Penn Avenue Unblurred
This past Friday Kate, Crispian, Myles, and the Mondor family, and I went to "Unblurred on Penn Avenue." This is a monthly event promoting the contemporary art scene on Penn Avenue, mostly between Negley and Mathilda. Okay, maybe it hasn't quite reached scene status yet, but this Friday it had all the making of it. I mean, twenty-something skinny chicks in funky glasses and Marc Jacobs sweaters must constitute a scene, right?
This section of Penn Avenue divides the Friendship and Garfield sections of the city. It is a largely minority neighborhood, one where so little of the city's money has gone for so long there isn't even a "Projects". However this is the boon to the arts community in that all kinds of old turn-of-the-century Mainstreet-type buildings are available rather inexpensively for gallery, studio, and even theater space.
We were able to hit a few of the local galleries and an open house at the Sprout Fund. Now, I've done a night of a million galleries in New York a buncha times with Collette, so believe me I know the difference. This was not just like being in New York. But, the food and free spirits were much, much better than we ever had in New York. I mean, cheeses and cookies and really good beer and hot spiked cider, like everywhere. Can't get THAT in Chelsea :-). Anyway, there was one local Pittsburgh artist, Marci Gherring, that was showing these enormous round canvasses, like Mandalas but with imagery from many religions and literature and even science. Some of them were quite beautiful and some were, well, not my taste. And maybe I am just burnt-out on this, but sometimes she had in the midst of a really cool Mandala the biological woman's symbol. To me it was an extraneous addition only in that other images contained within some of those paintings conveyed a sense of female power more comprehensively than the addition of the "Mirror of Venus." But maybe that is just me (and I'm someone who used to wear a pair of earrings with that symbol). But on the whole, I really liked her paintings.
The main reason I wanted to Blog about this event, though, is to discuss how positively cool it was that many of the locations made provisions for people to bring their kids. When I look back to the openings I attended with some frequency in New York, kids were scarce, particularly after September 11th and so many galleries moved out of the store fronts and lofts in SoHo and many more sprung up closets in Chelsea. It was one of those things, too, where children could be invited if they stayed out of the way and acted like silent grown-ups. And there are times and places when this is important behavior, but when you are talking about art, talking about life callings and passions, the kids need to have a little unrestrained access to the event. At Unblurred on Penn, at least this month, there were many ways in which kids could be a part of the evening. At the Sprout Fund, they had out all kids of arts and crafts supplies. Adults used these, too, but Crispian and the two Mondor kids (Nicolas and Kiki) had free reign of some very cool supplies, like glittery glue and brightly colored feathers and sparkly pom-poms. They were occupied for almost the whole time we were there. At Garfield Artworks, among the Mandalas on the walls, they had set up a circle of clean white sand and a treasure chest full of chandelier glass. The kids were able to do whatever they wanted; Nicolas built roads, Crispian mapped out motion around his crystals, and Kiki made lots of designs. Myles was a little too little for this--he just tried to walk through it and chew on the glass pieces. That was a big, No!
As we left Garfield Artworks, Crispian was skipping down Penn Avenue. He asked my sister, "Please tell me we are going to another gallery."
Now THAT'S worth something.
This section of Penn Avenue divides the Friendship and Garfield sections of the city. It is a largely minority neighborhood, one where so little of the city's money has gone for so long there isn't even a "Projects". However this is the boon to the arts community in that all kinds of old turn-of-the-century Mainstreet-type buildings are available rather inexpensively for gallery, studio, and even theater space.
We were able to hit a few of the local galleries and an open house at the Sprout Fund. Now, I've done a night of a million galleries in New York a buncha times with Collette, so believe me I know the difference. This was not just like being in New York. But, the food and free spirits were much, much better than we ever had in New York. I mean, cheeses and cookies and really good beer and hot spiked cider, like everywhere. Can't get THAT in Chelsea :-). Anyway, there was one local Pittsburgh artist, Marci Gherring, that was showing these enormous round canvasses, like Mandalas but with imagery from many religions and literature and even science. Some of them were quite beautiful and some were, well, not my taste. And maybe I am just burnt-out on this, but sometimes she had in the midst of a really cool Mandala the biological woman's symbol. To me it was an extraneous addition only in that other images contained within some of those paintings conveyed a sense of female power more comprehensively than the addition of the "Mirror of Venus." But maybe that is just me (and I'm someone who used to wear a pair of earrings with that symbol). But on the whole, I really liked her paintings.
The main reason I wanted to Blog about this event, though, is to discuss how positively cool it was that many of the locations made provisions for people to bring their kids. When I look back to the openings I attended with some frequency in New York, kids were scarce, particularly after September 11th and so many galleries moved out of the store fronts and lofts in SoHo and many more sprung up closets in Chelsea. It was one of those things, too, where children could be invited if they stayed out of the way and acted like silent grown-ups. And there are times and places when this is important behavior, but when you are talking about art, talking about life callings and passions, the kids need to have a little unrestrained access to the event. At Unblurred on Penn, at least this month, there were many ways in which kids could be a part of the evening. At the Sprout Fund, they had out all kids of arts and crafts supplies. Adults used these, too, but Crispian and the two Mondor kids (Nicolas and Kiki) had free reign of some very cool supplies, like glittery glue and brightly colored feathers and sparkly pom-poms. They were occupied for almost the whole time we were there. At Garfield Artworks, among the Mandalas on the walls, they had set up a circle of clean white sand and a treasure chest full of chandelier glass. The kids were able to do whatever they wanted; Nicolas built roads, Crispian mapped out motion around his crystals, and Kiki made lots of designs. Myles was a little too little for this--he just tried to walk through it and chew on the glass pieces. That was a big, No!
As we left Garfield Artworks, Crispian was skipping down Penn Avenue. He asked my sister, "Please tell me we are going to another gallery."
Now THAT'S worth something.
Comments