…already filled with a series of changes, in actual weather, the political climate, and this writer’s schedules. which is my excuse - and I’m sticking to it - for the lack of recent blogs. January is already a memory. Here’s to a new month - and a new blog.
I recently rediscovered the 1st page of a story titled Memoirs of a Wallet that I wrote in 4th grade!
I’ve kept on writing since, prose and poems and pretty much everything in between, including a stint as copy chief at a boutique Philadelphia ad agency that coincided with the commercial real estate boom of the 80’s. It led to my most unusual assignment – so far.
One of our clients was the developer responsible for transforming the former Curtis Publishing Building, where Ladies Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post magazines were produced, start to finish, into today’s Curtis Center, located at 5th and Walnut, a stone’s throw from Independence Hall.
The marketing materials were the usual, except for the informative brass plaque! to be displayed with the amazing artwork in the building’s lobby.
The Dream Garden began as a painting commissioned by Curtis Bok from artist Maxfield Parrish. It ended as a 15 by 49 foot favrile glass mosaic executed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and the Tiffany Studios in 1916. They used over 100,000 pieces of hand-fired favrile glass to achieve the 260 colors required to reproduce the original design.
The creative partnership won praise as a major artistic collaboration. Truth is, they had their differences. Parrish complained that Tiffany’s interpretation of his design lacked subtlety and “painterliness”. Tiffany dissed the technical vagueness of Parrish’s design sketches.
The work of both men survives.
So does the extraordinary mosaic. Not in a museum, but in the Curtis Center lobby.
If you’ve not paid this unique work of art a visit, think about it!
