For nearly 30 years, art lovers in Philadelphia have reserved the First Friday of every month for gallery hopping, and renowned local organization CraftNOW invites curators and artists for intimate virtual previews on Thursday nights. 

In June, R & Company is invited to present Objects: USA 2020. Hosted by R & Company’s principal Evan Snyderman, son of Philadelphia’s renowned craft gallerists Ruth and Rick Snyderman, this program will include interviews with artists Anna Von Mertens and Jaydan Moore. 

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Anna Von Mertens’ “Portraits” series references contemporary auratic photography. Fascinated by this collision of pseudoscience and abstraction, Von Mertens set about making textile versions of historic portraits including, the Mona Lisa, Velázquez’s Philip IV, and Whistler’s Mother, giving an aura to each subject in what she considered an appropriate palette of the utmost sincerity.

Jaydan Moore was born into a family of tombstone makers in California and spent his childhood rummaging through other people’s objects. Today Moore’s work reclaims antique pieces of silver and silver plate, collaging them into expressionist compositions. This method yields a complex set of ideas about the meanings embedded within inherited materiality while honoring the latent value of the objects, shaped skillfully by the hands of late artisans.