Issue no. 1 is out! of the Philadelphia Water Department’s Monoshone Watershed Quarterly Water Quality Update. It’s useful to finally have what we all hope will be an on-going, official report about the state of our creek.

Chris Robinson of Northwest Greens brought this to our attention, noting that it is a big step and an improvement for the PWD to be so openly reporting on the watershed. He also points out the extremely high fecal coliform counts registered at Outfall 5 in the latter part of 2008. An opinion article in the Chestnut Hill Local by Joel Hoffman expresses what many folk in the community are thinking. By all counts, this is a stinky issue that’s not going away and has, to date, defied a solution despite mountains of effort and bundles of money.

For all of you who have enjoyed KNEE DEEP and asked for an update, take a look, then seek out Chris Robinson of Northwest Greens, Charles Parsons of the Philadelphia Watershed Alliance or Joanne Dahme of the PWD to help in the efforts to clean up our creek.

Can we, please, bask in the glory of our friend and colleague Fran McElroy’s newest accoloade?

Just yesterday, the 2009 Pew Fellows in the Arts were announced and… there she is! Read below, then follow the link.

Oh! and search this site for our collaborations.

Fran joins our close colleagues Glenn Holsten, Maria Rodriguez, Barbara Attie & Janet Goldwater, Louis Massiah, Margie Strosser, Steve Rowland, Jan Yager and Rufus Caleb as a Pew Fellow. Quite an honor.

PEW FELLOWSHIPS IN THE ARTS ANNOUNCES

2009 AWARD RECIPIENTS

TWELVE ARTISTS RECEIVE $60,000 FELLOWSHIPS

June 3, 2009  Philadelphia, Pa.—Pew Fellowships in the Arts today announced the Philadelphia-area artists who have received $60,000 fellowship awards for 2009—the largest such grant in the country for which individual artists can apply. This year the awards went to artists working in fiction and creative nonfiction, media arts, and works on paper, and were selected from a pool of nearly 400 applicants. The 2009 Pew Fellows are:

• Marc Brodzik media arts
• Anthony Campuzano works on paper
• Sarah Gamble works on paper
• Daniel Heyman works on paper
• Ken Kalfus fiction and creative nonfiction
• Jennifer Levonian media arts
• Robert Matthews works on paper
• Frances McElroy media arts
• Ben Peterson works on paper
• Marco Roth fiction and creative nonfiction
• Ryan Trecartin media arts
• Nami Yamamoto works on paper

This year’s winners have a breadth of talent and accomplishments. Ken Kalfus is a highly accomplished writer of short story collections and novels including A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, which was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award. Frances McElroy makes elegantly crafted documentaries that delve deeply into personal stories, while Ben Peterson is a visual artist who makes large-scale and highly detailed fantastical architectural landscape drawings. Marco Roth, a young essayist, is also a founding editor of a well-known literary journal. Ryan Trecartin’s video narratives plumb multiple layers of social identity.  This represents just a few of the new Pew Fellows. Biographies of all the artists are attached and visual material is also available at www.pewarts.org.