Also this issue:

Fall guide
-Debra Auspitz

Feeding Frenzy
An off-Broadway hit about the restaurant biz comes to Philadelphia -- and hits close to home.
-Toby Zinman photos by michael t. regan

Gearing Up: Tara Keating
-Debra Auspitz

Bittersweet Inspiration
Soul/R&B singer Vivian Green draws power from the pain.
-A.D. Amorosi Photo By Michael T. Regan

Wherever, Whenever
A peek behind the scenes at the dream world of Cirque du Soleil's Varekai.
-Deni Kasrel

Gearing Up: James Valenti
-Debra Auspitz

Down To Zero
Bad-boy artist Neil Bernstein tries to do some good in a gallery near Ground Zero.
-David Warner photo by Jay Muhlin“

Scene Change
A look at nightspots, restaurants and shopping destinations set to open this fall.
-A.D. Amorosi Photo By Michael T. Regan

September 19-25, 2002

cover story

Gearing Up: Sandra Blakely

by Debra Auspitz

Career changes are nothing new for Sandra Blakely. In 1995, after she had “done the corporate America thing,” she decided to move to Philadelphia and attend the University of the Arts. She graduated in 2001 alongside her son. Now she’s creating her own metalworks and trying her hand at curating: She organized the Clay Studio’s current show “Visions: An African American Journey in Clay.” The exhibit includes artists from all over the United States and runs through Oct. 6.

How she prepares to create her work

Most of my work is sort of bridging feelings and images from the past and present, and reflective of what I perceive to be the future. I'll make a piece that is very futuristic, but use techniques that might have been used prior to high-tech tools, or even industrial tools.... I do sresearch sometimes, and some things I just wake up in the middle of the night and do a drawing, or I'm playing with the metal and it starts to take on its own characteristics.

How that preparation can change her art

I was doing a Native American performance piece based on costuming that was both metal and fibers. I [couldn't] do the performance I had intended because I got towards the end of the research and I realized that there were certain movements Native American women could not do, so I felt I had to honor their choice. I try to do some authenticity even if I have to make an alteration.

On curating the Clay Studio show

I just collect artists and their work.... If I like their work I print out images or if I go to a show I collect the cards. So when this opportunity came about I was ecstatic. I had collected information about a few people, but it [was] a year or two or three years old. I spent a lot of time tracking people down, and some were not available but they referred me to other ceramists.