Phila. arts scene spreads to South Jersey

The gallery is in Collingswood, but the art has its roots across the Delaware.

The Perkins Center for the Arts is the latest stop for an exhibit of windows salvaged from a 1930s-era twin house in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia.

The windows have been painted, adorned with feathers, and even sprayed with insulating foam by artists from New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

It's exactly the sort of show that Karen Chigounis, associate curator of the Perkins Center for the Arts, believes suburban art galleries should be hosting.

"We really like the idea of bridging the river. The artists do it, and it really raises our profile if we can pull in a Philadelphia audience," Chigounis said.

Traditionally, it's suburbanites making the trek into cities to enjoy art. But as the Philadelphia art scene has evolved over the last decade, galleries have sprung up outside the city, said David Foss, executive director of the Da Vinci Art Alliance in South Philadelphia.

"Artists are always looking for new places to show their work, and the more space, the better, whether it's in Collingswood or Philadelphia itself," he said.

Foss helped organize the window exhibition, called "Through My Window," which has been staged at galleries in Philadelphia, Millville, N.J., and now Collingswood, where it will run until Nov. 13.

In recent years, Collingswood has worked to bring in trendy restaurants and apartments and condos as it invigorates its downtown.

The arts were crucial to the borough's plan to entice affluent, white-collar residents to move in, first with the Scottish Rite Theatre and then with Perkins, Mayor Jim Maley said.

"It brings some other businesses in, like galleries and a music shop that opened up. It attracts artists to be involved in town and move into town," he said.

From a peak a few years ago, some galleries have closed, victims of a widespread downturn in art sales since the recession began, Chigounis said.

But there is hope that enough of a beachhead was established that more galleries will come back as the economy improves.

For South Jersey artists, the opportunity to show their work on their home turf is a welcome development.

Bobbie Adams, a Pennsauken artist who works with paper, still spends most of her time in Philadelphia, working in a studio at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

But she was enthralled when she heard that the window exhibition, to which she contributed a window framing a paper representation of the horizon, was going on the road.

"Collingswood is one of the few Jersey places to show," she said. "I thought the show was really beautiful. It should not just go away."