Philadelphia artist Isaiah Zagar brings outsider art to the masses.

By Tracy Walsh • Photography by Shane Luitjens

IN ITS pleasantest neighborhoods, Philadelphia is a city of stately Georgian brownstones, Federalist town-houses, Greek revival mansions and Beaux Arts promenades.

But that staid cityscape doesn’t prepare visitors for the massive castle rising on downtown’s South Street.

Look closely at this three-story, open-air wedding cake of a building, made with chain-link fences and painted cement, and you’ll find dishes painted like Buddhist mandalas, hand-crafted religious art, bottles shining green and gold in the sunlight, bicycle wheels, vintage dolls and toys, an Indonesian wedding pavilion and thousands upon thousands of sparkling tesserae. Glittering mosaics cover the adjoining walls. One reads, “Philadelphia is the center of the art world.” And another says simply: “I made it out of trash.”

THIS CASTLE is one of the top attractions on shop-packed South Street; it draws oohing street punks and aahing families, as well as tourists from all over the country. But this astonishing achievement in outsider art only narrowly missed the wrecking ball. When an absentee landlord threatened to bulldoze the property, the community rallied behind an eccentric architect— and, against all odds, they succeeded.

Isaiah Zagar—artist, activist, Philadelphia fixture—is the man behind this work, known locally as the “Magic Garden.” The 68-year-old has a wild Santa Claus beard, piercing blue eyes and a propensity for designing his own clothes; Zagar looks every bit the visionary artist.

He also decorated the adjoining building, where the inquisitive visitor will find 10-foot-tall carved wooden deities bearing yarn-tasseled sombreros, a functioning bathroom crowded with dioramas and a basement filled with neocubist works.

“After years and years of work, I wound up with something large and intricate—something felt rather than planned,” Zagar says.

Born in Philadelphia, Zagar studied art at the Pratt Institute in New York, then spent several years as a Peace Corps volunteer in South America, where he collected Peruvian and Bolivian folk art. He returned to the U.S. and tried to make his name in the New York art world. But his unconventional work didn’t receive much attention at a time when the abstract expressionists were in ascendance. Zagar experienced, in his words, a “nervous breakdown.”

He recalls that time as a turning point: “I didn’t feel like I was on the fast-track as an artist,” he says, “and that made me rethink my whole life. I wanted to be a man who lived as an artist rather than a man who tried to pursue a career as an artist. Instead of making art objects for sale, I wanted everything to become art.”

Fleeing New York, he moved to Philadelphia in 1967 with his wife, Julia. They set up shop in “a derelict building on a derelict street,” during a time in Philadelphia’s history when crime was high and property values low. They opened Eye’s Gallery, a South Street fixture, selling folk art from Julia’s travels around the world, and Isaiah started to embellish the building with bits of broken glass he found in abandoned factories. Slowly, using the detritus from Philadelphia’s stagnant industrial economy, he made something beautiful.

As Isaiah developed his mosaic techniques, he decided to reach out to the community. “I started making compositions on walls that were vandalized. I wanted to make things better,” he says.

Before long, his mosaics were a visual shorthand for downtown Philadelphia. He didn’t charge businesses for his embellishments, although he once accepted a lifetime supply of hats.

“I think of the city as a labyrinthine museum,” Isaiah says, and indeed, sometimes downtown Philadelphia feels like a Zagar gallery.

IN 1994, with his distinctive murals firmly in place as part of Philadelphia’s visual culture, Isaiah started transforming a vacant lot next to his property. He laid the ground for the Magic Garden—a multilevel labyrinth of art, made with everything from commissioned Oaxacan wood carvings to locally made toys. Before long, he had created a towering, bizarre structure—a monument to free-spiritedness unlike anything else in the city.

But Isaiah didn’t own the land under his creation. As time passed—and perhaps partly due to his artistic presence—the neighborhood gentrified. Property values rose, and new businesses moved into the district. The Bostonian who owned the empty lot on which the Magic Garden was built flew in to check on the property.

“He thought that they could do something more lucrative with the space,” Isaiah says. “The guy visited, and he saw the Whole Foods, he saw the Starbucks, and he saw an opportunity.” After spending 10 years constructing his Magic Garden, the landlord gave him two weeks to vacate.

THE COMMUNITY STEPPED INTO ACTION.

Thousands of Philadelphians signed a "Save the Gardens petition, and City Council issued Zagar an official letter of commendation. One of Philadelphia¹s most prestigious law firms"offered pro bono work. The Zagars mortgaged their home and donors from across the Philadelphia region sent in donations<nearly $200,000 in total. The Zagars took out a home equity loan, and, after several weeks, were finally able to purchase the property. Spared from the bulldozer, Philadelphia¹s Magic Gardens became a nonprofit organization. Today, it¹s open to the public six days a week.

Perhaps surprisingly for a squatter-artist, Isaiah disavows any radical leanings. “I consider myself part of the generation of artists who went to school, who were trained in academies,” he says. He views his “vernacular architecture” as a link in a long European tradition.

Indeed, the Magic Garden resembles Antonio Gaudí’s elaborated cathedrals or Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau. Isaiah expresses admiration for the murals of the Byzantine world, “where men put one tile after another for 20 years until they created a masterpiece.”

Like his Byzantine forebears, Isaiah wants to inspire spiritual contemplation. The words “religious reflection” shine from a mirrored mosaic. But he maintains a sense of humor about how visitors interact with his work.

“I catch a lot of people checking their hair or their lipstick in the mirrors,” he says. “Little kids love it. They’re art students not thinking about the content, but they love the mirrors, the tiles, the tactility of the structure. It’s like a playhouse for them.”

NOW THAT Isaiah’s garden is safe from the wrecking ball, the artist wants to make more improvements. His dream project is to install a skywalk so visitors can explore the decorated roof. He also travels the globe looking for new materials, most recently picking up Moroccan tile in North Africa.

And after making his mark on Philly’s art scene and triumphing over an out-of-town developer, he isn’t about to rest on his laurels. “I’m 68 years old,” he says. “The Magic Gardens are a work in progress, but so am I. We’re not finished yet.”

The Artist at Work

ISAIAH ZAGAR’s image is something of a mascot for the Magic Garden: His fuzzy white face appears on the entryway doormat; a diorama titled “El Baño del Pintor” (The Bath of the Painter) depicts a four-armed Isaiah dousing himself with paint as mermaids and cherubs look on while a four-foot tall statue of a very pink, very naked Isaiah (sporting a jaunty hat) hides, troll-like, in a corner of the labyrinth.

Zagar definitely doesn’t shy away from the public eye. “The artist is an intrinsic part of the art,” he says, “and so I’m there.”

As a result, visitors are welcome to visit Zagar’s studio most weekends, where the artist is hard at work pouring cement, laying tile and painting glass. Even while working on his “obsession,”

Zagar takes the time to demonstrate his techniques for the art-lovers who crowd, 10 at a time, into his workshop.

“There’s a lot you can show in a studio that you can’t show in a gallery,” says Zagar, who considers the process as important as the finished product. “I try to take the interior life of the artist and put it out into the street.”

www.philadelphiasmagicgardens.org