PHILADELPHIA, PA.-Hidden among the files of the Powel House records are photo albums featuring the founding members, such as Francis Anne Wister, of the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks. Some of these photos capture fundraising events held at in the Powel House, which not only paid for the restoration of the historic Powel House, but also celebrated the women's sewing, quilting, and needlework so romanticized during the colonial revival period of the 1930's and 1940's.

In honor of these women, who were artists as well as historic preservationists, Landmarks is pleased to present solo projects by artists Marie H. Elcin, Caroline Lathan-Stiefel and Phuong X. Pham. The exhibition is a series of three solo installations running concurrently at two historic house museums: Lathan-Stiefel and Pham at the Powel House; and Elcin at the Physick House. The Powel House Museum is located at 244 South 3rd Street, and the Physick House Museum is located at 321 South 4th Street. Both are open to the public 12-5 PM Thursday through Saturday, and 1-5 PM on Sundays. The show runs from March 7-30, 2008, and there will be opening receptions in both houses on First Friday, March 7, from 5-9 PM.

The exhibition is part of FiberPhiladelphia, the citywide 2008 International Fiber Biennial. A major international event, almost two years in the planning, FiberPhiladelphia encompasses two symposia and more than twenty-five exhibitions examining the current explosion in the use of textile and fiber materials in the field of contemporary art. Concurrent with the artists' installations, Landmarks will also present fiber-based highlights from the permanent collections of our four historic houses: Grumblethorpe, Physick House, Powel House and Waynesborough.

At the Physick House--the Federal-style home of Dr. Philip Syng Physick, "Father of American Surgery"--Marie Elcin's installation, Water, Water, Everywhere, explores the effect of water as a conveyor of disaster. Elcin's project is based in research about the 1792 Yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, during which Dr. Physick remained in the city, treating the afflicted. Through delicate beadwork, embroidery, and screen-printing, Elcin captures the tension of both historic and modern day life. Beautiful on the surface, Elcin's intricate work explores the tension between strength and fragility, life and death--even utilizing the molecular image of the Yellow Fever molecule as a recurring design element.

A block over at the Powel House Museum, Caroline Lathan-Stiefel's installation, Keeping it Under Wraps, is inspired by a piece of tatting by Martha Powel in the collection of the museum. Lathan-Stiefel takes the tiny, precise historic textile and transforms it, using it as a visual counterpoint to the symmetry and formality of the house's Georgian architecture. Lathan-Steifel uses commonplace materials to give the work a provisional quality: her work commands the space but shuns monumentality.

Also at the Powel House Museum, in what is now called the "ballroom," Phuong Pham's installation Stasis, Extended is inspired by the physical history of the Powel House, which by the turn of the 20th century had become a horsehair mattress factory. Her piece explores horsehair as a contemporary medium, while referencing the house's decline and rebirth over the centuries. Pham takes this coarse and unglamorous medium and uses it to express subtlety and delicacy in the elegant Powel ballroom. Exhibition Curated by Michelle Wilson and Robert Wuilfe.