River tides and currents are their own creative forces with Art@Bartram’s

Caterpillars made of colorful buoys are spending the summer in the Schuylkill River near Bartram's Garden, playing hide-and-seek with tide and current. Known as Tide Field, the buoys are artist Stacy Levy’s interpretation of the ceaseless flow of the Schuylkill, and signal the presence of nature, even deep in the city. The installation is part of an Art@Bartram’s celebration to reacquaint near and far neighbors with the river in their midst. All summer, events on land and water, by day and night, active and passive, will draw Philadelphians to the banks of the waterway that crosses the heart of their city.

Room for the river

Art@Bartram’s develops and produces public art in and around Bartram’s Garden, including Bartram’s Mile recreational trail and the surrounding neighborhood. Begun in 2015 and funded by the William Penn Foundation, it’s a collaboration between the almost 300-year-old garden, a National Historic Landmark, and Mural Arts Philadelphia, the nation’s largest public art program. Levy’s work, which often focuses on water issues, is a natural for the initiative.

The largest of Tide Field’s 11 groups of buoys (nearly 250 in all) floats alongside Bartram’s Garden; others can be seen from area parks, along Bartram’s Mile, and from bridges spanning the Schuylkill at Walnut Street and Spring Garden Street. Different colors along the length of the buoys become visible as the tide rises and falls twice daily and as currents shift.

A second Levy installation, River Rooms, offer visitors wooden skiff-shaped platforms for viewing and fishing. Whether sitting quietly, gazing out over the ripples, or dipping a line in the water, the structures offer city-dwellers places to be in nature in ways they might not usually experience.

City water tells its own story

“I try to design a project so that the site tells the ecological story of itself,” Levy explains on her website. Using art “as a vehicle for translating the patterns and processes of the natural world,” she creates site-specific works, many of them concerned with the environmental implications of water, like watershed management and protection, water treatment, stormwater challenges, and rain collection.

Through temporary and longer-lasting installations such as rain gardens, Levy strengthens the public connection to water and its importance as a resource that requires attention and care.

Poetry, yoga, moonlight boating, and a parade

Free public events are planned at Bartram’s Garden into fall. You can find the full list online, text TideRooms to 797979, or follow along on social media @muralarts.

Upcoming Art@Bartram’s events include Verse & Vinyasa on Saturday, July 14, and Saturday, August 25, from 9 to 11am. It’s a riverside poetry-yoga-sound workshop to deepen participants’ connection with nature’s healing properties, happening at the 56th Street Plaza at Bartram’s Garden. Or try Full Moon Boating on Friday, July 27, or Sunday, August 26, from 7 to 9pm. Row Tide Field by moonlight in illuminated skiffs, with music, seasonal drinks, and a telescope. Trips leave from Bartram’s Garden Boathouse (5400 Lindbergh Avenue).

There’s also a Lighthouse Parade/Party on Friday, August 3, from 7 to 11pm at the Boathouse (rain date Friday, September 28). See Tide Field after dark with a glowing parade of musicians and puppets, illuminated boating and dancing, a DJ, food trucks, art activities, and night-sky viewing.

Above: A view of Tide Field at low tide. (Photo by Steve Weinik for Mural Arts Philadelphia.)