During the first of three open houses in this pilot phase, visitors toured the lab and artists and such got to work. For an event that came together super fast, after we got last-minute permission to use the city dock (see previous post), a whole lotta work got done that afternoon.
It’s always amazing to witness the PPEH Fellows in action: 
Patricia Kim and Brooke Stanley, and Program Assistant, Carolyn Fornoff, conjured siren songs and lured bikers off the straight and narrow Schuylkill Bank path onto WetLand; Shams Haidari, Ayla Fudala,and Kasey Toomey explained the project once they arrived on board (see previous post).
But that was not all, no, that was not all.
On shore, visitors were invited to consider their “Philly Climate Story,” a new art-advocacy project by the brilliant and beautifully bespectacled Joey Hartmann-Dow. (The project is back at open house 2 on 10/25, so you can add your story, or visit the website.)
And, artist collective We the Weeds, Zya Levy and Caitlin Pomerantz, were there to teach about four sister plants, three native and one non-: ambrosia artemisiifolia (AKA Roman wormwood, common ragweed), artmesia vulgaris (AKA Common wormwood, mugwort), artemesia annua (AKA Sweet wormwood, sweet Annie), and artemesia absinthum (AKA Green ginger, wormwood).
Among their various usages–as antihistamines (ragweed!?! are you as surprised as I was?), as dream aid, against malaria–the making of absinthe (with wormwood) is likely the most famous. We did not drink absinthe, but We the Weeds did mix up some tasty refreshments from their very own artemesial bitters. Tasty. Carolyn and I both had two.
PPEHLab at WetLand 