation of the bicycle shown above is one of her strongest pieces. Becky is a native of West Virginia and was given an early introduction to the power of art through a gift of a painting from her father. From that point  she was hooked. If you come by the gallery you can see numerous works by Becky Brams including a beautiful giclee’ print of the bicyle image shown in this blog.  The gallery is back open full time and by appointment.  Happy New Year and thanks for everyone’s support of the gallery. Lots to do and lot new for the coming year!

David Decca

T Minus 1 week til’ Christmas!

Beautiful People of Manayunk:

Year ago our gallery was located in the Rittenhouse Square section of Phildadelphia. The gallery was called Art A La Carte back then, we changed it when we moved. We got tired of the phone ringing with mildy dense people asking us what were the specials on the menu that night! I kid you not!  Now I know the gallery had the words A La Carte in it’s name but it got old really fast. The gallery was started by a dentist who wanted to give his wife somwhere to work during the day. Their relationship ended when he ran off with his dental hygenist!  We bought it from him after under our management it started making money and he could no longer use it as a write off! Not exactly a page out of  A Christmas Carol but a truestory non the less!  I miss the eighties; people had money and generally spent it until it ran out!                                                                       The photo up top is of a necklace by Paula Brooks.  Her studio is called Alef Bet and we carried her originally when we were in centery city. Now that Orbit is ensconced firmly in Manayunk we decided to bring her work back.  The necklace is sterling silver and 14 k gold and retails for around $35.00!  It’s a sweet little piece and would make a great Chrismas gift for anyone .  Stop by Orbit gallery and come see all of Paula’s pieces.  We’re here late every night until Christmas and we’re still bringing in new things. In fact I have to jump off, Sarah Mosley had just arrived with a bag  full of new jewelry which I’ll write about tomorrow.

David Decca

The Newest Member of the Orbit Management Team!

Beautiful People of Manyunk: 

We were visiting my local vet on Main Street ( Dr.Simpson) when I noticed my buddy (see picture) resting on a blanket.  She was a stray left at Spring Garden and Clearfield to fend for herself. Nothing gives me more faith in the human condition and simaltaneoulsy says Christmas like some creep dumping his dog in North Philly ! So long story short Sandy and I rescued her. Scarlett is deaf so she doesn’t bark. She has the sweetest dispostion each day she gets little stronger and little nore brazen!  Now her home is at the gallery; no more worries for my gal, she’s part of the inner circle!  We’ll post more pictures and info as the season progresses

david /sandy   

Industrial Glass Never Looked Better!

Beautiful People of Manayunk: I finally made contact with my long time friend George Ponzini. George is an artist who claims Keene New Hamphire as his home base.  We met him at the cattle  judging  barn where the old AAC Springfield show used to be held.  This was around 1984 and the AAC had moved it’s show from the charming town of Rhinebeck N.Y. to this crazy place in Springfield, Mass which the used for state fairs. Some of the artists wound up in this large barn where heffers and hoofers got blue ribbons for who knows what! . George uses undustrial types of glass that might be found in corporate lobbies.  The safety glass he uses might come from a school’s front doors etc.  He takes the glass and repurposes it as bowls, perfume bottles, candlesticks, tables and all kinds of wonderful lighting.  At first Ponzini glass was very heavily attached to the design of the art deco movement. Recently however, George has been introducing color and more fanciful design it takes his vision to an entire new level. The images above are some of the funkiest Christmas ornaments I’ve ever seen and as always are exclusively available only at Orbit Gallery. Black Friday is over so forget about the synthetic sweaters for the rug rats; time to think about serious gifts for the special people in your life!  You can see much more of George’s work at www.georgeponzini.com    DDF