Saturday, November 1st, 2008...10:48 am
Magic Garden Open To The Public
The Magic Garden
A visit to Philadelphia’s Magic Garden gives you the opportunity to get inside the head of Philadelphia artist Isiah Zagar. He expresses himself in many different mediums, including sculpture, wood carving, painting and assembled found objects. But the staple of his work is mosaic, a project which has been an ongoing for decades and has left its mark on a large portion of South Street. His are mosaics are large, and take up entire sides of buildings, and incorporate broken tiles, mirrors, glass, ceramics, and are interspersed with images and words.
The heart of this ongoing art project is The Magic Garden located at 1020 South Street. A small sidewalk sign invites the passerby in for a self-guided tour for only $3. A very reasonable price that allows you to literally get inside of the work, climbing stairs and exploring winding passages lined on every side with bottles, bike wheels, dolls, broken plates and ceramics, poetry and the reaccuring image of the artist himself, depicted as a four armed naked bearded man.
The seeds of the Magic Garden began to sprout in the early 1990’s, on an vacant parcel of land adjacent to Zagar’s studio. As his garden began to grow and reach its stride, it ran head-on with the realities of the recent real estate boom. The owner of the lot threatened to sell the land and demolish the Magic Garden to make way for development. The asking price was $300,000, and with the help of many, including an anonymous donor who contributed 1/3 of the cost, the money was eventually raised and the Garden’s magic preserved. So add this to your list of places to take your friends and out of town guests. It is well worth the mere $3 a peek and all proceeds go to the preservation, and of course the continuing expansion of this dreamscape.
-
- The Magic Garden
Comments are closed.