This artist wants you to paint for free

By Anh Nguyen for Philadelphianeighborhoods.com 2017

Many street artists dedicated their humble start to Philadelphia, the city of neighborhoods. Josh Foli, a local painter and musician, was no exception, but he also wanted to get people to fall in love with painting.

What started out as a spontaneous art day at Rittenhouse Square Park for Foli has transformed into a recurrent painting pop-up and the park’s next top family destination.

“I came to Rittenhouse after trying a couple of parks out,” said Foli. “It has a collective mix of people and I want to invite them to come and paint with me for free.”

Foli tried to set up his pop-up once a week, which started at the beginning of the summer. In creating the pop-up, Foli aimed to provide the best possible experience for his guests.

“I have what we lovingly called ‘granny cart,' load that up with my paints, around 20 blank canvases and some of my originals on top, along with a boombox to get a little music going,” said Foli. “I also bring blankets, brushes and mason jars in my backpack.”

The idea of painting in the park was irresistible to many people, especially families with kids. Blake Yuska and her dad, Jonathan Yuska, loved the pop-up and spent an entire hour working on their painting. The four-year-old was so proud of her work she ran around and showed it to everyone.

“It was such a good idea and our family enjoyed every second of it,” said Jonathan Yuska, a local resident.

Beside his job at IKEA during the day, painting gradually became a second occupation for Foli. The Philly native found more of a connection to painting as a form of artistic expression. Despite having no formal training, Foli set off to master the brushes and palettes.

“The bread and butter of how my greatest paintings came to be is I just picked colors I felt like at the moment, used palette knife to blend them and created interesting color relationship and composition,” said Foli.

Foli started out with basic colors and when a figure popped out at him, he outlined it with black and developed it for months.

Tamia Alson-Ward, a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, sat on the grass and painted with her little niece. Alson-Ward said she loved Foli’s arts and wished there were more of these pop-ups in the city.  

“You don’t see these things happen all the time so when it does, I don’t want it to end,” said Alson-Ward.

Foli also took guitars and violins from strangers, placed mosaics and collages on them, and returned them to the owners. Most were still playable after being retouched.

For Foli, the focus of art was not the purpose, but the journey he took to get there. Painting was transformative and now Foli wanted everyone to join him, despite the exorbitant cost.

The economy of this venture was overwhelming. Foli paid for canvases, water colors and whatever it took to produce decent quality paintings. He took the strain to have the opportunity for people to come together and paint. Sometimes, people donated money and expressed their gratitude. Sometimes, they didn’t. But for Foli, it did not matter.

“It’s a beautiful thing I’m trying to do and it seems to be receives in that fashion,” said Foli. “Everyone says they want to see more of these kinds of things in the city.”

Muchammad Abidin from South Philly is an immigrant from Indonesia. His English was limited but it didn’t stop Abidin from biking to Rittenhouse on a Saturday to sit down and paint. Through art, he communicated his appreciation of the landscape and the people.

“I love painting very much,” said Abidin. “I love this situation where I can sit and paint under the trees.”

As Foli’s popularity grew, he had to stop giving out canvases and switch to drawing papers and white boards. It was a difficult decision for Foli because he said he had to cut cost to keep the pop-up going.

“I provide an outlet for everyone, from low income families to suits in Center City who can pay for my paintings,” said Foli.

Foli also used his pop-up to market himself as an artist. Aside from the pop-up, he also organized other events to showcase his artworks, such as Foli and Acid Transistor do Halloween on Oct. 27 to sell his art and invite others to paint with him while listening to electronic bands from Philly.

What did Foli do for fun?

“I play bass in the band Jeffrey and the Tall Trees at Bob and Barbara's,” said Foli. “My first song ‘Ask you to stay’ was just debuted.”<