Philadelphia@250: Living Room

Wood + Geometry: Order in Dissolution Nature manifests itself through concrete forms and relationships rooted in the balance of multiple interacting forces. The efficient use of these energies defines geometric patterns that repeat, mysteriously, across various scales of the cosmos. This language guides both the creation of matter and its dissolution. In a tree, both the leaves and the wood—when viewed under a microscope—are defined by these patterns. The structures that transport nutrients also shape the leaves and the tree's own "skeleton," employing the same formal language at a fractal scale. This intrinsic order is not exclusive to the organic world; it governs everything from cracks in the pavement, the patterns in animal skin, an interacting group of bubbles, or the structure of our bones. My work is grounded in the study of this mysterious aesthetic—mathematically described and imprinted onto the wooden pieces as a form of erosion. As Found & Lost Remains The pieces are crafted based on the "as found" premise, embracing the beauty of decay and revaluing the ordinary. In an era of disposability, wood evokes the dignity of the natural world and the reverent beauty of something that was once alive. I view wood as the skeletal remains of trees—material traces that endure the passage of time. Each piece possesses its own unique geometric code, transforming into a kind of artificial relic that bears witness to what was once a majestic tree ,a lost remain. Time Frame: The Extractive Process This work is purely extractive: no volume is added; instead, the design emerges through guided erosion—a simulated dissolution. Human intervention remains deliberately concealed beneath a natural, organic aesthetic. Just as wood is biologically destined to disintegrate and return to the earth—whether through the action of fungi, insects, water, or fire—thereby contributing to the forest's life cycle within the global ecosystem, my work arbitrarily interrupts that process of disappearance. Each sculpture functions as a suspended moment—a "time frame"—within that slow, ongoing dissolution; a sort of three-dimensional photograph capturing a specific instant of that process. It is an open invitation to reflect on the natural decay to which we are all subject, and on how that phenomenon possesses a pre-defined aesthetic that shapes us from creation until our eventual disappearance.

explore the city as a layered place of memory, erasure, transformation, and possibility. My work begins with the built environment: bridges, facades, streets, monuments, and architectural fragments that remain in public memory even after they disappear from view. Using drawing, photography, digital manipulation, laser-engraved plexiglass, hand coloring, paper, wood, and LED light, I build images in layers. These layers allow past and present to occupy the same visual space, revealing the hidden histories embedded in the urban landscape. Philadelphia is central to this work, but the questions extend beyond one city. I am interested in what cities preserve, what they forget, and how each new structure carries traces of what came before. Through transparency, light, and fractured line, Invisible Cities asks the viewer to look again — to see the city not as a fixed image, but as a living archive.

My studio work mainly focuses on bringing new life, via color and patterning, to cast off, neglected and ignored furniture, primarily from the first half of the 20th century. I work in a medium known as "vinegar painting" which was popular in the first half of the 19th century as a way to liven up everyday furniture. I started developing my work on furniture in the 1980's and have published two books on decorative furniture finishing.

I’ve done artwork my whole life. I’ve done ceramics for many years, enjoying working with clay … earth. Since I moved back to Philadelphia from California, I found NextFab. It gave me the opportunity to open up to new creative possibilities. I found that I have a profound connection to wood. I find fascination in the grains, textures, colors, density and bark. Each assemblage piece I start with arranging various pieces of wood and let them reveal their beautiful nature. I go with the grain, and go with the flow with joy.

Lighten Up Lab creates sculptural lighting grounded in material honesty and meticulous craft. We pair advanced manufacturing with hands‑on refinement to shape work that feels intentional, enduring, and unmistakably made in Philadelphia. We love working with walnut on the lathe, pairing its warmth with the unexpected pop of a 3D-printed light diffuser for a playful and compelling contrast. Or we might cast concrete—or a more environmentally conscious material like Aqua-Resin—into custom 3D-printed molds, finishing the form with a marshmallow-soft resin-printed shade that echoes the shape but offers a completely different feel.

I make art that speaks to contradiction—between beauty and waste, permanence and impermanence, reverence and ruin. My practice sits at the uncomfortable intersection of ecological anxiety, personal vulnerability, and the quiet rituals of making. Whether I’m working in glass, metal, or wood, my work is driven by an urgency to confront the systems we’re complicit in—and the ones we create inside ourselves.

I love the medium of wood and know it well.Having been influenced by Kandinsky,I use both organic and geometric forms to construct my sculptures.Adding piece by piece I create both complex and kinetic designs.Some pieces are exotic woods showing their natural beauty and some are painted or patterned to create movement and balance.

Hayato Matsushita is a Japanese-born American artist and cultural archaeologist whose work explores the hidden geometry and symbolic language embedded within American history. Through research into maps, flags, historical documents, and urban planning, he uncovers connections between design, philosophy, and collective memory. His recent work focuses on Philadelphia, examining the city as both a physical place and an evolving idea where history, civic life, and imagination converge. By reinterpreting familiar symbols through geometry and pattern, Matsushita invites viewers to reconsider the foundations of the American experiment and the stories that continue to shape it.

Chris Schmucki is an educator and woodworker currently residing in West Philadelphia. Having been exposed to woodworking from an early age, Chris carries a deep appreciation and respect for craft and building. He has been a member of the Nextfab community for the past year and has reveled in the experience of community-facing craftsmanship. As someone who is concerned with the environmental impacts of furniture creation, Chris has devoted much of his time at Nextfab to working with salvaged materials. He is honored to present his work alongside such wonderful artists.

Grief can be extremely complicated depending on your past experiences, relationships and how you’re loved one passed away. Through my paintings and sculptures, I analyze how styles, subject matter, poses, space, and shapes can allow viewers to understand the nature of human mourning. I draw on both the sentimental and painful aspects of my childhood to create art that speaks to my present-day perspective on my father, his addiction, and the tragic way he passed. I use saturated, somber colors similar to the Chiaroscuro technique which is inspired by Caravaggio. I layer oil paint onto a carefully constructed canvas using a palette knife adding a course texture to the composition in response to the complicated memories I have with loss and addiction. I deliberately leave areas of the red exposed and unfinished representing how deep sorrow often feels unresolved and unfathomable. These areas allow the viewer to witness my process while symbolizing the persistent emotion of anger I experienced growing up with an alcoholic father. Creating art allows me to continue this exploration of my grief in reflection to the complex relationship I had with my alcoholic father who was murdered in 2023.

These light switch plates are enameled copper – screen printed in overglaze with imagery from photographs around Philadelphia. Through their images, colors, and textures, they bring little traces of the exterior world into the interior. These pieces are responses to how living bodies are interconnected with the built environment around us. We are situated within shared surroundings that form elements of our experience. Our shared spaces intertwine with our individual private lives, connecting us to each other and those who have come before. Through my art practice, I reexamine how we assign value, and explore ways to grow connection and energy through attention and care. My work is grounded in metalsmithing and documentation processes; it includes photography, jewelry, papermaking, video, and installation. I live in South Philly and am a member of DaVinci Art Alliance and NextFab, where I also teach enameling. Exhibition spaces have included DVAA, the Baltimore Jewelry Center, Peters Valley School of Craft, and Schuylkill Nature Center.

Using traditional kintsugi techniques, I repair cherished housewares like plates, mugs, and vases that have broken over time. My objective is to restore utility but in a new form, transformed by process of breaking and golden repair into something new. For me, kintsugi asks us to consider what we throw away and what we preserve for ourselves and future generations. For the Philadelphia@250 living room, I would like to present a handcrafted ceramic mug by John Hacking which broke during the firing process and has been repaired with silver powder to return it to use. A mug is home in any living room, and the cracks in that perfect mug are at home in Philadelphia, a city that has many imperfections but is still stitched together by a persistent and palpable spirit. The channels of silver evoke the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers that flank the city. Dan Singer is an amateur artisan who is still learning and developing his craft. He has studied traditional kintsugi with professional artists Makomako and Gen Saratani. John Hacking is a budding ceramicist training at The Clay Studio. His work balances organic form with angled structure, creating pieces that are not only beautiful in appearance but also in function.

I derive pleasure from the design challenge. My artwork is not bound to a single material or technique. Problem-solving underscores my love of repurposing materials and my out-of-the-box way of looking at the world from many perspectives. Cartrageous is an ongoing series of furniture developed from a single lounge chair made because I couldn't afford good furniture. The repetition of walking past a steel-framed abandoned shopping cart at the end of my city block conjured up a lot of possibilities. It had WHEELS! My mind blew open. Wheels meant I could make an indoor-outdoor chair that went from the living room to the yard, had storage underneath, and could be long enough for me to lounge and take a nap. That one single one-off became an incredible adventurous journey of play and repurposing challenges. For years, people have brought me abandoned shopping carts and asked me to "make something" from them. From my living room to the museum and awards at gallery shows, several Cartrageous pieces were selected for exhibition at the Philadelphia International Airport, Terminal A West, for six months. Turning to miniature scale, the series was popularized with a collection of jewelry on the same theme. A donation is made to a homeless soup kitchen with each sale. Actively exhibiting in galleries and museum exhibitions since 1984, grants and awards have been awarded for oil paintings, sculptures, ceramics, drawings, and residency opportunities both Nationally, and internationally. Cartrageous furniture and other works have been placed in both corporate and private collections. Reared on a farm in rural Southeastern Ohio, necessity was the mother of invention. My Father was a genius for fixing things that were not broken and using found objects to fix them. His ingenuity amidst rural isolation set the ground for my insatiable desire to travel the world and create works of art established through my observations of first Nature - and later, the nature of people as a reflection of our society. One of my favorite pastimes is to consider how to incorporate irony in a quirky, fun, and playful way. Recent works are a direct reflection of the humor and irony inherent in our consumer culture, as well as the hierarchical hypocrisy of our history and democracy. One of my favorite Museums in the area is the Baltimore Visionary Museum. The artist presented did not have formal art education, but the skill, attention to detail, and obsessive quality of many of the works leave me in awe. I have always admired people who take something and make it into something else completely different.

Mel Sage is an artist and woodworker whose work is inspired by the natural environment, the principles of architecture and site models influenced by real topographies of various locations throughout the world. Sage completed a degree in architecture before practicing in the field. Between school and working professionally as an architect, Sage developed a love for fabrication and the wood shop alike. She eventually embarked on her career as an artist, developing her own style of three-dimensional wooden designs. The importance of achieving symmetry within each sculptural piece using the natural material of wood is a guiding principle of Sage’s work and an emphasis on clear lines and harmoneous proportions is a common trait throughout her work. Sage’s current collection strives to highlight work which pulls topographies from different locations in the greater California region. The collection seeks to encompass Sage’s aesthetic and essense: surf, desert, breezy, cool, refined. All material is locally sourced

We design through an artist's lens, at the meeting point of utility and art. Born in Brooklyn and based in Philadelphia, Untitled_co is focused on creating goods for the home that elevate everyday experiences. We are passionate about our planet and keeping her healthy. We have a holistic approach to our design process, marrying traditional craftsmanship with modern production techniques to bring heirloom quality home goods and furniture to your space.