Fine Lines

Drawing by Deanna Mance (above)

Wren, Intaglio print by Maria Mangano (above)

Two local Pittsburgh artists won the two Best in Show awards (one per weekend) in this year's Three Rivers Arts Festival's Artist Market. Both were Emerging Artist Scholarship winners, and this was their first time participating in the arts festival.

Deanna Mance won for her imaginative drawings inspired by the mechanics and inner workings of nature, and Maria Mangano won for her intricate intaglio prints, inspired by nature's little critters (primarily birds and insects).

See more of their work on their web sites:

Deanna Mance: http://deannamance.com/

Maria Mangano: http://avesmaria.blogspot.com/

Claudia Hart

Claudia Hart: Empire at Wood Street Galleries closes on Sunday.

The exhibit includes "Empire", a 10-minute animation installation inspired by Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire," during which the light slowly shifts across a virtual monument from sunrise to sunset.

The exhibit also includes an animation of a drowned Ophelia, and a black and white semi-abstract animation of a dreaming woman called "Dream". My favorite is an animation called "The Seasons" in which a seated figure of a woman, plaster white, is engulfed in a flowering rose vine that slowly blooms and withers.

I found this exhibit to be overwhelmingly beautiful, both feminine and romantic.

See more of the artist's work on her web site, here:
http://www.claudiahart.com/