Created by the feisty mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar, 67, the sculptured walls and installations that he dubbed the Magic Garden were viewed by the actual owner of the lot, a Boston-based limited partnership, as a "visual obstruction." The work had to go, to prepare the land for sale. But Zagar, who cleared the area at 1024-26 South St. a decade ago, scattered the rats, bagged the trash, shooed away the rowdy urinators, and began to build an imaginative universe on real estate he did not own, dug in his heels. He launched a campaign to raise the $300,000 asking price. And he plotted out his garden. Now the fund-raising is only about $30,000 from achieving its goal. And the Magic Garden has grown into an elaborate, labyrinthine cosmos, a transfigured environment unlike any formerly vacant lot in the city. Artist Isaiah Zagar served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru in the 1960's.
Isaiah Zagar's mosaics have turned a South Street lot into a glittering, multilevel labyrinth. And the artist has turned the corner on fund-raising to preserve it.
A Magic Garden digs in
Isaiah Zagar's mosaics have turned a South Street lot into a glittering, multilevel labyrinth. And the artist has turned the corner on fund-raising to preserve it.
By Stephan Salisbury
Inquirer Culture Writer
Caption: The walls of Isaiah Zagar's "Magic Garden" start below street level and rise above him. Photo: Michael Bryant/Inquirer
A little more than two years ago, the fantastical constructions on an old South Street double lot teetered on the edge of obliteration.
Created by the feisty mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar, 67, the sculptured walls and installations that he dubbed the Magic Garden were viewed by the actual owner of the lot, a Boston-based limited partnership, as a "visual obstruction."
The work had to go, to prepare the land for sale.
But Zagar, who cleared the area at 1024-26 South St. a decade ago, scattered the rats, bagged the trash, shooed away the rowdy urinators, and began to build an imaginative universe on real estate he did not own, dug in his heels.
He launched a campaign to raise the $300,000 asking price. And he plotted out his garden.
Now the fund-raising is only about $30,000 from achieving its goal. And the Magic Garden has grown into an elaborate, labyrinthine cosmos, a transfigured environment unlike any formerly vacant lot in the city.
"I wanted to prove that this was something permanent, something important for Philadelphia, and that it should stay," a bearded and sandaled Zagar said last week while sitting on a bench in his glass-and-tile heartland.
"I was willing to risk everything to get this finished. The money was never key for me. I used the money as a prodder, an impetus to finish the garden. And I think I'm close."
The last two years certainly involved heavy work.
On the financial side, Zagar used everything to raise dollars - from gallery sales, home-equity loans, and mosaic workshops to site tours and fund-raisers. (He charged guests to his marriage re-affirmation ceremony $50 a head, raising $10,000.)
But the financial key turned out to be an anonymous benefactor. His backing allowed Zagar's nonprofit organization to acquire the lot with one hitch: The artist, whose work can be found throughout the city and is known across the country, had to raise $200,000 in order to receive the anonymous donor's $100,000.
Now Magic Garden Inc. is just a few thousand dollars shy of its goal.
The artistic work has been an effort of a different order.
Two years ago, the lot consisted of Zagar's trademark mirror-and-ceramic mosaics covering two side walls and a wall of his Kater Street studio, which backs onto the South Street lot. A chain-link fence festooned with bottles, bicycle wheels and ceramics stretched along South Street.
All of those remain. But the interior of the lot has been transfigured, largely by Zagar's decision to create multiple levels. He began to dig down through decades of crumbled brick and old fill, and when he reached about eight feet below street level, he began to build up. Now the garden consists of passages twisting into side rooms, stairways leading Escher-like into below-ground cul-de-sacs, and walls of reflective and decorated surfaces looming over all.
At the rear of the garden is an enormous Balinese wedding pavilion, hand-carved with Zagar designs.
One afternoon last week, three workers were laying concrete around the pavilion. Toward the front, an underground space awaited final excavation; another lower-level room was freshly slathered with concrete - "the perfect binder," Zagar called it - and waiting for whatever the artist might have in store.
"This is my canvas," he said. "What I'm doing is creating a labyrinth in a small space. I want you to feel, I want myself to feel, that by entering this, you're entering another world. I felt I couldn't go up, but I could go down. I was telling people I was going to China."
Below street level, the city dissolves and all that remains is sky and Zagar.
"When you get down here, there's no world out there," he said. "This is the world. What city is out there? No city."
The walls that snake through the lot are sculptural concretions built from thousands of glass bottles, bicycle wheels, ceramic and wooden figures, fan blades, sticks, toilet bowls, vases, crockery, tiles, metal cutouts.
The objects, for the most part, are castoffs, but are not "found" in the traditional art sense of the term. Zagar has sought them out. The ceramic figures are largely castoffs from Eyes Gallery, the South Street fixture where he and his wife, Julia, sell folk art from around the world. The bicycle wheels come from a local repair shop.
Zagar loves wheels.
"The wheel lets light through and it has amazing structural strength," he said.
The owner of the bike shop has been known to toss wheels into the lot late at night, and Zagar collects them and employs them relentlessly.
Sometimes, he said, people want to give him things to use.
"Those are grandma's plates," he said, pointing to a wall of dishes and bottles and figures.
"This woman came in and said, 'I can't throw away grandma's crockery,' " Zagar recalled. " 'She died. You use it here.' "
Another time last summer, he said, three women came through the garden and were so taken by it that they emptied out their purses onto the ground, looking for something that could be slapped into a wall.
"They said, 'Is there anything you can use here?' " Zagar said. "There wasn't... . I said, 'Why don't you come to a workshop and learn how to do this yourselves?' "
They did.
Surrounded by his glittering conglomerations, Zagar looks at the workers still spreading concrete and the new, untouched surface of one grotto.
"What is my canvas here?" he wondered. "The floor. The walls. Everything. I'm waiting impatiently."
Contact culture writer Stephan Salisbury at 215-854-5594 or ssalisbury@phillynews.com.
Zagar opens the studio and Magic Garden at 1024-26 South St. to visitors on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. For more information, go to www.philadelphiasmagicgardens.org.
