2012 Three Rivers Arts Festival

The Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival is almost here!  10 days of art, music, and fun in Downtown Pittsburgh, June 1-10.

Sooo excited for this year's Artists Market and Juried Visual Art Exhibition!

It's always an honor to help make my favorite event happen, a party for the city!  So much hard work and love from so many people goes into it.  I hope it's a fun and art-filled summer for the festival-goers, a creative and prosperous one for the artists, and an all around great time for everyone!

Impressionism: In a New Light @ CMA

Impressionism: In a New Light is a wonderful exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art which highlights the radical nature of the Impressionist movement. These now familiar and well-loved painters were indeed considered "shocking" in their time, introducing a new way of painting, a new way of seeing, and personal expression through the emotional power of color.  (So "shocking" in fact, legend has it, that a viewer of an Impressionist exhibition reacted to seeing the new paintings by running out into the street and biting another man on the leg, driven "mad" by those loose colors!  Imagine that!)

What is particularly exciting about this exhibition (which is surprisingly and delightfully extensive - a merit to the Carnegie's own collection), is the parallel it draws between Impressionism and Pictorialism, with several beautiful images by photographers Stieglitz, Cameron, and Käsebier.  

In the last room, Monet's Waterlilies are lovingly displayed on a curved wall reminiscent of the Musee de l'Orangerie.

Pittsburgh Sketch Crawl this Saturday

Looking forward to the Pittsburgh Sketch Crawl this weekend, a 6-hour drawing marathon through downtown Pittsburgh!  I just completed the map, and it's going to be very visually inspiring, and I just saw the weather report, and it's going to be gorgeous! Perfect! The Sketch Crawl is FREE to participate, a Second Saturday Art Workshop presented by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Education Dept. Illustrator Rick Antolic will be on hand to help participants with their drawings. Pre-register here: http://trustarts.culturaldistrict.org/event/3296/pittsburgh-sketch-crawl-workshop

2012 Juried Biennial - Westmoreland Museum of Art

Daniel Marsula, Father and Son, 2011, Oil on canvas

(on display in the 2012 Juried Biennial at the Westmoreland Museum of Art)


Just got back from a very enjoyable day trip to Greensburg to see the Juried Biennial at the Westmoreland Museum of Art.  The Biennial offers a look at the amazing work being created by contemporary local artists, which is very diverse, making for an eclectic, fun exhibit.  The above image, by Daniel Marsula, was one of our favorites.


We also visited the museum's permanent collection, which now also maintains a selection of the Born of Fire exhibit from a few years back, featuring beautiful Pittsburgh scenery and a glimpse at the city's history.  It was a lovely afternoon! 

Gallery Crawl Friday!

Don't miss the Gallery Crawl this Friday night in the Cultural District, a great opportunity to catch some of The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Distinctively Dutch Festival!

Caravan closes Sunday at 709

There are still a few days left to see Melissa Kuntz's solo exhibit at 709 Penn Gallery. Caravan closes on Sunday. Check out this great review of the show by Kurt Shaw in the Tribune Review:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/museums/s_788749.html

Sea Creatures & Blood Vessels: Kyle Ethan Fischer

Sea Creatures, Blood Vessels, mixed media by Kyle Ethan Fischer

In Sea Creatures & Blood Vessels, Kyle Ethan Fischer's solo show at Boxheart Gallery, the artist explores the question: "Could the allelopathic condition of auto-inhibition be a biological condition that takes place between systems in the body as they do with aquatic organisms?"

Fischer displays a new series of watercolors, predominantly blood-red, as well as several new sculptures that harken back to his earlier work incorporating handmade lace and crochet among other elements, forming sinewy body parts such as a fragile ribcage with a conch shell where the heart would be. The work draws attention to both the complexity and the fragility of the human body, created during a time of recovery. The show remains on display until March 31.