Growing from Vine to Flowers

Have you ever watched a vine grow? I learned that some vines put down new roots as they curl along. Some vines flower and fruit the sweet way they do by growing from many places at once.

This week, the Painted Bride moves on from the 230 Vine Street building. Oh, if the gallery walls could talk! They would laugh and sing back 40 years of beautiful people – “I grew up here” and “Ursula Rucker performed her ass off here” and “LaNeshe got married here” and “I met Gary Smalls here”. Last Friday we came together and had memories and chicken and cake; we hugged and cried and danced full of bittersweet celebration of what’s happened and what’s to come.

I feel so much as we make our winding way forward. I feel so full of gratitude for this creative family. I feel so excited and hopeful about the possibilities that open for us. We’ve felt in our hearts the call to do art differently – to invest more in artists than in buildings, to bring art off our walls and into Philly neighborhoods – and we finally get to do it.

As we speak, so many exciting seeds and buds of our projects are rooting, expanding, and blossoming. Off the Wall, our playful interactive art experience in Northern Liberties, will ripen and open soon in May. We can’t wait to share this next chapter of the Bride with you.

Thank you, friends, for digging and climbing with us through these seasons. Now let’s go, and bloom.

Leaflets and leaflets of love,

Laurel