Object ID Number: 2016FBPSa1

Object Number: 2016FBPSa1

Notes: To be included in The Center for Art in wood's exhibit "Bartram's Boxes" was a great moment in my career as a Philadelphia artist. This opportunity was very appropriate in that I find my inspiration for artwork in my hobbies as a gardener and naturalist. To repurpose the actual wood from the felled trees in the Bartram's Garden historic site was a way to both frame my ideas of drawing (the tiny windows) and convey a narrative concerning the way we live in this city of row homes. The windows in boxtree tower represent the preponderance of green /nature that flows through the city's parks and backyards. I see green like this through the windows in my 200 year-old courtyard in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of the city. . I chose the silver platters as a complement, to represent the gift that the city's founders gave to us, the notion that Philadelphia should remain a "Greene Countrie towne." The silver leaf and pigments were drawn from the flora in my back yard. It was another gift to collaborate on the artwork with my brother, John Santoleri, our first such collaboration. John translated my drawings and ideas into the fallen cucumber magnolia, maple and poplar logs we salvaged from Mr. Bartram’s garden.