Collaborating with artist Lauren DiCioccio, we transformed the Fabric Workshop Museum's "white box" Gallery at 1222 Arch Street into a pop-up retail store, coffee bar, studio and workshop space, with a "living room" for hosting Unboxing events. Demolition and installation took place over three days, beginning with milling a locally sourced cedar log into 2" thick planks used to construct the coffee bar, cafe table and shelving and trim for the store. On day 3 our crate of wares from Workshop Residence in San Francisco arrived and we filled the new store with the contents and opened the doors. Our installation signage featured generous use of 3M blue painter's tape, in homage to the signature accessory of FWM founder and Artistic Director Marion Stroud Swingle ("Kippy"). 

The combination of store, coffee bar, workshop and event space hosted a fast-paced program of activities over the next three months.  Hundreds of visitors who had traveled to the adjacent Museum lingered in the Pop-Up Workshop before and after their visit, warming up from the PA winter with a hot coffee.  Our "living room" hosted 25 Unboxings, well attended public events centered around a presentation of a past FWM project, with a white glove survey of the corresponding "Artist Box" of archived process materials. 

While FWM docents conducted the Unboxing events, Lauren and Braden color-matched the contents of each Artist Box, using Pantone Color Bridge to swatch a comprehensive color survey of the FWM Artist Box Archive. From this survey, we created a FWM Artist Box Color Survey booklet, intended as a reference tool for young artists learning how professionals have used color over the last 40 years at FWM.  We then transposed our color survey onto local Pennsylvania area manufacturing, for example commissioning custom died yarns from from Woolrich Woolen Mills to match specific artists colors from past FWM projects. The original colors from past artists projects were to be set on warp and weft of traditional Dobby looms with one face of double cloth expressing the original colors set as solid stripes (weft) and the reverse showing the permutations of color combinations (expressing warp and weft).

Special thanks to Kippy and the Fabric Workshop for their generous support and collaboration on the project.  Thanks to Sean Weeks Earp, Rujira Lomas and Sarah Lammer for their help with the installation. More images of the installation process here: #popupworkshopresidence.