This year, there were two new stops to make in Mt. Airy on the Philadelphia Open Studios Tour (POST), and they were just steps away from each other on— where else?—Mt. Airy Avenue.

The Mount Airy Contemporary Artists Space (MACAS) at 25 W. Mt Airy Ave. was bustling with activity Sunday evening as POST drew to a close. Artists and aficionados mingled in the small gallery, which featured work by four very different artists under the common theme “Staged,” a reference to the particular (and often deliberate) ways in which we inhabit and utilize space.

Kimberly Witham recontextualized domestic space in her art with the inclusion of a taxidermy deer photographed in unlikely places, such as a living room couch. Tim Portlock digitally reassembled images of homes in West Philly into a large “map,” creating a unique view of the sometimes troubled geographic area.

Along the far wall, a series of video monitors played “Trust Falls” by Alison Kaufman, a series of short films in which she explores the notion of trust through a series of interactions with divorced men who had experienced a breach of trust in their breakups.

Finally, Jennifer Williams artistically commented on the little gallery itself through her depiction of extension cords, an explicit reference to the infrastructure of the space, rendered visible by electrical cords running along the ceiling beams.

Upstairs, owners Andrea and Colin Keefe have two small studio spaces where they produce their own work. MACAS occupies what was likely an old carriage house, circa 1870s, that served a Germantown Avenue hotel.

The Keefes moved to Mt. Airy four years ago, and opened the gallery two years later.

“We’re not really a commercial enterprise,” Colin Keefe said.

MACAS curates three or four shows a year, opening them to the public from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

Becoming a POST venue was a logical next step for the pair, who are committed to helping emerging visual artists find opportunities to show their work.

“We aren’t necessarily as experimental as something like Vox Populi downtown—they really push the envelope, but we have our own aesthetic,” said Keefe. “We’re just doing things that we like.”

A few doors down, the even newer Mt. Airy Art Garage (MAAG) threw open its doors to host a wide range of POST artists. Spectators were greeted at the door by a large tiger made entirely of reclaimed materials by sculptor Eric Schultz. His eye-catching and endearing figures were a favorite of many visitors, who stopped to admire his life-size standing and sitting figures as well as the many miniatures he makes out of just about anything.

“I started doing this when I was 12 or 13, and kind of hoarded stuff,” Schultz said. “Finally my mom was like, ‘Get this out of here—you gotta do something with it.’”

Schultz said he enjoys “taking something that is really cold” and transforming it into a completely different creature. Most do not move, but some are animatronic, involving small motors or motion sensors. His robot-like figure had ironing board parts for legs, and he added a washing machine pump for a heart and a faucet handle for a “relief valve” to make him sort of anatomically correct.

Most of the items, though technically junk, are parts people recognize and associate with domestic space.

“I like to use things that feel like people used them,” he explained. “There is some residual energy there.”

For many of the artists showing work at MAAG this weekend, the event was an opportunity to participate in POST that they wouldn’t have otherwise had. “I’ve never done it before, said Laurel Schwass-Drew, a textile artist who screens original T-shirt designs. “My studio is too small.”

Although most of the work was strictly visual art, strains of music could be heard from the far corner of the garage, where poet Susan Windle was playing a recording of spoken and sung word made in collaboration with Annie Geheb and Ellen Ford Mason. 

“I like to collaborate,” Windle said. She also works with visual artist Sarah Steele to create prints featuring Steele’s images and Windle’s words, another way she has found to bring poetry to more people.

“Poetry is something that people really need even if they don’t know that they need it,” she said.

Siang Siang Kwa, known to her friends as Jeanny, finds solace from homesickness in the pencil drawings of Indonesian subjects. “I’ve been here for ten years,” she said, explaining that her art focuses on “everything about Indonesia.”

Kwa has been drawing since she was six years old, a skill which she developed further in pursuit of a fashion design degree in Australia. “I did a lot of figure drawing,” she said, “and now I’m always trying to get the fabric and the figure together.”

Amir Mark Lyles also started drawing as a child. “I learned from my brothers,” he said, who were doing painting, drawing, and illustration, “but at the time even though I went to an arts high school, I wasn’t really considering being an artist at all.”

Lyles got back into art when he needed a wedding present for a relative. “I’d like to paint a picture,” he remembered thinking, and so he did.

His most arresting work at the POST show were his black and white oil paintings, which he says developed into a series mostly by accident. “I started doing black and whites pretty much because I was out of paint,” he admitted, but found that they conveyed a more intensely emotional message than his color paintings did.

The piece people kept asking him about was a self-portrait; Lyles had found some puzzle pieces on the floor as he was preparing a canvas and spontaneously glued them to it. They make a strong statement in the piece, visible under the image of an intent young man looking out and yet inward at the same time.

"I call it 'Getting Myself Together,'” said Lyles.

Whatever their differences, all the POST artists had one thing in common—passion for their creative work. The two Mt. Airy venues made it possible for that excitement to be shared with all those who came in the door this weekend.