Makeshift planter in a recycled porcelain pedestal sink outside of row home in Center City Philadelphia. The faucets make watering easy.
Photo by Randy Giancaterino

FunTimes Magazine ‘Culture + Entertainment,” Week of March 18, 2024

                       "Spring is nature's way of saying 'Let's Party!'" 

                                 —The late actor-comic. Robin Williams

Take a nice deep breath. Ok, exhale!… At last, spring is here. At least, officially. The signs of the arrival of the season of new beginnings are springing up everywhere. Just take a peek at the lead photo in this column. 

FunTimers, read on for low-cost, or free events, focusing on art and African-American culture. And don’t forget: When event-going, please take precautions, especially when in groups and indoors, with the current COVID-19 variants and other infectious health threats on the rise. Check with the event organizers about their safety protocols, and also any changes due to inclement weather. 

Author Hanif Abdurraqib & host Airea Dee Matthews

The word on LeBron at the book signing

Wednesday, March 27, 2024. Essayist-cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib’s latest book, “There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension,” Is making a fast breakdown court to Philadelphia. In There’s Always This Year, supreme personal storyteller Abdurraqib reflects on basketball, role models, success, expectations, and everything LeBron James -- his favorite hoopster while growing up in Ohio in the 1990s. Like LeBron’s play, his prose is poetry in motion. And when the recipient of the McArthur Genius Award writes, people read. And when he speaks at the Parkway Central Library for a book reading signing, people will listen. Whether he shoots the breeze about sports. Black music, art, or the human condition, he commands attention. Leading the discussion will be Airea D. Matthews, the 2022–23 Philadelphia Poet Laureate and manager of the poetry program at Bryn Mawr College. Abdurraqib’s books will be available to buy. A book signing will follow the presentation. Mask-wearing is required. $40 with book purchase. 7:30 p.m. EST. Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St. 215-567-4341 or www.freelibrary.org.

Johnson House-FunTimes’ exhibit paints a family portrait…

Saturday, March 23, 2024. To celebrate Women’s History Month, FunTimes Magazine and Johnson House Historic Site will present Meet The Tiberino Family: A Continuing Legacy of Art. The exhibit will feature a dedicated family of artists including one of Philadelphia’s most prominent female artists: the family matriarch, the late Ellen Powell Tiberino (1937 to 1992). She was known for her pastels, oils, pencil drawings, and sculptures. The Philadelphia African-American artist’s realistic and dramatic works reflect the history of the Black experience, particularly women, whom she often represented in haunting colors. Her work includes large-scale paintings, three-dimensional murals, and sculptures. In 1977, she was the first artist to have a one-person exhibition at the city’s Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum. Creatively, she drew from her personal experiences and observations. As a cancer patient for 18 years, Tiberino faced many medical challenges but continued to express herself through her art. She worked from her hospital bed up until her death at age 55; although her life was cut short, she left a prolific collection of art. Her husband Joseph also was an artist who worked on paintings with his wife. Their daughter, Ellen Tiberino, carried on her legacy and developed her successful career. She is a mosaic artist from West Philadelphia and a part of a celebrated family called “The Wyeths of Philadelphia.” Enjoy the exhibit, and a discussion, and get an opportunity to buy the art; originals and prints that are on exhibit will be available. Johnson House, now a National Historic Landmark, was a way station for enslaved individuals escaping to freedom through the Underground Railroad. Johnson House Historic Site, 6306 Germantown Ave. Free, but pre-register, 2 p.m. EST to 4 p.m. EST. [email protected] or 215-438-1768 or johnsonhouse.org.

 The exhibit spotlights pioneering printmaker Dox Thrash

Friday, March 22, 2024. African American Museum in Philadelphia will launch an exhibit by heralded trailblazing artist-printmaker, Dox Thrash, at a reception. The exhibit, “Imprint: Dox Thrash, Black Life, and American Culture,” will feature more than 40 pieces. Get a sneak preview of the show, and discuss its importance with the museum’s leadership team. More than half of the exhibit’s pieces will showcase Thrash’s chosen medium -- his innovative use of carborundum mezzotint -- a printmaking method developed in America in the 1930s. Thrash helped to refine this technique in which light passage is added to a dark field.

Said the museum’s Dejay Duckett, Vice President of Curatorial Services: “Philadelphia was his [artist Thrash] chosen home, and while his innovative use of printmaking as a medium has been celebrated, his art is a true snapshot of Black America.”

After serving in World War I, Thrash attended the Art Institute of Chicago as a military veteran; later, his artistic path led to Philadelphia. He gained notoriety locally at the Fine Print Workshop of Philadelphia – the local site housing a federal art-relief program. In Philadelphia, he honed his signature printmaking techniques. 6 p.m. EST to 8 p.m. EST, free, register in advance. The African American Museum in Philadelphia, 701 Arch St. 215- 574-0380 or aampmuseum.org.

Jacob Lawrence’s Revolt on the Amistad, 1989, color serigraph

A virtual look at an exhibit of artists’ Nigerian journey

Wednesday, March 20, 2024. The virtual workshop, The Art at Noon’s Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence & The Mbari, hosted by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, has an interesting backstory:

It started in 1964 when African-American artist Jacob Lawrence and his wife, Gwendolyn Knight, made a research pilgrimage to Nigeria. They met modernist artists from an organization and salon, the Mbari Club, through their involvement with the American Society of African Culture. Mbari Club members’ art was published in their journal Black Orpheus, “presenting hybrid art forms based in the artist’s cultural practices, while being connected to Western contemporary styles.” The exhibit’s curator is author-scholar Kimberli Gant, curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The accomplished Gant will lead you through the details of the exhibit. Free, but pre-registration is required; noon to 1 p.m. EST. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 118-128 N. Broad St. E-mail: [email protected], 215-972-7600 or https://www.pafa.org.

Try your hand at public art

Wednesday, March 27, 2024. To all emerging and established artists who are interested in participating in commissioned public art projects: The City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) will host a virtual public-art workshop, “Public Art, How to Start: Turning Passion into Profession.” It will feature a conversation with OACCE’s Public Art Director Marguerite Anglin and Alvin Pettit, the artist selected to design Philadelphia’s permanent Harriet Tubman statue to be installed outside of City Hall. Pettit will share tips on how he turned his passion for public art into a lifelong career. After a juried decision that included input from the general public, Pettit’s renderings and ideas were chosen, and he was commissioned to create a permanent public sculpture representing the legacy of social activist Tubman; she bravely helped free 300 enslaved individuals through a passage through the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia, and other cities, before the Civil War in the 1800s. Pettit is the director of the Mary McLeod Bethune Life Center in Jersey City. Zoom webinar. Free, but pre-register. 5:30 p.m. EST to 7 p.m. EST. Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE). 215-686- 8446 or creativephl.org.

 Get wordy & get money!

Through Thursday, March 28, 2024. Get real /no big deal/Ya know the spiel/Time to heal…See, poetry flows naturally like a river of words through our veins. Now, it’s your turn: All poets, musicians, creatives, and all-around wordsmiths, the deadline is fast approaching for your chance to enter the FunTimes Celebrate Her Spoken Words Contest. It’s a cool opportunity to receive money, and recognition and celebrate an inspirational Black woman of your choice in the community. Prizes will be awarded for first place ($250), second place ($150), and third place ($100). Just present your creative spoken-word masterpiece in any language (non-English pieces should include subtitles) in a quality video of 80 seconds or less. Select a suitable background that complements the mood and theme of your expressive spoken-word performance. Feel free to incorporate music or visuals in your presentation. Free to enter. Submit your prose in a video, with your full name and e-mail address, by Thursday, March 28, 2024, to: [email protected]. Follow us on Facebook (FunTimes Magazine), Instagram (funtimesmagazine), X (FunTimesMag), or Linkedin (FunTimes Magazine). If you have the prose, we’ll give you the platform. 

From left to right: Chelsey Luster, “Luster,” oil, acrylic, faux fur, glitter, and marker on panel; Shontel Horne, “Habits,” photography. Photo courtesy of the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy.

A re(FOCUS) on women & gender-nonconforming artists

Through Friday, April 12, 2024. Art in City Hall, a program of the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy (OACCE), is presenting (re)FOCUS at City Hall -- a juried exhibition with the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA). The exhibit features the works of 46 local women and gender-nonconforming artists. It will focus on the contemporary social issues of women’s empowerment, gender identity, and equality. It’s part of (re)FOCUS 2024, a citywide collaboration of more than 60 visual arts organizations celebrating 50 years of feminism in the arts. (re)FOCUS at City Hall was juried by Patti Jordan and Sarah Bloom, members of the Women’s Caucus for Art. Bloom is a Philadelphia photographer and Jordan is a mixed-media artist in New Jersey. Free, 8 a.m. EST to 6 p.m. EST. weekdays. Philadelphia City Hall, 2nd, 3rd & 4th-floor hallways (sign in at the northeast corner visitor’s entrance). 215-686-8446 or creativephl.org.

Cheyney University President , Dr. Aaron Walton, at the 2019 Philadelphia UNCF Mayor’s Masked Ball

UNCF Weekend invests in young minds

Saturday, March 23 & Sunday March 24, 2024. Nearly 300 college students have benefitted from the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), with more in the pipeline. The program’s signature event, the 12th Annual UNCF Mayor’s Masked Ball, is one of the premier formal social occasions on the Philadelphia spring calendar. UNCF will present community awards to local UNCF supporters Ric Harris, President and General Manager of NBC10, Telemundo and NBC Sports Philadelphia; David Gould, Chief Diversity and Impact Officer, Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, and The Philadelphia Orchestra-Kimmel Cultural Campus. The weekend concludes with UNCF Sunday hosted by Mt. Carmel Baptist Church. It will be a day of praise. The Rev. Dr. Donald D. Moore, the church’s Senior Pastor, will welcome the UNCF community. Mt. Carmel Baptist Church shares UNCF’s mission of higher education. At a service this Palm Sunday, celebrate the efforts of promising students. Showcased will be the work of the more than 100 HBCUs nationwide, including 37 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the UNCF network. Wear your favorite school apparel or fraternity/sorority colors. UNCF Sunday: Free, 10 a.m. EST, Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, 5732 Race St., Mayor’s Masked Ball: $350; Reception: 5:30 p.m. EST, program: 7 p.m. EST., Marriott Downtown Philadelphia, 1200 Filbert St, E-mail: [email protected], 215-925-9044 or uncf.org.