Home Grown

West Philly's Pentridge Children's Garden reaps what it sows.

by John Vettese


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Published: Nov 27, 2007

PHOTOSYNTHESIS: The donation of a digital camera led to Pentridge's exhibition of photos by the kids who worked in the garden.

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

When Beth Pulcinella asked the young caretakers of Pentridge Children's Garden to look over photographs they'd taken throughout the year, some responded with disbelief.

Everything appeared verdant, enormous and thriving. One picture showed rows of sunflowers tended by a child about a third of their height. Compare these images to the way the West Philadelphia yard currently looks — bare, as any garden would be with the approach of winter, planter boxes empty and husks of unharvested plants crackling away — and the disbelief is palpable. "This one kid, Q, just shook his head," Pulcinella recalls. "'That's not our garden. No way.'"

But the photographs are Pentridge, and just as much the fruit of the neighborhood children as the apples they sold at Clark Park this summer.

When somebody donated a Nikon point-and-shoot to the garden last year, Pulcinella figured her group could use it to document their community space for the outside world. Images might be useful in applying for funding, she reasoned, or for bringing in new volunteers. As the year unfolded, the camera was turned over entirely to the children — who range in age from 4 to 15. They used it capture the garden in their own way: tough poses struck in front of plant life, astonished faces watching as mice scurry about, blurred hands held above a sidewalk, close-ups of cheery eyes and laugh lines.

"Digital photography is so great when you're working with young people," Pulcinella says. "It's not like you've only got 36 shots on a roll, where you have to say [to each child], 'OK, you can have three, then you can have three.' They can literally take pictures until the battery dies for the day."

The result: a window into the world of the neighborhood kids, and some difficult choices as to which photos should be in the show.

It's Saturday afternoon and Pulcinella is sitting in the living room of a house on South 49th Street, surrounded by digital prints documenting 2007 from planting to harvest. She passes them, a stack at a time, to her fellow garden volunteers — a relatively young group themselves, all bubbly and enthusiastic in that post-collegiate activist kind of way. They're readying the pictures for a month-long exhibit at Satellite Cafe, and have reached phase two of editing. First, the children went through everything they shot (more than 500 pictures) and narrowed it down to a smaller group of favorites (about 130). Those that made the initial cut are now being whittled down further by the adults.

"We're really trying to fit all of them in," explains volunteer Miranda Resnick. "These are the ones the kids want to show. But at the same time, I don't think they're going to be like, 'Hey, where's that picture of Leila where she's in the tree and you can barely see her?'"

Pulcinella giggles and says she's actually fond of that particular shot. She plucks it from the pile and shows it — brown branches against a grey concrete wall, red apples dangling toward the ground, and the arms and legs of a harvesting kid camouflaged into the fold. The room nods in agreement and it's placed in the keep pile, for now.

Opening Dec. 1, the show has several goals in mind — the aforementioned recruitment of volunteers and participants, as well as building a wider awareness of the garden.

The show is also a fundraiser. When Pulcinella started volunteering for Pentridge in 2001, it was shared under an agreement with the property owners, making it an autonomous space for neighborhood children to learn about gardening in the summer and take free art classes in the winter.

That agreement expired in 2005, and the owners decided they wanted to sell the property. The garden was closed, but Pulcinella and a small group of core volunteers were unwilling to let it go. In a year's time, they raised $18,000 and took out a loan $5,000 to reach the $23,000 price. The garden reopened in spring of 2006, and sales from the show will be used to pay down the remaining debt.

Pulcinella thinks the show acts as an affirmation of what her group has achieved. "There's something about how a photograph can make something more real," Pulcinella says. "An experience can just be this ephemeral memory, or it can be a concrete photograph. The kids can look at these pictures and say, 'Oh yeah, that really happened.'"

(j_vettese@citypaper.net)

Opening reception Sat., Dec. 1, 5-9 p.m., runs through Dec. 29, Satellite Cafe, 701 S. 50th St., 215-729-1211, myspace.com/satellitecoffee, phillyimc.org.