Dancers performing at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts
No 35. Motion Studies
Tag: Pittsburgh
No. 31. Pop-Art Revisited or Make Art Great Again
I was recently tasked with sending out a notice to the Berks Art Alliance of an upcoming art exhibit entitled “Make Art Great Again: Right, Left & In-Between Today’s Political World,” with only text provided. I scratched my head trying to come up with an appropriate graphic and tinkered with a 2014 photo I had shot in the Louvre to give it a pseudo-Roy Lichtenstein Pop Art look.
Though I rather liked the resulting picture, I didn’t end up using it for that project—choosing instead an old satirical political cartoon. The two other pieces included here are digital Pop Art style images printed on heavy watercolor paper, coated with encaustic medium, and mounted on deep birch painting panels. Upon Photography No. 37 and Upon Reflection No. 10 will be included in an exhibit “Reflections” at West Reading Tavern by members of Art Plus Gallery, which will be hung September 11, 2017. Upon Reflection No. 10 was created in 2010 and has been shown on a number of occasions.
It was created using a filter in a PhotoShop add-on in Nik Color Efex 3.0. That particular filter is no longer available in the current version of the Nik suite. Upon Reflection No. 37 was shot in 2011. As with Mona Lisa Madness, I created it using a combination of tools in Photoshop without the benefit of pre-constructed filters.
No. 50 It’s a Wired World With a Love Dance
“It’s a Wired World” is featured in November and December 2017 in the front window of Art Plus Gallery. It’s another one of those I rescued from the archives, which had never been shown previously. The mansion is in North Pittsburgh.
The bottom picture “Winter Love Dance” is more recent and is also being shown at Art Plus Gallery through the end of the year. This picture is part of my Love Letters Series.
No. 41. Raptor’s Revenge
It’s not uncommon for birds of prey to get hit by cars. Several years ago while walking around the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh I found the disembodied foot and leg of a Peregrine Falcon on the street. After taking it back to the studio and photographing it, I began working on this composite photo. I only now finished it after uncovering the partially completed project in my files.
While harking back to Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds, the piece addresses the reckless destruction of the natural world by the modern capitalist social system.
No. 23. A Look Back – Rustbelt Roller Ride
Originally shot in May 2013 and the composite created the same week, this picture was printed on stretched canvas. It’s been one of my favorite pictures and has been shown often at art fairs and other displays of physical art.
The piece depicts a blast furnace at US Steel’s Edgar Thompson Mill in Braddock, PA (just outside Pittsburgh.) ET continues to operate as a fully integrated mill. Named after his mentor while he worked at the Pennsylvania Railroad and later his best customer, it was Andrew Carnegie’s flagship mill. Across the Monongahela River is the Kennywood Amusement Park with the roller coaster just barely visible.
For the thousands upon thousands of workers who have gone through the mills during the last century and a half and the communities impacted by the boom and bust cycles and environmental havoc unleashed by the steel barons it’s been a wild ride.
I showed it again this month at Cafe Bold in West Reading, PA. This time, the canvas sold within an hour of hanging the show. When I went to look for it on my website to promote the show, I discovered, lo and behold, I never included it in a web gallery. So here it is. Prints on paper will continue to be made available.
December 2013
