Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Carrie Furnace Project Opening Reception October 1st, Thursday 6-9





I'm gonna hype this show a bit more than usual because it's very likely you haven't heard of it or possibly of the venue it's in and also because it looks like a very, very good show.A combination of good artists dealing with a great subject and exhibiting in a great space.

The general theme of the show, is four artist's response to the amazing, Pittsburgh relic Carrie Furnace with work ranging from photography to sculpture.


Photo by George Mendel

George Thomas Mendel

"George Mendel is a freelance photographer with over 20 years of experience specializing in architectural and corporate event and location photography. His images have appeared in Architectural Lighting, Western Pennsylvania History, Pittsburgh Metropolitan, Pittsburgh Professional, and Mt. Lebanon magazines, to name a few. Mendel's images featured in the book "Death by Renaissance" and shown at The Silver Eye Gallery are now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution's affiliate museum/library, the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center."

George will be exhibiting a series of large scale panoramic photo works taken at the Carrie Furnace site.





"Jean McClung is an artist who lives and works in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. She has exhibited extensively and was recently featured in a group exhibit at Agni Gallery in N.Y.C. Jean had a one-person exhibit at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in 2006. While she is primarily a painter, her work since 2001 has mainly involved photographing street art and graffiti in urban areas. These photographs are then combined with painting and drawing, and used to create illuminated "paintings" and sculptures. These works are intended to celebrate the complexity, spontaneity, intensity and individuality of the urban world."

All of the exhibited works are derived from photo's taken at the Carrie Furnace site.





"Norman W. Schumm started photography as a freshman in high school and estimates that, since 1946, he has taken over 100,000 pictures. Since moving to Pittsburgh in 1959, he has spent many hours photographing the different moods of the city itself. Many of his Pittsburgh pictures grace the walls of Pittsburgh homes, offices, and distant cities where former Pittsburghers now live. His pictures have been published in books, posters, calendars, and post cares. Stefan Lorant, noted author and pioneer photojournalist, chose Norman to take photographs for three different editions of his book: "Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City."

Norman photographs primarily with a 4x5 view camera and uses both color and black & white film. He personally controls each step of the photographic process from the initial exposure to the developing and making of both color and black & white prints in his darkroom. Norman's personal preference is for the full tone, expressive black and white prints such as those taken by Ansel Adams."



Dee Briggs is a sculptor currently living and working between New York and Pittsburgh. Born in 1968 near Pittsburgh in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, and raised in Wellsburg, West Virginia, Briggs moved to New York in 1986, and has recently returned to Western Pennsylvania. Briggs has two degrees in architecture from the City College of New York (BA '97) and Yale University (M.Arch '02), and has worked with several leading architecture firms in New York . After 15 years in architecture, Briggs began making sculpture full time in 2002. Most recently, she has been teaching in the Schools of Art and Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University.

Briggs works mostly in steel and bronze at various scales, and does all fabrication work herself. Currently, her work is rooted in the exploration of chirality, or 3 dimensional handedness, pursued through the study of basic principles of geometry and symmetry.I am very interested in the resulting relationships of line and plane, and the way in which each composition describes or implies space. Although my work often appears chaotic and whimsical, it is, in fact, highly ordered.

Really a whole bunch of reasons to see this show if you can. Dee Briggs and George Mendel are showing works of a size not easily shown in a lot of Pittsburgh venues; Jean hasn't shown in a while and is exhibiting new works inspired by Carrie furnace and I think Norman is showing a considerable body of amazing photos of the region's steel heritage.

More info and images can be found on Pittsburgh Grapevine

More info about Carrie Furnace and Steel Heritage can be found on Rivers Of Steel.

Open Gallery Hours:
October 2, 3, 9, 10, 16 &17 from 12:00 noon to 3:00 pm
& by Appointment through www.RiversofSteel.com 412.464.4020

Pump House & Water Tower
880 East Waterfront Drive
Homestead, PA 15120


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