CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

Nana's Wicker Back

Nancy-Ellen sculpted characters from her book “Nana’s Wicker Back.” The title references the scarring pattern on her own grandmother’s back from whippings as a slave. “These women are bought and sold [many were bore] into slavery who were regarded as mules or just property. Yet I wanted to depict that they had spirits, they had souls, they fell in love, they cried and some were very overt in personality some were very quiet and timid. And I never know what I’m going to make. As I start pushing clay, they start telling me who they are.” Nancy-Ellen. Watch video interview here

Women enter forensic science

Women are entering the forensic science field and now have their own association which had a booth at the Philadelphia Science Festival carnival. Watch video interview here.

Argentine bases Philly visit from Chamonix Mansion

Alejandro Martinez, an Argentine who works in the agricultural field, was staying in the American Youth Hostel Chamonix Mansion in Fairmount Park while taking in the historical sites of Philadelphia. Watch video interview here.

Gypsy jazz writer skirmishes

Sherry Canary, of the musical group “Hot Club Canaries” takes DJango Reinhardt songs and puts lyrics to them. And she writes her own songs in the gypsy jazz idiom. She does a lot of collaborating as a member of an Internet group FAWM February Album Writing month., http://fawm.org Members compose 14 songs in 28 days and listen and comment on each other’s work. Participants include all kinds of composers from housewives to professionals. Canary also participates in “skirmishes” - writers have only one hour to write the music, the lyrics, produce it and get it online. Watch video interview and singing here. In another video, Canary sings her composition satirizing the world's dictators, "Coffee with Gadaffi." The Hot Club Canaries perform at the Mermaid Inn on Thursday May 10, 2012

Irish fiddles, Casino giveaways and wooden bats at Garden Fest, Chestnut Hill

At the spring Chestnut Hill Home and Garden Festival, Irish fiddlers and guitarists played along the sidewalk. Watch video here.

Radio B101, "the Bee," was giving away garden tools, playing cards and T-shirts from Parx casino if and even if you didn't spell out "1-0-1" with the disc game. Watch video here

David Chandler custom makes wooden bats for major league baseball players like Phillies Shane Victorino from his shop in Norristown. A furniture maker, Chandler started RX Sport when he realized that he had the skill to make quality maple wood bats that wouldn't shatter and injure players and fans as some soft or silver maple bats had been doing. Watch video here.

Transcript of interview follows