The Blurgh

Has anyone noticed how much public art there is in Pittsburgh?  Even on some of the most random, out-of-the-way streets, I’ve managed to catch a glimpse of beautiful pieces done on the sides of buildings, intricate chalk-art on the sidewalk, or beautifully worked storefronts.  There’s been a lot of efforts in Pittsburgh throughout the years to sponsor public art, even graffiti art, but I have to admit that my favorites are the pieces that are on the verge of legality.  Some people call it vandalism, but I prefer the term guerrilla art.

It comes in many different varieties, but there’s just something about it that I find greatly inspiring, especially when there’s no ulterior motive other than to beautify an otherwise drab our downright ugly place.  Just think–there are people out there who are willing to risk prosecution just to make a place a little more beautiful.  It blows my mind.

Of course, a lot of guerrilla art is political, which, depending on which side you’re on, can either be really amazing or really annoying.  This brings me to the inspiration of today’s post: potholes.

As everyone in the city knows, tis’ pothole season.  I’m often amazed at how insanely huge some of them get, and also how slowly these obviously dangerous road hazards tend to get filled.  You’d think that after almost 3 centuries of existence, the city would have figured out a way to deal with them.  Yes…one would think that.

Well, on my way to the train stop this morning, I was surprised to see that someone had taken matters into their own hands.  There had been a crater-sized pothole on my street for months, and just the other day I had even pondered giving it a name since it was obviously going to be staying around for a while longer.  When I passed it today, however, in it’s place was a traffic cone, but not of the run-of-the-mill orange ones–instead, this one was a piece of art.  Full of abstract shapes and bright colors, it was truly a sight to see.  Further down the block I noticed a couple more, and the other people on the sidewalk were looking at them with similar interest.

What a fabulous idea!  Not only does it beautify an otherwise depressing site (streets so damaged that they are sometimes reminiscent of a war-zone), but it also brings these dangerous holes to the attention of drivers.

So, hats off to whoever put them up, and I hope it catches on!  And for the city workers who’ll eventually fill the holes, do everyone a favor and plop the cone on a hole that you know won’t be filled for a while.  Maybe we’ll even give it a name.

Last night, Gretchen and I went to the opening of a new Artist’s Marketplace location, this one in the Strip.  That’ll make three locations so far, and if the new one’s anywhere near as successful as the past two, there’ll probably be at least one more popping up in the next year or two.

The first location was setup in the South Side about 10 years ago in the old South Side Market House building (off of Carson on Bedford Square), and I’m totally in love with the concept.  Artist co-ops have been popular in the city for a while, and some of them even provided spaces for artists to display and sell their work.  Pittsburgh’s also been known for its neighborhood arts festivals, and the booths that get the biggest draws in those festivals were always the ones where an artist was actively doing work.  A group of artists decided to combine the elements of those different ideas and put it all in one place.

The building is divided into 20+ studio/gallery spaces with a large central open space down the middle.  The studios/galleries are large enough to provide an artist with enough room to have a full-size workspace and also have a place to display their pieces.  The open space down the middle gives the building a very old-timey marketplace feel–almost like something out of the Middle Ages.  People love coming to watch the artists work, especially those doing metal and woodwork, and the artists get to interact with people and give their work a lot of visability.  It also provides artists with a productive setting to interact with each other, and many of them end up working together on different projects.

Pittsburgh is also a terrific place for these types of attractions since there are so many old warehouses and factories that lend themselves well to studio renovation.  A few years after the South Side location opened, one opened in Lawrenceville in one of the old buildings by the river.  At that point, people knew what the marketplaces were all about, and it was an instant success.  The opening Gretchen and I went to last night was a big event, and we have no doubt that it’ll take no time for it to become yet another attraction in the Strip.

Last night, Gretchen and I got home late after seeing the final competition of 2027’s Final’s Week Festivities Series, which was a film festival.  I honestly couldn’t believe that all these films came out of my city, and they were GOOD.  There were entries from Pitt, CMU, Carlow, Robert Morris, and then a few collaborative submissions from students at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. They covered every genre there is, which resulted in quite an emotional roller-coaster ride if you watched them all.

There was one, though, that really captured me.  I’m not sure exactly what I’d classify it as…maybe a “day in the life” kind of film?  And it wasn’t even a day in the life of someone terribly important or dramatic; it was just about a guy in his mid-thirties with a “normal” job and a “normal” life.  What I loved about it was the subtlety.  It brought up many personal issues that are easy to relate to, like the difficulties inherent in balancing work and family and dealing with aging relatives, but it also gently invoked many larger societal issues like racism, xenophobia, sexism and homophobia.  In bringing them up in such a low-key way it was almost like the film was screaming them, and it really made you step back and take a look at yourself.

Anyway, it was Gretchen and I’s favorite, but it didn’t win.  The one that won was an animated film that was very trippy, but indeed very cool.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m actually looking forward to next finals season, which will be (gulp) my last!

A couple days ago, Gretchen and I went to the second of the Finals Week competitions, this one in theatre.  It was held downtown, and in order to keep the competition from taking all day, each school/team put on a 15-minute one-act play.  The whole thing was a about 2 and a half hours long, and during the intermission, the Culinary Institute of Pittsburgh held a competition among their students of who made the best hors d’oeuvres.  It was a new feature, but I’m thinking they should do something like that for all the competitions!  If they advertised it too much, though, there would be a standing-room only crowd.  College students are attracted to free food very much like moths are attracted to light.

The plays that different students came up with were fascinating.  There was a comedy about a college kid going back in time to the nineties, a few dramas about life and all that can go wrong, a sci-fi one based on Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot”, and then my favorite, a short excerpt from Hamlet, but performed in Pittsburghese.  It’s fair to say that I have no taste.

The “I, Robot” play won the competition, and it was deserving. After the show, Gretchen and I passed on the after-party and returned home to do some more studying.  If there weren’t any finals, finals week would be really sweet.

It’s been common knowledge for quite a while that there are several very accomplished arts programs at the universities in the area. Each school has their specialty, but overall, a lot of quality art, music, dance and theatre emerges from these programs every year.

Five or six years ago, a couple graduates from the various programs in town got together and had a great idea. Most of the various classes related to the arts have performances/shows as their final projects, but most of them are sparsely attended and largely ignored by the rest of the student body and surrounding community. To change this, the graduates used various connections in their respective schools and organized competitions between related disciplines to take place in the stead of multiple small performances. From the outset these have been wildly popular, and they’ve gone a long way in creating better connections between the universities and the communities that surround them.

Last night was the first in this series of competitions, and it was in music and dance. What I loved about this is that instead of holding separate music and dance performances, the organizers decided to combine them both. This not only drew a larger crowd, but also encouraged more internal cooperation between the music and dance departments within schools. And who prefers canned music over live, anyway?

There were several performances that covered many genres of music and dance, and they were all awesome. My favorites were Point Park’s Modern Dance to classic Pittsburgh Jazz and the Pitt African Drumming Ensemble. In the end, I voted for Pitt (I guess I do have some school spirit after all!), and they ended up winning the show!

It was a sweet performance, and I’ve enjoyed coming to the performances every finals season…which hasn’t been particularly helpful grade-wise! Later on this week I’ll tell you about the other competitions and how they went.

If you have nothing to do tonight, head on down to the Blank Walls in East Liberty. They’re having a live graffiti battle, and the winner will get to do his or her magic on one of the new public art walls being put up by the city. There’ll also be a band and refreshments, and it starts at 8 pm.

This is the second time that Blank Walls has held this kind of event–the first was right after the public art walls (which were Mayor Conway’s idea, btw) were approved by City Council 6 months ago. They are still in the process of being constructed, but the idea is to provide a place for graffiti artists to show their creativity in a safe and beneficial way rather than forcing them to do it illegally. Every month the walls will be painted over, and a new set of artists will be able to put up their work. Blank Walls and a few other galleries around town have volunteered to host events to pick the artists, and so far they’ve been a big hit.

I’m getting ready for finals, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it yet. Drop me a line if you’re planning on going though…it just might persuade me!