Blog Archives - Page 13 of 17

Cycling Pittsburgh

May 10, 2011

Outspoken, an all bicycle themed art show, was a big success as part of Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s April 2011 Gallery Crawl. Most people I spoke to made a beeline for it of all the events they planned to attend that night. Could be they are fans of BikePGH which Sixty Forty partnered with to bring off this themed art show. I am a fan and have become a member of BikePGH.

And right now my bike is being cleaned up and tuned up by the newest bike store in town LoveBikes which I learned about from BikePGH.

Thankyou especially to Tina and Jack who purchased my most recent original watercolor pictured at left. Six cyclists go over West End Bridge with the Pittsburgh skyline reflected below- river changes to sky and magic. My table of bicycle related artwork printed as notecards did really well. Everyone had bicycling on the brain! I brought along extra notecards of this image as I thought people would like it. Every single one of those cards vanished. I will be adding more of my cycling paintings and cards into the shop on my website.

Meanwhile next event where I will be selling my original paintings and notecards:

Pittsburgh Center for the Arts 3rd annual Y’Art Sale Sunday, May 22 · 10:00am- 4:00pm
Mellon Park (Rain or Shine)

yART Sale wares will include original art from PCA shop artists and other artsits too, art supplies, art making equipment, art on sale, art books & magazines, seconds, slightly damaged or imperfects and discontinued lines. The yART Sale is all about art and bargains.

PCA is located on 5th Avenue at intersection with Shady Ave. I will be at site #10.

Outspoken an art show and sale benefiting Bike Pittsburgh

April 23, 2011

Hello friends,

This is to let you know that the next Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Gallery Crawl is Friday April 29,2011. That is a live link and gives the map and list of events and locations.

If you have never done a Gallery Crawl before, it happens only 4x a year, is concentrated into a couple of blocks on Liberty and Penn Ave downtown, and is full of both permanent and temporary 1 night only attractions, is free, and is well attended. 2D and 3D art, film, performance, music, poetry….

This time, instead of just attending it, I am involved as an exhibiting artist and will be present at the site with my work. The theme of the one night show I am in is bicycle related and it is called Outspoken. It benefits Bike Pittsburgh as well as the participating artists.

Bike Pittsburgh is a member based organization that works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. The work they do is at the heart of urban environmentalism – raising awareness about oil dependency, pollution, congestion, safe streets, good urban design, and public health. They are partnering with local stakeholders to improve our streets, bridges, and trails in order to make riding to work, shopping, and exercising by bicycle safe and fun for everyone in Pittsburgh.

The site of the art exhibit Outspoken is on the top floor- 4^th floor 805/807 Liberty Ave. This address in next door to Harris Theater and across from Space Gallery. There are a bunch of other things going on the building as well. And that is only one building hosting lots of cool things that night.

Hope to see you there! I will be exhibiting 4 framed watercolors on the theme of cycling. In addition I will have a table of greeting cards of my work especially related to cycling themes.

Oh that’s right, I will also be doing some product testing…my latest work, consisting of altered images of my photographs of the Pittsburgh home where Andy Warhol grew up is newly available as cards. I just delivered a group of 4 views of Wahol’s home to the Warhol Museum Shop. These cards will also be available that night. I am trying to gauge which views are more interesting to people. The project these images of Warhol’s home came out of is my Homage to Famous Pittsburgers- an ongoing art project of mine.

Here is a link of how a bicycle trip could be made linking homes of these famous Pittsburgers in one ride: August Wilson’s home, Andy Warhol’s home and Rachel Carson’s home. This ride would be at your own risk. I have not done this whole ride at one time myself. The way I mapped it you need at car at the end.

Why send a greeting card?

April 12, 2011

Even I send out a greeting card now and then! I got my start in making greeting cards of my art when Ben and Jerry both said to me (in VT when we were all just getting started) “Make some greeting cards of your art work and sell them!” So I did.

Here is my latest greeting card- 6 cyclists in silhouette are riding across West End Bridge with skyline of Pittsburgh reflected in the river. I sent this card as a sincere congratulations to a new business in Pittsburgh Love Bikes. I love cycling and they look like a cool new business. I can only imagine how hard it must be to get a business underway with a store front and all that! They loved it and response was fast! Now I have an order and they will sell my bicycle themed cards in their shop! Yeah. So you never know!

Some of my original bicycle themed paintings and my cards will be for sale at the next Gallery Crawl April 29, 2011 in the culural district, downtown Pittsburgh . It will be at a one night bicycle themed art exhibit and sale titled Outspoken. Location is 805/807 Libery Ave 4th Floor and the event is associated with Bike Pittsburgh.

So come to the Gallery Crawl on April 29th -it is SO interesting and inspiring. And stop by. Scribble this address and take it with you. I guarantee you will not have a global sense of all the stuff you meant to do that night without some planning. I won’t be able to see the whole Gallery Crawl because I will be at this event. Hope to see you there.

Or if you cannot go here is my shop

List of famous Pittsburghers

February 16, 2011

Greeting cards of my silly ink drawings of Pittsburgh are here. They are usually in stock at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts shop as well as Visit Pittsburgh at 5th Avenue Place downtown.

I now offer 8 1/2 x 11″ prints on archival paper of my ink drawings here.

In 2016 The Duquesne Club purchased a 22″ X 30″ print of my newest drawing of Sixth Avenue Pittsburgh drawing from the artist. The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh previously purchased 8 1/2 x 11″ prints of this print for their archive and offices.

I print this list on the back of my series of greeting cards of my “silly ink drawings of Pittsburgh”. Most recent additions are environmental author Edward Abbey and book editor and publisher Margaret McEldery, whose obituary in both the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and the New York Times caught my eye. The theme that most interested Abbey was the struggle for personal liberty against the totalitarian techno-industrial state, with wilderness being the backdrop in which this struggle took place.

64 Famous People of Pittsburgh and the Region

People on my list were either born and grew up here (most), or were simply born here and really did not spend any time at all as their families moved when they were very young (Gertrude Stein and Martha Graham). Or they were not born here but had significant career experiences here like Willa Cather who lived in Pittsburgh for 11 years. She came to Pittsburgh in 1895, upon graduation from the University of Nebraska. She often referred to Pittsburgh as the “birthplace” of her writing career.

Edward Abbey, Derrick Bell, George Benson, Nellie Bly, Andrew Carnegie, Rachel Carson, Mary Cassatt, Willa Cather, Perry Como, Michael Chabon, Annie Dillard, Mike Ditka, Billy Eckstine, Margaret K. Elderry, Richard Florida, Stephen Foster, Henry Clay Frick, Jeff Goldblum, Martha Graham, Walt Harper, Samuel Hazo, H.J. Heinz, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Margaret Hodges, John Kane, Edgar J. Kaufmann, Michael Keaton, Gene Kelly, Henry Mancini, Dan Marino, George Marshall, Rob Marshall, Lorin Maazel, David McCullough, Andrew Mellon, Larry Mellon, Paul Mellon, Richard B. Mellon, Richard K. Mellon, Thomas Mellon, Joe Montana, Joe Nameth, Evelyn Nesbit, Paul O’Neill, Phillip Pearlstein, Henry Phipps, Nathaniel Philbrick, Duncan Phillips, Fred Rogers, John Roebling, George Romero, Jonas Salk, David O. Selznick, Thomas Starzl, Gertrude Stein, Jimmy Stewart, Stanley Turrentine, Johnny Unitas, Bobby Vinton, Andy Warhol, Frank Webb, George Westinghouse, John Edgar Wideman, August Wilson

I am a fan of Rachel Carson

February 8, 2011

I am a fan of Rachel Carson! This is my pastel of her childhood home near Pittsburgh.

Contact me through my website if you would like to purchase greeting cards of this image. The original sold.

Tonight 2/8/2011 Squirrel Hill Historical Society presents a free talk at 7:30 PM by: Patricia DeMarco, PhD Executive Director, Rachel Carson Homestead Association. Patricia’s full title is Director Rachel Carson Institute, Scool of Sustainablilty and the Environment, Chatham University.

titled “Rachel Carson and Her Legacy”

date: Tuesday Feb 8, 2011

location- Squirrel Hill:
The Church of the Redeemer, located at 5700 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217

I love the irony that RC is from greater Pittsburgh, PA not Maine as I once thought. Like Warhol she not only grew up here but stayed in Pittsburgh through college (undergraduate years). I am a proud New Englander by birth (but long time resident of Pittsburgh which I love). I was becoming aware of Rachel Carson around the time of the first Earth Day since my mom had a copy of The Edge of the Sea around. It was a book, like many of my mom’s that I flipped through and found pretty interesting (and later got more interested in). Since we often went camping in Deer Isle, Maine I just assumed that Maine was where Rachel Carson was from, with that book as a reference.

So it was a surprise to me when moved to Pittsburgh, that the mother lode of the environmental movement was born and grew up just upriver from Pittsburgh, a place few would associate with being a major beach head of the environmental movement. Not counting those who came before like protectionists John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt and sort of conservationist Gifford Pinchot (land of many uses) – Rachel Carson really is the IT person on the environmental movement unless you are with the far right wing, in which case she is seen as a misguided liberal crackpot.

To fool around with the irony of her coming from Springdale, PA I created a poster combining my altered images of Rachel Carson Homestead with the smoke stacks from the local power plants where her father worked at times, like nearly everyone there.

Love of Friends! 5th annual party Feb 14th at Space gallery!

January 31, 2011

When was the last time you went to a dance party, and what are you doing on February 14th anyway??? This is THE place to be! This year regional artists were asked to screen in and so I am going to be an artist and vendor at the 5th annual Love of Friends party! Pop City recently wrote about it, and Councilman Bill Peduto will announce February 14 as Love of Friends day. It’s official!

This year’s fifth annual Love of Friends party is at Space gallery downtown, from 7 to 10 p.m. and will feature the artwork of the Friends’ friends and the music of the DJ group Operation Sappho!!! See you on the dance floor!

Since I wrote this I have added Love of Friends website so you can learn about them and artist profiles on their blog. Jusy scroll down a few entries for artist profiles. Looks INTERESTING!!!

Feb 14, 2011 SPACE Gallery, 812 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh PA

7-10pm, $25/person or $60 for three includes drinks, nibbles, and other fun great things you can only see and do once you get there.

Tickets can be purchased at the door.

From Love of Friends website:

On February 8, 2011 the Love of Friends Team will assemble at the City-County building at 10am. Councilman Bill Peduto will read a proclamation marking February 14 “Love of Friends” Day. We recognize that February 14 is a day claimed by Hallmark, sure. It’s a day that all across the country will bring a lot of joy, a lot of stress, a lot of longing to a lot of people. However, here in Pittsburgh at least, thanks to Councilman Peduto, we’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day our way–it’s what we do best here in Pittsburgh. So, if it brings you stress, if it brings you grief, say “aw hell no” to Valentine’s Day and say “aw hell yes” to Love of Friends Day. It’s official.