Work With Me @ Future Tenant

Thad Kellstadt + Ben Kinsley + Jeremy Boyle



Morgan Cahn + David Pohl


Here are some shots from the "Work With Me" show @ Future Tenant. The concept of the show is a round robin of collaborations best explained by the gallery card.

1 Jeremy boyle + Marlene Boyle
2 Marlene Boyle + Morgan Cahn
3 Morgan Cahn + David Pohl
4 David Pohl + Thad Kellstadt
5 Thad Kellstadt + Ben Kinsley
6 Ben Kinsley + Jeremy Boyle

Each artist also put in a solo work. For me, the quirky, hand made, film/ puppet performance collaboration stole the show.

Cataclysmic

Cataclysmic in Lawrenceville took place last weekend. It was held at the Stephen Foster Community Center, a beautiful old building that is behind the Lawrenceville branch of the Carnegie Library. The organizers threw open the entire building for the event. There were videos in one room, and on a small monitor. There were three rooms devoted to visual arts. There was a hands-on workspace for creating your own art. And live music. Tons of people came out for this event and it wasn't just the usual suspects, either. If the organizers do this again, make a point of coming. You won't be disappointed.
Margaret Mary Meinzer had this entire corner on the second floor.
Live Music!
These were very beautiful pieces. The artist was S. Armbruster
These paintings were done by some guy named Mike. Really. I asked for his name and that was all he would tell me.

Gestures @ The Mattress Factory : images 3

Thad Kellstadt
Thad Kellstadt
Jen Lucchino & Fred Croce
Jen Lucchino & Fred Croce
Kate Temple

Here's another batch of shot's from the last Gestures show at the Mattress Factory.

Models models everywhere!

on January 21 at --

The Brew House
2100 Mary Street
Barely Brunch
Two models, $15
1-4PM, doors open at 12:30PM
contact: barelybruch@yahoo.com or 412-969-7689
All mediums, except photography! We have tables and chairs but very few easals. Brunch and coffee supplied.

on January 22 at --

space
Hey all! - the first official Open Model Session is about to take place at 4823 Penn Ave. Bring $10 and any media - model, music, beverages, a couple of easels, tables, chairs, perfect lighting and an air of creativity - The session is from 7-9 on Monday Jan. 22..... a classic session......i.e. "in the buff" - please spread the word! Hope to see you on the 22nd!
contact: Carolyn at carolynwenning@mac.com

on January 23 at --
briilobox dirnk & draw
4104 penn ave
412.621.4900
6-9pm
$10
drinkies!
door prizes!
and Lucky LeRoy!
This is a costumed model session. Lucky LeRoy will be wearing a lovely peacock dress...All mediums welcome except oils and photography. Tables, chairs and a very relaxed atmosphere. contact brilloboxdrinkanddraw@yahoo.com or check out our MySpace

Work with me

This promises to be a good exhibit.

Gestures @ The Mattress Factory : images 2

Jeff Schwarz
Jeff Schwarz
Shawn Watrous
Shawn Watrous
Alexandra Johnson Watrous
Alexandra Johnson Watrous
Alexandra Johnson Watrous

Here's my next batch of images from the last Gestures show. Try to remember that these were instalations and trying to capture anything about them with a few still images doesn't work. For the record, the photo above the fireplace in Alex Watrous's shot is a separate work by Anne Angyal. Also, the Jeff Schwarz work is a video projection with sound. The Mattress factory often posts an image archive of their shows, so stay tuned.

Why Does The Warhol Hate Pittsburgh?

Just when I thought that Pittsburgh couldn't hit new lows in self loathing, they manage to do it. According to the Mid Atalantic Gallery Guide ( which covers Philly, Baltimore, D.C. , Pittsburgh and the region. ) the Andy Warhol Museum does not exist!!.

I believe that these are paid listings and cost around $1,500 a year and perhaps, the Mid Atlantic one doesn't get the play of the NY or L.A. -- but seriously folks, this thing is of some value. As, if to rub salt in the wound, they even published a nice map of Pittsburgh to show everyone there is nothing here. Of course there are no downtown "cultural trust" spaces on there and of course the Regina Miller gallery of CMU is not listed or Future Tennant or The Glass Center or the Society For Contemporary Craft or The August Wilson Center. According to the guide, only three exhibition spaces exist here. The Carnegie Museum, The Mattress Factory and Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery in Shadyside. Somehow, the Frick is on the map but not listed in the guide while The Carnegie is listed but not on the map. It seems pretty likely that some screw ups happened. The previous guides I saw used to have about 5 or 6 listings.

Here are a few of the institutions that listed in the guide.

The Freedman Gallery/ Albright College in Reading, PA The Reading Public Museum The James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA The Allentown Art Museum The Banana Factory in Bethlehem, PA The Payne Gallery in Bethlehem, PA Lehigh University Art Galleries in Bethlehem, PA The Wenger Gallery in Lancaster, PA The Susan H. Arnold Gallery/ Lebanon Valley College Mahady Gallery/ Marywood Gallery - Marywood University, in Scranton, PA The Trout Gallery / Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA The State museum of Pensylvania in Harrisburg, PA The Gallery at Penn College in Williamsport, PA Samek Art Gallery/ Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA The Abington Art Center in Jenkintown, PA The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA The Philip & Muriel Berman Museum of Art / Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA Palmer Museum of Art/ Penn State in State College, PA The Juniata College Art Museum in Huntingdon, PA New Arts Program, Inc. in Kutztown, PA Esther M. Klein Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Cerulian Arts, Philadelphia, PA Dolan/ Maxwell, Philadelphia, PA Gallery 339, Philadelphia, PA Center For Emerging Visual Artists, Philadelphia, PA Artesano Gallery, Philadelphia, PA The Fabric Workshop Museum, Philadelphia, PA Fleisher/ Olman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Institute of Contemporary Art/ University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA Esther M. Klein Gallery, Philadelphia, PA LaSalle University Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA The Galleries at Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, PA Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia Art Alliance Rosenwald Wolf Gallery/ University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia Museum of Art The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA Arthur Ross Gallery/University of PA, Philadelphia, PA Schmidt/Dean Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Artist's House, Philadelphia, PA ArtJaz Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia, PA The Clay Studio, Philadelphia PA Gallery Joe, Philadelphia PA The F.U.E. L. Collection, Philadelphia, PA The Knapp Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Larry Becker, Philadelphia, PA Muse Gallery & Foundation for The Arts, Philadelphia, PA 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia PA Wood Turning Center, Philadelphia, PA Jeffrey Fuller Fine Art Ltd, Philadelphia, PA The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagarstown, MD The Station Gallery in Greenville, DE The Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts in Wilmington, DE Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE Gallery 10, In D.C. Let's get it over with and turn out the lights right now. Degrading Map Here

Gestures @ The Mattress Factory : images 1

Shawn Quinlan
Shawn Quinlan
Shawn Quinlan
Adam Grossi
Adam Grossi
Adam Grossi
Laura Jean McLaughlin
Laura Jean McLaughlin

Here are one of several posts with images of the Gestures show that just closed. The show was stronger than even I had suspected in terms of the work, but it did unfortunately confirm the fears that I wrote about in a previous post. Several of the pieces suffered from conflicting placement, the most glaring being Kate Temple's meditative instalation being put in the room next to Thad Kellstadt's media pop work.

All will be forgiven-- If this does not end up as these artist's sole apearance at The Mattress Factory.

Rise Nagin @ Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery : images

Here are some shots from the Rise Nagin show at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery, downtown. The show was a pure gift to anyone lucky enough to see it.

Wanta know what's going on where?

Here's a handy map for your travels through Lawrenceville and along the Penn Avenue corridor in Pittsburgh. Kind of do-it-yourself tour of some of our really cool little spaces. Watch this space for additional maps as we either find or make them.
Love
DPG

ODE TO THE 53F

One of the Many Bus Routes in Pittsburgh Whose Service May Be Cut

One Saturday in early December I headed to a Christmas party in West Mifflin, from Squirrel Hill by way of Munhall. I knew I’d never been to West Mifflin, but I thought I’d been to Munhall before, and technically I had. My favorite donut shop is on 8th Avenue in Munhall; if you follow 8th Avenue from Homestead, the road makes a curve and somewhere after the curve you look up at the street signs and they say Borough of Munhall. The donut shop is pristine and many decades old, with display cases of glass and wood, a tiled floor, and a formica counter. It’s not big enough to have a U-shaped penisular counter like the donut shop on 8th Avenue and 23rd Street (Manhattan, not Homestead) or the one on Manhattan Avenue (Brooklyn, not Manhattan), although they’ll serve you coffee or Lipton tea in the same type of coffee cup, the two-piece kind with one paper cup inside a plastic holder complete with handle. No, Munhall has only two slabs of counter, at a right angle to each other. They have three kinds of cinnamon rolls, chocolate or coconut or blueberry cake or jelly-filled or any number of other kinds of donuts, nutrolls for which they are known, and pies for only $4.69 though at the holidays please order early. Day old goods are half price.

But I’d never been to the Munhall around the corner. At McClure Street, before you reach the bakery, the 53F turns up the hill and then turns parallel to 8th Avenue but turns up again at West Street and just keeps going up and up. Is it a small mountain or a big hill? I wouldn’t have predicted such a height from what I could see from the flats of 8th Avenue. The bus went up West Street and then turned onto Main, up past the gas station, up past the huge cemetery I didn’t know was there, up past Fran’s School of Dance, up past the Munhall Boro Fire Department, up past the Hair Cottage and Carmine’s Barber Shop, up past the pharmacy, up past the funeral home, up past the corner bars, up past lawns decorated with signs for Steelers Country or vinyl Santas or lights in the shape of Reindeer, up and up into the Western Pennsylvania sky which was cold and clear and blue.

I got off at the corner of C___ and M________ Avenues, now in West Mifflin and firmly inside a residential neighborhood of compact brick and cinder-block post-war homes. They were not at all identical, but the further I walked up the hill (for the end of the bus line was still a good ten minute walk from my destination), the more identical they felt. They had varying details, mostly in terms of the front porches--a porch or no porch, a porch that covered the whole width of the facade or half, if half which direction did it extend from the front door, right or left, was the porch glassed in or open.

There were no sidewalks here but there was no traffic, either. For a moment I noticed the emptiness of people and the complete silence. Then behind the silence I heard the noisy chatter of the birds, gathered in a laughing party in a tree in some backyard. I followed the noise, and peeked behind a house to see could I see them, but the birds eluded my view. I became briefly mesmerized trying to decide whether a backyard deer was real or a convincing statue, when a brown-haired lady came out onto her porch and said, “Did you want to cut through?” Her tone sounded kind of stern, but then she seemed really lonely to me. And I thought, if I saw a pedestrian in such a quiet neighborhood, I’d talk to them from my porch, too.

A few more houses up the hill and the vista beyond started to command my attention. I realized that in between the houses I could see to rolling blue mountains stretching out wide when I looked either to the south or north. I felt like I was on the highest peak for miles around. Far below, I could see the hospital complexes of Oakland and U.S. Steel headquarters downtown, but from this height anything manmade looked very small and a little silly.

http://www.portauthority.org/PAAC/Portals/0/ServiceChange.pdf

Kippy @Drink and Draw

Eric won a door prize last night at brillobox'x drink and draw, a lovely little wotercolor box.
Our model, Kippy the '50's house wife. Thank you, Crystala, it was lovely.

We had a wonderful turnout, lots of great drawing. Join us in two weeks --

Tuesday, January 23

6-9pm

$10

drinkies!

door prizes!

and Lucky LeRoy!

Check Drink and Draw's MySite for more information or sign up for updates.

Digging Pitt Flat Files

Digging Pitt has begun a new blog project, Digging Pitt Flat Files. We'll be using this forum to introduce artists included in our extensive flat file archive. The link will always be available in our link roll. Stop by.

Digging Pitt Gallery - Pittsburgh’s Central Art Archive
Paintings . Drawings . Prints . Photography . Collage
Representing over 170 Regional and National Artists

Get this DVD now!

Catune Xprez is a great collection of animations. I've listed my three favorites from the collection, but all of them were good.

SLOW DANCE RECYTTAL
by Peter Burr, Christopher Doulgeris, Cassandra C. Jones
2006


THE LITTLE FOX
by Luke Meeken and Andrew Negrey
2003


THE MONKEY WRITES
by Drew Pavelchak
2004

The DVD is available from their website. You can also pick it up locally at Copacetic Comics. A preview of The Little Fox is available here.