It all kicked off with a talk at the Society for Contemporary Craft and general networking with Sherrard and the excellent people who work there. The place is absolutely excellent and well worth a visit when in Pittsburgh. The visit was set up by my friend Elizabeth, to whom I am much indebted for not only making this introduction, but also for her wonderful hospitality while we were in the city. (Photographs of what we got up to with her in future blog entries!)
While there, I was introduced to the wonderful work of Mariko Kusimoto, work of which I wasn't really fully aware previously. She makes phenomenally complex box-structures which house many, many elements which can all be removed from the box and worn as jewellery:
At the end of the first week in Pittsburgh, Dingo and I met up with our lovely editor and powerhouse, Brigitte, to go on the Pittsburgh "art crawl", which is a monthly event in which many artists and galleries open up to the public, serving drinks and generally having a lot of fun.
We travelled in style, as this picture by Brigitte shows...
Brigitte jumped in a moment later and the poor lad had to pedal for three of us!
After, it was dinner at the marvellous Church Brew House with other Pittsburgh metalsmiths, Glen Gardner, Thomas Mullen and Brian Ferrell.
Dingo and Brigitte ponder one of Glen's printed-metal rings.
More general photographs of Pittsburgh can be seen here.
Later in the break, we hooked up with Sue Amendolara and went to Erie, where she quite unbelievably managed to get us unlimited access to the fantastic art-deco Warner Theatre in the town.
More photographs of the visit can be seen by clicking the photograph above.
We then went to Edinboro, where I gave a talk on Electrolytic Etching, with a demonstration of how easily the process could be done with recycled mobile phone chargers!
After the demonstration, we all went back to Sue's house for a party, which was lovely. Especially lovely was the cake made by her delightful daughter, Leah and her friend Maeve:
A tribute to my pig earring!
End of Part One. More tomorrow.