Poe has spent the last two years developing Flatland, most recently with the help of a $20,000 Pew/Dance Advance grant. Roughly speaking, the piece is a 70-minute expression of his obsession with social media and communication technology.

Why is it that you are more revered outside of Philadelphia than in it? "I don't know, my dear brother," she says, with just a hint of a smile protruding. "I just don't know the answer to that." But the wheels are spinning somewhere behind that gentle smile. What could she be thinking? Perhaps it is simply this: That perception is about to change — my dear brother — sooner or later.

After getting turned down by the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, the Mütter — Philly's own world-famous collection of 19th-century medical oddities — seemed "sufficiently creepy" for Tell-Tale.

At 34, Brosseau is still adjusting to a somewhat unfair expectation often hurled at abstract artists: that he be willing and able to discuss his emotional connection to the work.

Now in her late 80s, abstract expressionist painter Jacqueline Cotter is losing her sight rapidly.

Since 2005, Lewis has been a go-to technical director for experimental theater artists like Pig Iron Theatre Co. and Thaddeus Phillips. He specializes in doing a lot with a little. But with works like the sculptural "Bifurcation, Hysteresis, Catastrophe," Lewis is finally starting to lead his own conceptual projects.

Neil Anderson wakes up every morning and contemplates the texture of the ground directly under his feet.

The first oil successfully drilled in the United States was roughly eight miles north of what is today Oil City. This fact is unknown to most Pennsylvanians.