Good Day Uncut: Tyler Arboretum

Oh, it's feeling spooky this morning with the fog. Look at that pine cone mugging for some camera time. Well, we are in an arboretum, and you've got to love all that nature offers. One of the first things I noticed right here, let me show you this. I'm going to show you this. This is so cool. Look at the different pine cones, and look at the texture. So I've got pine cones in my yard, but I don't have these little spiky ones, so I better not get my eyes there. I don't need to poke my eye out. Well, we are live in Delaware County. This is Tyler Arboretum. So many different walking paths and so many places to learn and such a great resource for the community in our area. But wait, there's more than just trees here. How about some art? I see some artists. I see some folks. And we're just getting started with what you get to see around Tyler. And this is completely fresh. We just pulled off the plastic wrap from right there. That's how fresh it is. It just came over and in. No, no, no. Wait till you hear how we put all of this together. We got a couple people in the house. We got Chris. We got Steve. Steve put the art together. That's all around Tyler. And we got Chris in the house. All right. And you have a pine needle in your head. Do you like it? You're in it. It's wonderful. You're in it. It's stylish, too. It's great. Here, we'll add a little grass. We still got the green in there. Do it up a little bit. We're just connecting with nature. And to me, that's what this art exhibit's about. and how you guys got connected, too. I'm teeing it up for you guys to take it from there. You first. How did we get connected? Well, yeah, so I was looking for a bakery with my wife, and we were lost in Quakertown. How about this? Yeah, out of the corner of the car window, I see these just incredible twisting sculptures reaching into the air. Let's take a look at that. Here, and I mean this is what I saw This is what I saw. Look at this. And how could you not pull over the car when you see something like this? And so, you know, the rest was history connected with Steve and he was willing to come out and share this amazing work with us and with our community. So I had a similar experience. I was rolling through Bucks County. I was somewhere around Peddler's Village. I'm driving and I start seeing this unique art that has its own style to it. And I'm like, what is this and who is this guy? So I talked to Mike G, who puts this show together and said, oh, we got to go check out this artist. He's like, Drew, I've been there. You know how Mark talks. Drew, we've been there. We know all about Steven. How did you find your style? How did it come together? I think I've always had my style since I was a child, but I found a way to express it productively, maybe not as productively when I was a kid. I grew up in the area, went to Haverford School. Great school. I didn't know a professor there. And then Haverford High School, Gladwin Elementary. So I'm really a local boy. and i show all over the world i've probably um worked in 25 countries and my last show was on broadway voted best public art in new york 2025 yes for a year on 39th and 48th and broadway pieces 30 feet high some of which are here at the arboretum so these are the twisties and the last time i showed these was on sacred ground in hawaii wow um on the the home of the last uh queen of hawaii and um it was the largest show in the history of the state of hawaii and our show is bigger so this is a show the combination of the show on Broadway and Hawaii and these are called the Twisties oh the little twisted show twist you can call them Twisties they're based on Asian calligraphy and they're called Twisties named after Simone Biles when she got the Twisties because they look like beautiful distorted gymnastic moves no i remember that and she took some time off and you know what besides that sort of figure you're talking about and i like that they move i'm looking at the colors i'm looking at the colors here in the arboretum it's fall you're making fall come to life we have leaves falling i just watched one right over there and this just fits to me the theme and the space but that's my takeaway was that your takeaway or is that just what i'm pulling from the art well everybody's going to have their own uh relationship with nature and art oh yeah i don't like to title things too much i want everybody to come up with their own experience but you actually um nailed it is i do a big sunflower garden and then when the yellow is gone i'm disappointed or the dandelions i love the dandelions so i've made my own sunflower garden dandelion that's yellow all year round Good. Keep the yellow around. This is a one-year exhibition. You can come see these in the snow where they're going to cast beautiful twisty shadows in the snow. And you can come twist them in the snow. So the colors will change in relation to the seasons. That's cool. And I'm sure the lighting, too. And I like the water. Here, I'm noticing this. And maybe it's because I'm a weather guy. I'm noticing the way the water droplets are on there. And to me, that adds to what we're seeing. Let me get on the other side of this. You see what I'm saying? Look at that right there. That, to me, is the fun of art, is what you take away. Oh, let me see the twisty action. Wait until you see the actual twist of the twisties. Do all of them, by the way, do that? They all do that. They all do that, he says. The twisties, by the way, they look. But I have a friend who has five of these in Vermont, and she said her grandchildren come out and change the composition every day and twist them around. And I never really thought that you could twist them and change them live so people that have them they're gonna they're gonna teach me uh about my work the last time i showed these was on Hawaii and the hula girls came out and had a formal hula dance here all dressed and had all the music and they danced in the twisties so these pieces have been seen all over the world and you can come see them at Tyler and that to me is really special too. You're bringing that global connection. Or a little hula dance. I don't know how the hula people do it, but I can get a little twisty right there. I'm having trouble showing my hula off. We should have brought a hula hoop. So for you, when it comes to the art and the ideas that come together, does nature inspire you or how do you get these ideas? is i am a little bit like Rain Man i see the world in a different way and uh i'll look at a pine cone and then we were looking at a pine cone at the start of the show it'll turn into a 10,000 pound pine cone and um so i see things and now i'm enabled i have a lot of guys working in a big studio where if i get an idea we can turn it into a 50 foot sculpture so these are just showing the way I see the world, think about that as we look around right here, what you're seeing with the leaves falling and nature here you get to see Tyler Arboretum right in Delco in the media area but you also get to see how someone else looks at the world and I like to get down low, you know we joke around when I do this show, I'll get all the way down to get the angles and show them off but think about if you're a kid or think about, oh my god, something's falling down there, we go here do that one more time, there we go, it's raining, it's raining right there but think about this if you get down, right, you have a much different perspective and an angle. So look at this right here. And then let me come back up to life. And then look how the art changes. This is a totally different picture when you stand up. And I just think about that. Hey, it was just Chubby Checker's birthday. We got a twist. See, you got some fun here this weekend and we can meet the artist coming tomorrow. Isn't that the case? Because you're doing special events for this exhibit but that just opened today. That's right. It's opening weekend this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Steve is going to be here in person on Saturday, so you can come on down and meet him, get him to sign a book, things like that. Have some fun. Do a little twist with him. A little hula? Come on. A little hula. I can't get the hula enough. I've got to zoom out. Maybe we'll go to break or I'll hula around, have you guys hold cam. So we get to meet you, ask some questions too. What else do you have going on? Any food trucks or anything like that? Yeah, so we've got a great selection of really delicious local food, some beverages. We've got some guided tours. So it's going to be a lot of fun. Will the guided tours continue past this weekend's kickoff? Yeah, so pretty much every weekend we're going to have some sort of a guided tour. Some of them are going to be to the sculptures that are a little bit closer in. Some of them are going to get all to the really, really big ones. We've got sunrise tours. We've got sunset tours, golden hours for all the photographers out there. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a true thing. And especially as we look at the colors right here, I'm thinking of the gold, seeing the golds. But that golden hour, by the way, is about an hour before sunset. You have some of the best lighting when the sun's low on the horizon. And I have to say, you know, it could have been my earbud, or maybe it's because we're talking about global connections. I feel like I hear an accent. Is that true? Yes, you do, yeah. I'm from Australia. Get out of here. Yeah, yeah. How'd you get from Australia to right here in Delaware County? Well, by way of California, I was in California for many years. But then I met the love of my life and, yeah, moved out here. So, yeah, I've been here for about six years now. And I love that you guys were looking for a bakery one day, and that connection you guys had, you just wanted something to eat, brought this guy right here. So a love story from Australia to Delaware County. And what do you think? I saw you were holding something right there. Do you want to share that with us? I found a lichen. I love lichens. Um, this is an edible plant that if you boil it, there's protein in it. Uh, it's related to old man's beard and that's a mushroom, correct? I know a lichen is not a mushroom, but old man's beard is something that hangs off trees. I didn't know that. So I'm a naturalist. I just always walk in the woods and find good things and sometimes eat them and, um, build structures. We're going to walk around with kids and make nests out of pine needles and different things and put some of my golden eggs or pine cones or shells in them. And here's one of my golden eggs. We're going to be leaving these, sometimes on golf tees, so you can find them, around the arboretum so kids can come here on a treasure hunt and find some of my exploded clay. You're the golden goose. I guess I am. Well, this is cool. Coming up after the break, we'll see where we can find the golden egg. And are you sure that's edible? We'll find out. Well, I'll tell you what, I got one better. How about we actually find out? We'll see if I'm still alive in two minutes. We'll be right back right here live on Good Day Uncut on Fox. This is art. You'd think that's a tree, but it's art, and it fits the space. We are live right here. You see all the trees at Tyler Arboretum in Delaware County. I survived the commercial break. I'm still living. So I Googled it during the break, can you eat a lichen? If you're not familiar with lichens, it's a mix between a fungus and algae. And Google says, Google AI says, well, yeah, yeah, you can eat it, but you probably don't want it. Let me show you some lichens, and it's something you can find in nature. We were talking about some little hidden treasures that you can have here at Tyler Arboretum. But when you're in nature, don't forget to actually look around and look at all these lichens. They grow in environments where you wouldn't have roots. You can't get down deep into the tree. You'll see them a lot on rocks. When you do see these, by the way, it's very representative of good air quality. They can only grow where the air is good. and let me tell you ah the air is good here at Tyler Arboretum check out look at this it looks like there's ferns up there this tree looks so unique to me I live right down the road I feel like I've never seen a tree like that before and to me that's some of the beauty of coming out to a space like this is we get to experience nature that we see Kristen you know in our backyard but from a different way there's so many different things here to see yeah there is so much we've 650 acres here um we've got miles and miles 17 miles of uh of trails here um to explore we've got collections um world famous collections um programming so much programming we do summer camps school field trips um workshops for kids and adults um workshop sounds cool sounds good for a date night great some great dates some great mother's day and father's day opportunities um coming up on the 22nd we have a wreath making workshop this month yeah on the november of uh november 22nd okay so it's a little early for that, November 22nd we're going to be um reusing some of the the plants that are not quite so welcome on our landscape such as the English ivy which is an invasive plant and some of our trees so we'll be pulling some of that off and um and using that to create Christmas wreaths or giant giant nests is that what you're buying is this a giant nest Well, this piece here is a root that I've been showing. It was last in Hawaii. And for 20 years, I've wanted to put a white picket fence around it, like suburbia. So I've actually titled the fence itself is what completes the sculpture. I've called it domesticated root. And the white offsets it from the organic surroundings, and the fence implies a sort of suburbia or domestication. It does. it's quite literally here let me step on out it's quite literally the white picket fence you hear about that you think of oh my gosh you named the show let me just give you some perspective right here as we look at steve right back there i gotta ask you as a guy from australia what's the scenery like here compared to where you grew up oh it's very different especially this time of year um you know we've got these amazing conifers that are losing their their needles right now they're Is that being a pine tree? Yeah, a lot of larch, actually. Look at these pine cones. I have pine trees in my backyard. I don't have that type of pine tree, and I feel like I usually don't see that around Chester County. And I'm only 15 minutes from my house. It's cool to see what can grow in this area and the different unique things. And, of course, the art that's growing all around Tyler starting this weekend. It's incredible. It's so exciting for us. This is so cool. So, I've got to tell you, I love the vibe of the white picket fence. I see exactly what you're going for right there. How do I get out? It's suburbia. We're going to leave you. You are trapped. Well, Hawaii sounds pretty good to me, so you're figuring out how to get out. So we have over 50 pieces here and six tractor trailers to bring them in, quarter miles of trucks. We had 80-foot cranes. It's impossible to do what we did, but you've got to come see it. And this is all over Tyler. We heard how many, really, miles of this area you can walk and explore and see and take in nature. We're coming up here in the next two weeks of peak fall color. And then I really like how your art organically just kind of matches the landscape. It's not just in your face. You've got to find it. Well, that's exactly the point. Most public sculpture that's large dominates nature. And mine you can see through. So it invites nature into the piece. and they they will become part of nature animals will move into them we have uh we moved a big pine cone once a 10 000 pound pine cone and you were kidding when you said that earlier right and about a thousand um walnuts came out of it when we moved it so that's where the squirrel put them it was low income housing for the squirrels or something but i love watching we have a syntax piece here with 50,000 bronze letters and a bird builds a nest in it every year to usually a robin to hide from the larger hawks. Wow. So look in the pieces and you'll find all kinds of nature moving into the work. And maybe even a golden egg if you look close enough. We'll be right back right here live on Fox 29 and Fox Local Philadelphia. This is Good Day Uncut from Delco. just taking in some of the fall color here at Tyler Arboretum and you know what the nature's taking me in I keep finding nature but that is the point here in Delaware County we were talking about the lichens during the break you said I missed that one liner I could have said check this out I was liking the lichens tell me more about what you have right there Chris yeah so this is another lichen it's growing on a piece of bark right here and yeah as I think you mentioned before you know lichen is a is really a partnership between um fungus and algae so the fungus creates the home and the algae creates the and uses the um gets the energy from the sun through photosynthesis sounds like you got a background in biology right there yeah a little bit yep that's awesome how did you get connected with tyler by the way your love of nature or was it your background in sciences it was a little bit of both honestly um you know what what i was really attracted to about tyler is their emphasis on nature connection you know really connecting people um and helping people forge their own relationship with nature which so many of us are disconnected from these days so right and you know i mean honestly that was the thing that attracted to me about this art is um you know this art really is a window um for people to see nature in a new way to see tyler in a new way um and to see themselves in nature in a new way i can see you in this too it looks good on you by the way thank you i think the composition was inspired by my hand digging the earth that's where these legs came yes yes yes i see it i see it and this piece was last on broadway 39th and broadway uh 15 million people saw it there we're hoping to surpass that here let's do it um we might have to get all of pennsylvania to see hey we got delaware new jersey washington too and we're worldwide because we're on fox local but the pieces look completely different here this looks like it should always be here and has always been here uh these are based in asian calligraphy so uh if you read or speak japanese or chinese this is uh ren uh which means mankind in chinese or nin uh uh in japanese so in other words the arm cutting across means great like the character calligraphic character and the shadows will also project uh calligraphic elements so two thoughts here i'm looking at a bit of the fog in the distance is that i come out and we kind of see some of those characters we were talking about this just blends into the landscape because of the weather today you mentioned because of shadows you've designed it so the shadows can project some of what you could see written on the ground from this in the winter you will not see this piece when there's snow on the ground you will see the shadows that's cool so these transform morning to night even in the the moonlight they're amazing just a delicate amount of light will cast a moon shadow moonlight shadow so now i understand why you're doing sunrise and sunset tours that's exactly right yeah i mean there is really every time you come out here um you know these sculptures have only been here for for a week now um but every time i see them i see something different i mean if you look at the the drops right now i don't know if you can yeah oh i'm all in so so if you look at these drops hanging off here you can actually see like a prism effect you can actually see the entire forest behind you um and so you know that's that's what we're about here we're we're about um you know creating situations where visitors can come in and and see something that only they get to see on that day from that perspective in that moment exactly but guys to me that's what nature's about nature always gives you something special it's your connection but you can see something like a fox crossing that other people won't so what's about i'm actually a philadelphia based artist and i've signed this piece in the same way that alexander calder who is philadelphia based st07 down there and that's the same way that calder would sign ca07 but it was 1907 steve tobin 2007 yes this is me but this the way i signed it was homage to my favorite artist who's a philadelphia artist alexander calder and here's what i gotta tell you here stuff like that that's the best part of having the artist here. We get to come down and meet you at Tyler Arboretum tomorrow and I hear get his book. Picture book? What is your book, by the way? Or just written words? It's a book. I have a couple books. One's Steve Tobin's Natural History and the most recent one is, what's it called? Well, I'll tell you what. Hold that thought and we'll find out right after this. Live on Fox 29 and Fox Local Philadelphia. We're in Delco at Tyler Arboretum checking out the brand new exhibit that just kicks off this weekend. I hopped on my Uber, and I just want to show you, as we experience Tyler Arboretum, how Steve's pieces just pop up. They're not right on the path. You've got to go find them in nature. They're off the beaten path, and that's what life's about, getting off the beaten path. And that's what I love about all this. You've got to go in there and experience this. And look how it blends from the leaves to the extension of nature. The reds just pop right there. I'm telling you, this is the best time of the year to put the art exhibit in, isn't it? Well, I think every season is great. This is a one-year exhibition, so we get to see the works, how they function in different lights. Every season for the next year here at Tyler Arboretum. The blue sky, puffy clouds is a whole different look, and it's news to me. So we're going to document the pieces photographically throughout the season. Guys, I'm a kid in a candy store. I saw this. I don't know why. This just called to me. And I just wanted to take a closer look at this right here. And to me, that's part of the experience of nature. You get to see unique things. Let me see if I can get this to focus right here. You get to see unique things and go, what's that? You can pull out your phone, do a little Google AI and find out in real time if you don't have a guide. But Chris, you got plenty of guides because every day we could get guided tours down here at Tyler for the next year with Steve's exhibit. Yeah, that's right. Yes. We've a lot of guided tours coming up um weekends i'll show the logo yep there we go that's it right there yeah no so come on down we've got um we've got the shorter ones that are going to be great for the families and the kids um yeah you know just a short little hour-long one um but then we've got the longer ones for those folks who are a little bit more adventurous you know i want to get out and see some of these really monumental ones uh and you have so much space here Tyler I want to stress that this goes on and on and on yeah look at look at Steve I can't even see you How's the weather over there? Oh, you want movement? Listen, I'll dance my way on into this. You know, life should be more fun. It's about different angles and extensions. You know, you said the other piece was kind of about your hand coming in. What was the vibe for this piece? This is figures dancing. Like, they're all gothic arches, so it's like a church to nature. And when people come inside, then we're all in the church of nature and art. And if you want to see more of my work, look at my website, stevetobin.com, and you'll see updates on the exhibition and all that. What was the name of your book, by the way? Steve Tobin, Mind Over Matter. Ah, that's what it was as he went to break. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. I didn't mind. This has been fun. You're fun. You guys are fun. This has been great today. Come on down. Meet Steve tomorrow at Tyler Arboretum. You've got the whole year to see his exhibit, if you happen to be busy. experience how nature and the weather changes the vibe and the background too i'll see you tomorrow or no make that monday from burlington county steve's dancing us on out of here bye