Big Urban Photography Project @ Rust Wire

Hopefully more printed and online projects will develop to fill the emerging gaps in news coverage, and community linkages opening up as traditional newspapers struggle and fold. One new blog with ambitions to connect the Rust Belt is called Rust Wire which seems to be cooking up some kind of online photography project.

"Rustwire is recruiting photographers across the Midwest to take part in a photo project attempting to capture the unique essence of individual Rust Belt cities.

We want shots of Cleveland, when the fog rolls in from the lake and blankets downtown. We want the vacant storefront in the old Polish neighborhood in Buffalo. We want children playing in the streets in St. Louis. We want street construction projects, old warehouses, snowstorms and street festivals.

We need photographers with an interest in urban landscapes and knowledge and love for their cities. Email us at rustbeltnews@gmail.com to participate."

Pittsburgh Art Events: 3/27-28/09.

Years ago, when Pavement was still together playing vital music, frontman Stephen Malkmus used to wear a shirt that said, "Fuck Art. Let's Dance!". While I certainly understand the sentiment (and there are plenty of options to dance now that Spring is upon us), I'd rather not see y'all get zombified by the pollen clouds. Remember that there's nothing better to get you moving later in the night than looking at original art live in person. And there are some opportunities this weekend. Take advantage of them.

Friday

You could go downtown. Really, you could if you were of such a mind. No, it's not a crawl per se, but there are a couple of openings that seem like they might be worth checking out. With Potato/Tomato: The Cover Project, Future Tenant has organized a show around a potentially interesting concept- they've asked artists to riff on other creators' work. Those folks are always so adorably post-modern, and this presentation might just cause me to venture downtown early Friday evening (6-9PM). Or then again, it might not. If you do think you might be interested, check out their page here...

But perhaps you don't want to do too much driving. Maybe the idea of fighting the Friday Rush Hour snarl is too daunting to penetrate the Golden Triangle. If so, then I got sumptin' for ya. Go to the Zombo Gallery. It's your last chance to see Breitkreutz and Copeland in March- two up-and-comers worth keeping an eye on. Did you go to the opening? Was there too much going on that night (at 6-freakin' PM?!)? Don't just do a drive-by this time. Put your poison on hold and have a look at some paintings. There will be lots of time to go out later.


Saturday

This might just be some sort of freakin' typo... but is LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Exotic Cocktails) really hosting their Annual Women's History Month Closing Party at 7-ever lovin'-AM on Saturday morning? That's hardcore. I wonder what kind of strange rituals they will be perpetrating Friday night. Regardless of when it really happens, it's reported that they will be talking about cosmetics. That's even more appropriate at such an ungodly hour.

If you do get drunk that early in the morning, you might as well schlep your wares over to the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts' Simmons Hall for the New Member Screening of the Pittsburgh Society of Artists. Bring three gallery-ready pieces and $35. Meet some ah-tists. Buck the trends.

As far as the night is concerned, I didn't find any gallery openings on Saturday. Of course there's the possibility that some swell space somewhere is having their special people over for drinks and show-and-tell, but I'm not privy to such rarefied society. So I'm considering taking my sass over to Pittsburgh Filmmakers for the Black Maria Film Festival (7:30PM- $7). For years I've made it a habit not to see films in theaters, and I've rarely challenged that resolve. But with this event there should be lots of breaks, which are essential to my viewing pleasure. I don't know what you'll see if you go, but the press release explains:

"Since 1981, the annual Black Maria Film & Video Festival, an international juried competition & award tour, has been fulfilling its mission to advocate, exhibit and reward cutting edge works from independent film and videomakers. The festival is known for its national public exhibition program, which features a variety of bold contemporary works drawn from the annual collection of 50 award winning films & videos."

Then again, maybe your tastes run more toward the lowbrow. In that case, I don't think you can afford to miss Tromatic Movie Night at the Obey House (1337 Steuben St.). That's in Crafton Heights. Where the f'n hell is Crafton Heights? It just might be real cannibals and toxic freaks that you encounter out that way. Sound like an adventure? It's $5, it starts at 6PM, and it features "Magic Hat Beer Specials And Troma Vendor". Alrite then...

for closed #1, 2, 3

The odd synchronicity about this house, that I considered while I was photographing it -- on Law & Order, if the criminal goes to a hotel, he ends up it room 213. Every time.


There is something oddly criminal, or connected to the criminal, about the fallout of the financial misbehaviors of those rotten banks. It makes it easier to look away from the actual loss being suffered by people if one chooses to argue over the semantics of "how this is going to be solved" (or not). That argument becomes a rabbit trail to a garbage dump of language and legality that stops us from paying attention to the length of lines at soup kitchens, the risks of personal losses, the threat to our own financial lives.

There are a few reasons why I ignore the current merry-go-round of finger-pointing and blame. First, I don't think money, or economic systems, or systems of government, answer to the problem of suffering.


Second, the act of blaming is its own curse. The arguments about the past help us ignore the present. Our "news" media and its chronic search for "answers" fuel arguments about "how 'we' could have allowed ________ to violate our ______ " with something about the public trust thrown in. That long argument, the attention paid to a few people being held responsible for a system's failure (a system we all participate in on one level or another) helps us ignore the fact that actual people are losing their homes.

What are we doing to help them?

These photos were shot in Bloomfield, near the Crazy Mocha on Liberty.

Happening in Pittsburgh this weekend

Hello everybody,
Following is a guest post from Serendipity. Enjoy!

Years ago, when Pavement was still together playing vital music, frontman Stephen Malkmus used to wear a shirt that said, "Fuck Art. Let's Dance!". While I certainly understand the sentiment (and there are plenty of options to dance now that Spring is upon us), I'd rather not see y'all get zombified by the pollen clouds. Remember that there's nothing better to get you moving later in the night than looking at original art live in person. And there are some opportunities this weekend. Take advantage of them.

Friday

You could go downtown. Really, you could if you were of such a mind. No, it's not a crawl per se, but there are a couple of openings that seem like they might be worth checking out. With Potato/Tomato: The Cover Project, Future Tenant has organized a show around a potentially interesting concept- they've asked artists to riff on other creators' work. Those folks are always so adorably post-modern, and this presentation might just cause me to venture downtown early Friday evening (6-9PM). Or then again, it might not. If you do think you might be interested, check out their page here...

But perhaps you don't want to do too much driving. Maybe the idea of fighting the Friday Rush Hour snarl is too daunting to penetrate the Golden Triangle. If so, then I got sumptin' for ya. Go to the Zombo Gallery. It's your last chance to see Breitkreutz and Copeland in March- two up-and-comers worth keeping an eye on. Did you go to the opening? Was there too much going on that night (at 6-freakin' PM?!)? Don't just do a drive-by this time. Put your poison on hold and have a look at some paintings. There will be lots of time to go out later.


Saturday

This might just be some sort of freakin' typo... but is LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Exotic Cocktails) really hosting their Annual Women's History Month Closing Party at 7-ever lovin'-AM on Saturday morning? That's hardcore. I wonder what kind of strange rituals they will be perpetrating Friday night. Regardless of when it really happens, it's reported that they will be talking about cosmetics. That's even more appropriate at such an ungodly hour.

If you do get drunk that early in the morning, you might as well schlep your wares over to the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts' Simmons Hall for the New Member Screening of the Pittsburgh Society of Artists. Bring three gallery-ready pieces and $35. Meet some ah-tists. Buck the trends.

As far as the night is concerned, I didn't find any gallery openings on Saturday. Of course there's the possibility that some swell space somewhere is having their special people over for drinks and show-and-tell, but I'm not privy to such rarefied society. So I'm considering taking my sass over to Pittsburgh Filmmakers for the Black Maria Film Festival (7:30PM- $7). For years I've made it a habit not to see films in theaters, and I've rarely challenged that resolve. But with this event there should be lots of breaks, which are essential to my viewing pleasure. I don't know what you'll see if you go, but the press release explains:

"Since 1981, the annual Black Maria Film & Video Festival, an international juried competition & award tour, has been fulfilling its mission to advocate, exhibit and reward cutting edge works from independent film and videomakers. The festival is known for its national public exhibition program, which features a variety of bold contemporary works drawn from the annual collection of 50 award winning films & videos."

Then again, maybe your tastes run more toward the lowbrow. In that case, I don't think you can afford to miss Tromatic Movie Night at the Obey House (1337 Steuben St.). That's in Crafton Heights. Where the f'n hell is Crafton Heights? It just might be real cannibals and toxic freaks that you encounter out that way. Sound like an adventure? It's $5, it starts at 6PM, and it features "Magic Hat Beer Specials And Troma Vendor". Alrite then...

The bearded lady is never behind the curtain ...

As the internet turns the world into short attention span theater I find myself juggling multiple outlets for short attention span creating. I have a livejournal, for the most part blocked off from the rest of the world and connected to nonlocal friends. I've puzzled over the 'artist's blog' and kept one since 2003; now I've rolled it into my own website.

Started playing with Twitter, which is turning out to be a heck of a lot of fun. I'm more of a conceptwitter person than telling the (illusion of) the world where I am all the time. My vox blog, the remnant of an artist blog, has become snippets or clippings of flickr photos, tweets, and links. mySpace? Yeah, its nice to go down to that dive bar once a week for the noise and sleaze, strange bands coming up and humping my leg for attention.

With its recent redesigns, Facebook became a combination of mySpace and Twitter. Much noisier, visually, but, its popularity means i've gotten back in touch with some people who I wanted to reconnect with.

Now, to the point of this post.

I can't stand the people who use social networks to pimp themselves constantly. Every tweet or every FB status post is a link to something they've done, or something they are doing.

Granted I'll post a link to this thing on Facebook. Its about proportion. You gotta give something, not be that hand out there begging for clickthroughs.

When people do this, they are being a non-profit organization that only talks to its members to sqeeze them for more money. This becomes very easy to ignore.

Be a beacon of content.

Don't be a series of promises that the content will somehow be there behind another door that you want me to open. I know you want me to click there. The constant stream of tiny URLs tells me you value the clickthrough more than giving me content - you value what I have to give you (my attention) more than what you have to give me (your content).

Maybe you want the control of making me look at your content on your terms. Not interested.

The internet means tolerating hucksters, viruses, popups. The carnival inside my computer, the cost of a click is only my time. You shout and beckon with empty invitations. The bearded lady is never there.

Don't be surprised if I unfriend you, or stop following.

Right Wing Video Of The Week

This may become a series of at least monthly posts of favorite videos, I find on line that support libery, financial rationality and Constitutional Government.

This particular one is of a Brittish, Conservative MP, delivering a brutal tongue lashing to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. England, might be one of the few major nations in worse financial shape than we are, but most of this could be said about Barak Obama.

Wheeling Tries To Bring Back The Jamboree

On a regular visit a new blog called Rust Wire, I found this story about Wheeling West Virginia's efforts to revive an important part of country music history and give the city a boost by bringing back Jamboree USA.

"For 72 years this Rust Belt city was widely known for something besides the steel and glass that was its economic foundation. It was home to Jamboree USA, the nation’s second-longest-running live country music show, beamed from WWVA’s powerful 50,000-watt AM radio station primarily to the northeastern United States and Canada."

The article has a lot of sad and hopefull thoughts about why Wheeling never fully capitalized on this huge event's potential to become a center for country music. The convention bureau recently bought the theater which housed the event to take a second shot.

"Like virtually every other city that has lost its industry, Wheeling, with a population of 29,000, has experienced many efforts to rejuvenate its downtown. One, in the early 1970s, would have turned much of downtown into a mall, but voters turned it down; another, five years ago, would have turned it into an outlet mall.

So can an old factory city find the key to revitalizing its downtown?

“I think so,” said Luis Rico-Gutierrez, director of the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “But it is more a matter of attitudes than a matter of scales or money. They need to understand that culture is as important as steel was.”"

The original Jamboree was always known as not just a gathering of major stars, like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, but also a launching point for lesser known acts. The promoters hope to get back to those roots. They have a strong, loved brand to start with.

I Am A Right Wing Blogger Now

People who followed this blog for a while would have seen more than a few "political type" posts, most of which had a libertarian spin. Anyway, I didn't feel I should keep on loading up this blog with posts with little relation to Art.

I may be in the future setting up a personal blog as an outlet for these views or even participating in a group blog with like minded folks.

For now, I have been posting a lot on Rust Belt Bloggers.

I will still put many political posts on here, particulary those that relate to free speach and other issues that touch on culture.

Robert Qualters @Borelli Edwards Gallery

Bob Qualter's work has always been a favorite of mine. His solo exhibit at Borelli Edwards is no exception. The work is highly detailed and layered, a real treat for the eye.

The exhibit is well documented on the gallery site. Hopefully, that will entice you to take a trip to the Larryville neighborhood.

Robert Qualters: Autobiographical Mythologies; A Life in Art
March 13-April 25, 2009
3583 Butler Street,
Pittsburgh, PA 15201
412.687.2606 or begalleries@mac.com
Tuesday - Friday 11 - 6 / Saturday 11 - 5

Director: Nick Nolte, Seeking 1500 Extras For Film In Pittsburgh

Actor/director, Nolte will be filming, Warrior about a Vietnam Vet training his son in ultimate fighting, will need 1500 extras to play student fans who crowd Pitt's Petersen Event Center to watch the climactic battle.

"Extras must be 18 years or older and will be paid $100 for 12 hours of work. Lisa Brennan, extras casting director, said there is no set schedule of how many extras are needed for any given day. Some days of shooting call for five to 10 extras and others call for 1,500.

Extras do not need to have prior experience or fulfill any set requirements. However, Brennan is looking for students and those who can pass for students.

“One of the scenes takes place in a high school classroom,” said Brennan. “We will need people to fit the bill.”

The Petersen Events Center is also a major character in the film “Warrior.” Brennan said that the Pete will be a gym and will possibly be transformed in to a Las Vegas set. The Pete will also be the setting during the film’s climatic scene, where the star battles opponents in a series of choreographed mixed martial arts tournaments. On that day of filming, more than 1,500 extras are needed to fill the Petersen gymnasium."

Seems like a few other extras may be needed for other scenes and that the bulk of the film will be shot in and around Pittsburgh

Christine @drink & draw

I know I am late in posting this. The session last week was really stupendous. As always, Christine was a wonderful model. Thanks to everybody that came out! We had a pretty full house, but some folks left before I could get images of their work. Below is a slideshow of some of the drawings done at the session. I usually ask drawers to have the piece they liked best ready to shoot. Funny how it almost always is from the longer poses.



drink & draw is moving to once a month! We will be meeting on the last Tuesday of each month. Sessions will start at 6:30pm. Next session is April 27, our model will be Paul.

Drink and Draw…
is an open studio live model drawing session that meets last Tuesdays on the second floor of brillobox, located at 4104 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, Pa. This session is relaxed, surprising, and inspiring. amazing models dressed in various themes, old timey music, great company, and decor. All mediums, except oils, welcome.

Drink & Draw
Upstairs | 6:30 - 9:30PM | $10
MySpace
brillobox
get on our mailing list. email us at brilloboxdrinkanddraw@yahoo.com
4104 penn ave
412.621.4900

No Longer Disturbing: Beneath The Paper Thin Surface At Unsmoke Systems

Saturday Night, I was able to get to Unsmoke Systems in Braddock and was treated to an amazing show which I didn't document visually. Zoe McCloskey, is an artist from, I think NY who done art projects in Belize, Argentina, Mexico and El Salvador and now moved to Pittsburgh. She and her brother started a residency program for writers called Cyberpunkapocalypse in Lawrenceville. She shares the gallery with a classmate from Cooper Union named Firelei Baez.

Firelei's work was mysterious, sometimes funny, and visually stunning. She's obviously got talent, imagination and skills to burn but these works go far beyond just visual display. Lush, ornate and often over the top, combinations of sensual, and biological images prevail many of which trace to Afro Caribbean folklore. But as she states, her purpose seems to always blur definitions and identities.

"My artwork consists of paintings, drawings, and prints that regard my physical self, my personal history, and Caribbean folklore. Afro-Caribbean folklore allows for malleability in the creation of the self, but I find my status as an Afro-Latina in the United States static and limiting in comparison. In response, I try to disrupt the current system of social categorization through the creation of characters that refuse definition. My artworks depict characters of indeterminate race, signified by their facial features, colorless skin, and hairstyles representative of ethnic hair. These men and women are interacting with predatory birds and finches: eating them, being plucked by them, admiring them, fighting them, scared of them, and unaware of them. In Caribbean folklore any part of the body represents the soul, especially hair. It is necessary to protect ones soul by making sure that any hair that is shed does not wind up in the hands of others. If a bird picks up ones hair and incorporates it into it’s nest, then the person’s soul is placed in limbo. I use this symbolically loaded scenario, among others, to metaphorically illustrate the multiplicities and hypocrisies that make up the current discussion about race and class within popular culture. "

Zoe's work which was mostly hung at the gallery's center had much less visual force. A lot of it seemed to involve large blowups of personal poetry/writing and several letters and notes written to her. A lot of the poems, in english or spanish were pretty strong and that gave it a slowly resonating power as the words linked to their arrangements on the page and interaction with her imagery. I felt I should have looked closer.

Luckily, the Post Gazette posted this video on the show.

Sixteen Birds & Inflatable Architectural Body @ Wood Street (to April 4)

immediate impressions :
- kinetic sculpture
- robotics
- zen mechanics
- alienation
- pseudo-industrial & regulatory translation of natural processes
- computer - aided (mac minis in the cieling)
- white on white on white with silver accents, pseudo-surgical tubing, touches of lubricating gel
- oh! where's my patience. so i can really experience this.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Gallery 3

Inflatable Architectural Body

Gallery white-out, white covers the windows. White box with mechanical apparatus hanging from the ceiling at center. The puffs and grinds of this sculpture having an internal dialogue in front of the viewer. Hangs like -- fruit? squid? vines? many organic analogies for a clearly inorganic object.

Movement triggered by inflation and deflation of the white tubes tugging on the closed system. Hisses, noises, clicks whirs and breathing.

The gallery attendant lets me in on a secret: the argument its having with itself is tearing the thing apart.

I have a self-other clinical relationship with it. Then I ask if it is permissible to lie down under the thing and, in fact, do so. Only now am I vulnerable to it. Intellect knows its not going to hit me. Instinct tells me this is dangerous. I have a heightened awareness response. I think of some of the self-destructive delusions I have watched people bog themselves down with (including myself).

I have been reading a tibetan buddhist tract about the discursive mind, our ability to get into closed loops of thought, immediately before viewing this piece. Of course I project that notion onto this work. I find that idea fits in a satisfying way. I decide I understand this work.

Gallery 4

Sixteen Birds

The windows are uncovered.

Sixteen flying Vs. A flock. Oh the birds of appetite. White sculpture, white walls. They are flaccid, wings dangling down. My presences figures into, triggers inflation. Up. Cascade from front to back. They fly out the window.

Did the artists make the mechanical birds because they could. Don't we all make art because we can. Well its less destructive than any other way of existing, even in its uselessness. And it is beautiful.

Fourth floor of Wood Street. Birds fly past the windows. This is such a clean image, there are so many resonances in art history - Van Gogh's fields with black crows scudding across the sky, Saint-Exupery's Little Prince flying, his flock of wild birds carrying him. Intuitive, clean, immediately get it, sit, rest, watch the birds breathe, their wings inflate and deflate in some musical sequence scored to a rhythm I don't know.

Wood St. Galleries

SketchCrawl

So, I think this is a pretty nifty idea. From the SketchCrawl site --

The next step was making the SketchCrawl a World Wide event: having people from different corners of the world join in a day of sketching and journaling and then, thanks to the Internet, having everyone share the results on an online forum.

The events happen in a (casual) quarterly schedule. The next one, SketchCrawl 22, is scheduled for April 22.

I wish I could do something about coordinating one of these events here in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, I work on Saturdays at my day job and Saturdays off is not really an option. I hope someone around here takes this up; the event is up to 90 participating cities around the world. Who knew there were so many folks interested in drawing?

Lit News: Novelist Michael Kimball Visits Pittsburgh This Week

I'm really excited that novelist Michael Kimball is coming from Baltimore to read TWICE in Pittsburgh this week. I could tell you that I loved his heartbreaking and tragicomic new book, Dear Everybody, in which we get to read the thank you notes and apologies a suicided young weatherman left behind, but why take my word for it when you could take the LA Times', Time Out New York's, The Believer's, New Pages', or Just Listen Book Reviews'. Dear Everybody has been getting non-stop rave reviews for several months, and you shouldn't miss this opportunity to see Kimball read from it.

For a taste of the readings, check out this beautiful video for the book, an excerpt in the author's voice that plays like a visual short story: Dear Everybody, the Book Trailer

Kimball is also the author of the ongoing blog and forthcoming book, "Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a Postcard)".

Michael Kimball reads on:
Monday, March 16th @ 7:30 pm
University of Pittsburgh English Department
Cathedral of Learning
5th floor, room 501

and

Wednesday, March 18th @ 8:00 pm
TNY Presents at ModernFormations Gallery
4919 Penn Avenue
$5 or free with pot luck item
with Kelly Ramsey, Andy Mulkerin, & Colin Baxter

St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church

In July of 2007, a couple Pittsburgh Arts - Digging Pitt contributors made a trek across the river to Millvale to view the Vanko murals at St Nicholas.



The author did document his field trip. The reason this has come up again is because the Pittsburgh Post Gazette has put up an extraordinary documentation of St Nicholas Church. Periodically, Steve Mellon sets up a 360 degree camera and shoots a location of interest in Pittsburgh. It's pretty amazing; you can navigate through the entire environment, zooming in at points of specific interest. Go see for yourself.