November 27-December 3, 2003

art

Drawing on Experience

A clean, well-lighted place: Executive Director Diane Podolsky thinks the Philadelphia Sketch Club's modern exhibition gallery is a herald of the club's future. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

From an illustrious past, the Philadelphia Sketch Club emerges into a new, community-minded future.

by Lori Hill

Its early membership reads like a page out of an art history book: Thomas Eakins, N.C. Wyeth, Earl Horter, Thomas Anshutz, Alexander Calder, Maxfield Parrish. Its stories are the stuff of lore: The founding artists raised cash by fining each other for swearing; several members left their ashes on the premises. For 143 years, the Philadelphia Sketch Club has been a formidable, if rather mysterious, outpost of artistic talent. For 100 of those years, it’s resided on tiny, cobblestoned Camac Street, once called the "Little Street of Clubs," with PSC, The Plastic Club, the Charlotte Cushman Club and the Franklin Club all headquartered there.

However: "It's not an old man's club," says PSC Executive Director Diane Podolsky. At least, not anymore.

Just this June, Podolsky became the first-ever employee of the PSC. She's a woman determined to see the club move into the 21st century an even stronger -- and if she has anything to do with it, less mysterious -- arts institution.

William C. Patterson, a 10-year member of PSC and the board president, thinks the presence of a full-time director will see the club "growing not only in membership size and revenue, but also in its artistic impact. We have the potential of being a real focal point for artists of this region, just as we were in the past."

And for the PSC, the past is always present.

It all started in the late 1800s, when the young Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts suspended some classes and exhibitions while the Furness building was constructed. Half a dozen students had already begun meeting informally at each other's houses and formed a "sketching club" to hone their illustration skills, and during PAFA's renovations this Philadelphia Sketch Club filled the void. It quickly grew to more than 400 members (a number that's fluctuated over the years), and moved to Camac Street in 1903. Today, the PSC has around 250 members, comprises three combined Federal-period rowhouses and possesses not only offices and meeting spaces, but also a 30-by-40 foot modern exhibition gallery. It's celebrating 100 years on Camac with its annual Legacy Art Exhibition and sale, starting Nov. 30.

Seeds of the current changes were planted back in 1990. Until then, PSC survived mostly on membership dues, which, after building maintenance and other necessities, left little for publicity and program expansion. "With these limited resources and an aging membership, the Club was becoming one of Philadelphia's best-kept secrets," says Patterson. PSC attained nonprofit status, allowing it to raise funds as a public charity. Remarkably, it was also around this time that the club officially opened full membership to women. Women had been exhibitors, jurors, medal winners; they just weren't privy to what were essentially the social aspects of the club, according to Podolsky. (They probably spent their time next door at The Plastic Club -- founded by the artistic likes of Violet Oakley -- which only expanded full membership to men in 1991.) Incidentally, a longtime associate of the club, Betty MacDonald, became board president soon after the change.

A capital campaign launched in 1995 allowed PSC to make building improvements: roof repair, new alarm systems and gallery lighting. Local specialists like Newman Galleries and Yellin Ironworks are helping the club restore everything from paintings to architectural elements to their original luster. (Starting soon, Podolsky will see more renovation from her office window: masonry work, shutter restoration and emergency exits, thanks to grants from a number of foundations.)

"To keep our momentum, our strategic plan also recognized the need for an executive director," says Patterson. "With the financial, technical and legal challenges facing cultural organizations today, a full-time resource is needed to ensure continuity and focus."

A grant from the William Penn Foundation allowed the club to hire Podolsky, who's worked with nonprofits from the Salvation Army to a small organization servicing the homebound (and she's a mixed-media artist herself). "I'm really looking forward to seeing where the club is going to go now," she says. "It's not a place that's stuck in the past, even though it influences what we do. There are just so many new possibilities."

Volunteers and members are still the primary administrators of the club; they organize exhibitions, hang shows, produce catalogs. Podolsky sees herself as a liaison among membership, the board and the community. The club wants to create new and strong relationships with local arts education institutions. PSC also hopes to serve as an umbrella organization, a place for visual arts groups with no permanent headquarters to meet, install shows and increase their visibility.

Members and local artists show their work in 11 exhibitions a year -- print, watercolor, pastel and photography, as well as the annual small oils show, held since 1865. The club has also collaborated with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of the Arts, among others. High-school and undergraduate art students mount shows at PSC, which Podolsky says gives them a rare opportunity to show their work in a professional setting.

The PSC also runs five extremely affordable three-hour workshops out of this space, four for life modeling ($8) and one for printmaking ($5), open to artists of all experience levels. Discounts are offered for full-time art students on Wednesday nights. There are no teachers, just "monitors," members who want to share their skills with workshop participants and who encourage the attendees to critique and learn from each other's work.

At one point, the youngest member was 60 years old. New members these days are 30 to 35 years old. "Now there's more balance, old members are welcoming to the new ones," says Podolsky. "PSC draws people with a sense of connection."

Patterson says, "Our membership has doubled and has a strong, young, more diverse base, although the older members still give us some sound advice on running the club."

To illustrate the point, Podolsky tells the story of a group of students from Moore College of Art & Design who paid a visit. Like most people who see the club for the first time, the young women were very interested in "the mystique of the place," but said the resources of the club’s longtime members would be more useful to them, a practical application of what PSC has been advocating all along.

A tour of the club, which is listed on the Register of Historic Places, lends some idea of what it has meant to its members over the years. One member hand-carved gargoyles over an entryway, another designed stained glass windows, another forged an iron chandelier. Anshutz painted portraits of 44 early members; these now line the walls of the library and archival room, which is open to the public for research. Out back is a small green space and patio area, with a fishpond the club hopes to renovate and refill. Climbing the stairway are prints advertising past shows and, one of Patterson's favorites, a photograph of PSC instructor Thomas Eakins and pals posing for a parody of his bloody, famously controversial painting, The Gross Clinic, complete with axe-wielding surgeon.

Monthly dinner meetings, lectures and printmaking workshops happen in the basement, or "rathskeller," a charming throwback to old-world debauchery, with high-backed oak chairs and pegs for beer steins, both made by members, and a mantel that came from one of the original PSC meeting spots. It's the top floor, though, the airy, well-lit exhibition space, that Podolsky believes signals the new face of the Philadelphia Sketch Club. Workshops, exhibitions, lively receptions -- these represent the future for a club with such an impressive past.

"For those of us who have an interest in American art history," says Patterson, "the Sketch Club is hallowed ground."

The Legacy show opens Sun., Nov. 30, reception 2-5 p.m.; exhibition runs through Dec. 21, Philadelphia Sketch Club, 235 S. Camac St., 215-545-9298. For membership information, visit www.sketchclub.org.