Shacking up a little longer at the Philadelphia Art Hotel

Kelly Mueller Mueller, the Art Hotel's first resident, painted this work, "Foo Dog Dance."

options

Shacking up a little longer at the Philadelphia Art Hotel

POSTED: Tuesday, September 1, 2009, 9:28 PM

Filed Under: Arts

Kelly Mueller

Mueller, the Art Hotel's first resident, painted this work, "Foo Dog Dance."

I wrote a piece last week about what's arguably the quirkiest residency in town, the Philadelphia Art Hotel. It even out-quirks the one offered by the Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study, which furnishes residents with a place to rest their heads, a studio, a bike (!) and a computer for a month. The Art Hotel, on the other hand, is only two weeks long, free, located in the founders' actual apartment (which they vacate when residents come to town), and will eventually (hopefully) incorporate an artist-created mini-golf course. As to be expected with such a weird bunch, there was a lot of information from my interview with the founders, Krista Peel and Zak Starer, that I couldn't include in the piece. Here are the highlights:

City Paper: You recently moved to Philly. Why did you decide to start the Art Hotel here?
Krista Peel: We were living in San Francisco, and weren't really into the art there. It's kind of like the art that you'd expect to come out of a small town. So we wanted to get away from that, but at the same time, we didn't want to go to a city where the art scene was always based on the newest trend. So Philly was a good balance. We thought about going to Wyoming, too, but we decided we didn't want to make it like a retreat, and be by ourselves.

CP: Why is the residency so short?
Zak Starer: Right now, part of it's because it's in our home, and we can only be vagrants for so long.
KP: In the new place [in Kensington, where we'll move in October], the residencies will be closer to six weeks long. So there will be enough time to get going, to get on track, but not enough time to get too comfortable and have it feel like home.

CP: Right now you're running the Art Hotel like a for-profit business. Do you think that could change in the future?
KP: Yeah, we've went back and forth, and we can see ourselves having a board and doing it as a non-profit. We'd like to try this first, though, and either way our philosophy would be the same. Right now we're going to try to make it work with fundraisers and gatherings. It's hard to get grants when you're first starting, anyway ' so if we decide to change course five years down the road, it'll be right about the time we could feasibly start a non-profit.

CP: So why did you decide that one of only two requirements for the residency would be that the artists have to lecture about their pieces?
KP: Well, I personally like to listen to artists talk about their work, whether or not I even like the work.
ZS: The room we've been doing it in at the Free Library is weird ' it's even not AV-equipped, and people usually rent it for weddings. I like it, though. It's got a really great view.

CP: What are your day jobs?
KP: I make jewelry on Etsy, and I work at an old folk's community at 45th and Chestnut. I teach jewelry classes there, too.
ZS: I work in the print-making facilities at Moore College. It's a good 9-to-5er.

CP: Are your roles different at the Art Hotel?
KP: He's definitely the amazing organization man. The office guy, he does all the paperwork and takes care of all the documents. And I'm the one who cleans the place and is like, "Are you OK? Do you need towels?"

CP: How have the artists felt about living in your house? Did they find it weird?
KP: Not at all! Kelly said that on the first night she kept dreaming of colors, 'cause there are all these colors in our house, and that influenced her the next day.

Posted by Holly Otterbein @ 9:28 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Comments (0)

What we're trying to do this weekend
CONCERT REVIEW: The Postal Service @ The Mann 6/17
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: Sunny, Tony and the return of Do No Harm
CONCERT REVIEW: The Rolling Stones @ Wells Fargo Center 6/18 || Ian McLagan @ Tin Angel 6/17
Behind the scenes of local film A Man Full of Trouble
NOW SEE THIS: Salinger film trailer
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: Indian fare rules, Dunder Mifflin lives on, Tom Jones is a god
REVIEW: Archer Live! @ the TLA 1/11
CITY PAPER WRITING CONTEST 2013: Send stories! Send poetry!
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: Pink. Diner en Blanc 2. Breaking Glass and Milkboy at the movies. And so on.

About this blog

Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

Follow Critical Mass editors Patrick Rapa and Emily Guendelsberger on Twitter:

@mission2denmark | @emilygee

Search this blog:

Topics:

Blog archives:

June
May
April

March
February
January

Past Archives: