Come on out and support local arts makers and crafters at Boyd Community Center in O’Hara Township! Open 12 – 6 pm on Sunday, December 15, 2013. “Last Minute Shopping” by I Made it Market (open this link to see all info & the artists and makers) founded by Carrie Nardini and Nina Barbuto, is holding a final opportunity to shop local. By now everyone is aware that there are local artists, crafts people and makers working hard to connect with local markets everywhere. In Pittsburgh you may have MEANT to go to one or both of the hand-made-I-made-it-DIY (do it yourself) type venues that are now past. Did you want to go, hope to go and mean to go but then your couch beckoned? It happens! “Handmade Arcade” was Dec 7, and “I Made it! for the Holidays” was the weekend before Thanksgiving . But you can still have the experience at “Last Minute Shopping” at Boyd Community Center 1220 Powers Run Rd, Pittsburgh, PA .
Did you know the aging former elementary school which currently houses Boyd is closing in on final fundraising for a new center? Come to this IMI Last Minute Shopping opportunity and learn something about new exciting plans for a new community center! Here is an architectural drawing of the new center!
No amount is too small to donate to make it a reality. It will be called Lauri Ann West
Community Center. The architects are Steve Cupcheck and Bruce Pollack of RSSC and you can see additional elevations on the Lauri Ann West
Community Center facebook page. In November O’Hara Council offered a matching grant proposal where it would use tax dollars to match up to $1 million in private donations and hopefully see the construction complete by 2015. More here.
I take great pride in the fact that as a citizen I got involved with sharing my response to the first set of concept plans for the community center a few years back, when it was entirely low and linear. I more than hinted that the agricultural history of the area suggested that the context of a barn building or two would be a reasonable goal for how these buildings could take shape, and I provided a bunch of examples of adapted barns. The most exciting I had seen then was Herman Miller Design Yard at their headquarters in Zeeland MI, in the glory days when I got Lear jet rides to these places based on my corporate space planning and interior design career. Herman Miller used modified prefab barn structures, hopefully suggesting a possible route to an economic approach to a barn raising for the communities of Fox Chapel School District. The response to my input re: “think barn” was very positive at the time and so I was pleased to see the elevation drawing as it has evolved, and every time I drive by the sign near Squaw Run Park I feel a sense of involvement.
I will not be a participating artist this year, but I really hope you will come out to support the artists who are, visit Boyd Community Center and learn about the future of Boyd, which they hope will be completed in 2015. Oh, BTW Route 28 is working much better these days if you have been avoiding it. And there is Route 28 news: as of November 25, the 31st St Bridge is now open again.
Boyd Community Center has partners, and programming and event partners. I sincerely hope they (and you) will do everything possible to attend “Last Minute Shopping”, and to share the information in this post with their audience. you can help by sharing it too! I look forward to attending as a last minute shopper myself!
Meantime I am stocking some venues with my latest on my Schenley Park Map printed on ceramic tiles, and painting some custom house portraits. Prints on paper of Schenley Park Map are $99 for 30″ print, $65 for 18″ print (matches height of Frick Park Map). The ceramic tiles (decorative only) are $25 for 8″ tiles and $15 for 4 1/4″ tiles. The prints you can order online from me. If you want tiles just shoot me an email. carol@carolskinger.com.
