Philadelphia-area food-service staffers get a showing of their art

Jovana Sarver found several small tree branches, each about a foot long, and she tightly wove thread around the twigs and glued fibers to them.

"I feel like there is something sacred about this and kind of primal," Sarver said of her two-year-old Ritual Objects artwork piece on Sunday. "This doesn't look like something that came from Philadelphia in 2011. I like making stuff like that. It's like an artifact."

Sarver, 25, is a 2011 graduate of Temple University's Tyler School of Art. Like many sculptors, painters, and printmakers in the city, she's a passionate artist who works in the food-service industry to pay her bills.

"I never thought working at Alla Spina would get me into an art show," said Sarver, one of 10 servers, bartenders, and bussers who will display artwork during a six-week exhibit that opens at 6 p.m. Monday at Metropolitan Gallery 250.

The gallery, at 250 S. 18th St. off Rittenhouse Square in Center City, is the nonprofit art space of the Metropolitan Bakery. "The whole idea around having this space and not taking any commissions is about building a whole community around art," said Wendy Born, co-owner of the bakery.

"The art community in Philadelphia is growing, and it's growing a lot," said exhibit curator Bailey Chick, 25, also a Tyler School graduate.

The gallery exhibit is called "The Sidework Series." It debuts from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday and will have subsequent viewing hours from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays starting this weekend. The exhibit continues through May 26. Anyone interested in a free viewing on other days or times can set up an appointment by contacting Dani Sigel at dani@metropolitanbakery.com.

"A lot of artists work in the food business to fund their art," said Sigel, marketing director of the Metropolitan Bakery. "Food in itself is its own art."