Art School

Just when it seemed that the cliff wall of the fast-rising Convention Center addition would define North Broad Street's new image, along comes the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with a plan for a cozy, yet ambitious, plaza that promises to serve as the escape route from that overbearing government enterprise. Consider the two projects the Beauty and the Beast of North Broad Street. The idea for the plaza, located on Cherry Street, across from the Convention Center's new front door, has been percolating for years.

Another name change is on the way for the Wachovia Center. Next week, the city zoning board will consider a filing to change the signs to Wells Fargo. The building, which opened in 1996 as the CoreStates Center and spent time as First Union, has carried the Wachovia logo since 2003. Wells Fargo subsumed Wachovia more than a year and a half ago. The name change should be in place before the Flyers and Sixers seasons.   From NFL to collage football Steve Sabol was an art student nearly 50 years ago when his father, Ed , bought the film rights to the 1962 NFL championship game for $5,000, So much for art school.

Antiques/Art/Crafts 2010 Benefit Banquet & Silent Auction Honoring the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. Reservations required: 215-557-0455, Ext. 221 Ocean City Restaurant, 234 N. 9th St.; $65-$100. 4/30. 5:30-9 pm. 96th Annual Rittenhouse Square Flower Market for Children's Charities Flowering plants, herbs, custom plantings, food, crafts, entertainment. Rittenhouse Square, 1800 Walnut St.; 215-625-9255. www.rittenhousesquareflowermarket.org . 5/5. Chester County Craft Guild's Annual Show Potters, jewelers, fiber artisans, woodworkers, metal workers, soap makers, glass artists & calligraphers.

Lora McKenna needs bodies. She needs big bodies and little bodies and old bodies and Asian and African American bodies.?And the University of the Arts model coordinator is fairly shameless about approaching people about their bodies at parties, on the street, and in class. "I met a woman at a party New Year's Eve - she looked like a character from a Tim Burton film," McKenna said. "She was about 50, with hair down to her waist and maybe she was 100 pounds. She was such a character, she'd be great to draw.

Janice Balint wanted to be an artist. Her father wanted her to be a nurse. "She didn't want to become a nurse," said her husband, physician Paul Roediger, "but her father wouldn't let her go to art school. " She became a nurse. For one year. Then, while raising a family in her 30s, she began selling her artwork. She earned her art degree when she was 55, her bachelor's degree at 74. On Jan. 14, Janice Balint Roediger, 76, died of metastatic melanoma at her home in Jenkintown.

ON A CLOUDY Thursday in October, outside the gleaming new building for the Tyler School of Art, students huddled in small groups, smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and leaned casually against well-worn bikes. At the heart of Temple's main campus and just a few blocks from the bustle of Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue, the students seemed a natural part of the collegiate fabric, like the crepe truck down the block and the Tomlinson Theater 150 yards away. Tyler's 1,500 students migrated to 12th and Norris streets just last spring, from the bursting-at-the-seams Elkins Park location that had housed Tyler since its founding in 1935.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts president and CEO Edward T. Lewis will step down at the end of the calendar year, the school and museum announced yesterday. David R. Brigham, 45, will succeed him. Brigham, who started as the academy's museum director when Lewis took over in 2007, has been appointed the new president and CEO, beginning Jan. 1. The change, both said yesterday, was timed so that Brigham could be in office when the academy presents its new strategic plan to the board in March.

Tomy Lipka's got a live one. He's sure of it - so sure, in fact, that he doesn't mind cutting off the gang's thesis-level discussion of his favorite tattoo: Hunter S. Thompson, naked, firing a rifle, on Lipka's left calf. "Modeled my whole life after that naked dude," he says. But this is serious. Stationed at their unofficial headquarters on Rittenhouse Square, the 23-year-old Lipka and his fellow sweat-soaked bike messengers turn toward the sidewalk about 30 yards away and glower, as if peering into a funhouse mirror.

David is a multitalented 15-year-old who describes himself as being "creative" and a "thinker. " Artistically and musically inclined, he enjoys learning all he can about songwriting and playing and writing music. His goal is to be a famous music star. David excels at drawing and also enjoys painting. He is very athletic, playing soccer, baseball and football. He loves animals, especially dogs, cats, ferrets and birds. David is very intelligent and an honor-roll student. He completes all of his assignments on time and is an active participant in classroom discussions.

The assignment was to render on paper a still-life assemblage, but what Alisyn Kuntz had drawn just didn't match what was before her eyes. Especially challenging was the lip of the overturned jar, which was tilted in such a way that the angled light was amplifying the usual distortions of perspective. "This is very humiliating because I thought I knew how to draw before I came here," said Kuntz, 46, a graphic designer and freelance artist from Plymouth Meeting. Instructor Kerry Dunn, a lanky lad with a diplomatic manner, complimented her progress, then offered a suggestion.