Pittsburgh Fun

I do like Pittsburgh, especially as I have good friends there who can take me about and introduce me to new things such as the marvellous Klavon's Soda-Fountain:

To the immediate right of Dingo is Elizabeth and her daugher, Eliza. We went in here to avoid a monumental downpour with occasional claps of thunder... and to sample the old-fashioned ice-cream sundaes.

This had hot-fudge sauce, salted peanuts, cream and delicious vanilla ice-cream. The atmosphere of the place was amazing too although it has just been re-opened after having been refurbished, so it was a bit empty but once the coffee machine is moved back in and it gets re-established, it will be amazing.

We were taken to another well-established favourite of Pittsburgh's by Gerry and her partner, Rocky; Vincent's Pizza Park:

Vincent's was a shack on the side of a main through-road in Pittsburgh which has recently been refurbished - read the comments on the link above to see how shack-like it was! The pizzas are enormous. I mean really enormous. Thick, puffy bases, wood-fired with the wood-ash on the bottom like they should have (not cigarette ash on top like they used to have, I'm told). Four of us couldn't finish the one we ordered! It has to be said that this is not in any way an "Italian" pizza, nor is it refined food, but it is good and the experience of visiting and hearing the stories was great.

One of the great things about going places is that you can often discover things that people who come from the place had no idea about. For example, Elizabeth - and most other people I spoke to - had no idea that Pittsburgh is home to the first ever industrial particle accelerator, still in place although now abandoned. Of course, I really wanted to go inside, but it wasn't possible. An amazing place and one which should really be kept as an important scientific site.

I especially love the fading Paul Rand "Westinghouse" logo on the side.

Some of you may recall that last time I visited Pittsburgh, I was rather taken with the local speciality of "pierogi" or, in Pittsburgh-speak, "pierogis", delicious little dumplings filled with cheese and onions, fried in butter and served with fried onions and sour cream. As Dingo was with me this time, I knew that he would like them and that we would need to find somewhere good to go and get them. Elizabeth's partner, Kirk, found the very place and we had a pierogi feast at Szmidt's Old World Deli!

Szmidt's is an odd place, to say the least. It is a tiny shop in the suburbs of Pittsburgh (Greenfield) which sells a variety of traditional and non-traditional pierogi, including sweet ones, served with ice-cream. We started off enjoying the traditional kraut, cheese and potato dumplings and moved onto the more bizarre strawberry, finishing with "peanut-butter cup", which is a chocolate dumpling stuffed with peanut-butter. Somewhat surprisingly, they were very good too. Five of us managed to clear many plates and none of us felt much like eating again that day...

One of the things which made this visit special was the amazing staff, who were unbelievably helpful in making suggestions and letting us try samples. Can't wait to go back next time!

Pierogi are a cultural phenomenon in Pittsburgh and rightly so, I think. We were in a cafe one day for a drink and free wi-fi when we spotted the "Craft-O-Tronic", a modified cigarette vending machine which yielded little objects made by local craftspeople. A bit like a cheap and cheerful version of the shop in the SCC, perhaps?

Dingo spotted this lovely souvenir of the pierogi!

Some real pierogi to compare:

One of the other things I found before Elizabeth was the most monumental and eccentric junk shop that I have ever seen. It also, alas! proved to be one of the most ridiculously expensive. Crown Antiques and Collectibles... well, that is as maybe, but it is one great big, sprawling mess of a junk shop and junk is the word. Four floors of it.

I have no idea what he is doing.

The place is at 1018 Fifth Avenue and is just stuffed with stuff and is the most fascinating place: the basement is full to bursting:

And the further up the building you go, the more cluttered and bizarre it gets...

The downside of the whole place is that everything is just a bit too expensive and haggling is not an option. There was an enormous box of rusty keys, not all of them interesting or useful to me but I thought that if the owner was willing, I would make an offer for the box. I took some of them down to him and immediately he started talking about how "popular" keys were and how he sells them daily at $6.50 each... no deal to be struck. A similar pattern followed for Elizabeth and when Eliza wanted to buy a book, she was met with a somewhat aggressive "what do you want that for"? A very odd place indeed. Worth a visit as one might visit a museum, perhaps.

After all this, it was off to Boston for three days and then home again. More soon!

Secrets and Surprises

It wasn't all work in Pittsburgh and in between teaching the workshops, I got a chance to socialise a bit too. Quite apart from my non-metalsmithing friends, Elizabeth Avery and Kirk Savage and their wonderfully odd family, I also managed to see Lizzy DaVita and hooked up with Glen Gardner for an evening of dinner, his workshop and an exhibition.

Dingo and Glen in Glen's workshop.

Glen has just moved workshop to the north of the city and I am so envious of his space in a converted factory. Not just the space, but the tools and equipment he has managed to amass over the years are most impressive.

The exhibition in one of the other studios in which he is based was not especially interesting. In fact, it consisted of a room of badly-made, derivative nonsense of which an art-history expert and friend of mine said, "It may have been the most repellent man-made/person-made environment I have ever been in". I was so disinterested in it that I didn't even get the name of the artist responsible.

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My adult workshop at the SCC was "Secrets and Surprises" about using boxes and hinges, colour and found objects to create jewellery which moves and invites exploration. It was well-attended and the participants were good fun, enthusiastic and keen to learn. Although this year three days did not seem nearly long enough, the projects created were sophisticated and the students enjoyed pushing their skills forward in new ways.

Bangle made from a cleat, copper and a pebble. Unfortunately, the pebble fractured when being set.

One of the most popular things I teach is stone-setting. People always seem keen to learn ways of setting stones beyond the general rub-over setting and I like teaching it very much. Unfortunately, many of the places where I teach are not set up to allow for the teaching of more sophisticated techniques. John Cogswell was teaching at Touchstone the week after I left and Megan told me that he brings his own toolkits, which is a solution but not an easy one if travelling any distance.

After these workshops were over, it was time for meetings at the SCC to discuss the display of the "Enough Violence" show and to enjoy myself in Pittsburgh, which I always manage to do.

Before I conclude the working part of my visit, Gerry Florida just sent me a picture she took of me when in the Shuman Detention Center which I share with permission:

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The current show in the SCC is the international Fibre Arts show. I am not really thrilled by fibre arts generally but this is a great show. I was especially taken with this portrait of the artist Marie Bergstedt's brother in fibres and buttons:

The detail close-up is wonderful.

In the ex-cafe space, Jennifer Moss was creating fantastic felt cup-fungi, which were taking over the worksurfaces:

There is more about this exhibition here.

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Fascinating junk shops, an abandoned particle accelerator and knitted pierogis tomorrow!

SCC - Artist And Kids

After the stint at the detention centre, it was time to return to the SCC to work with a group of young people on the "Artist and Kids" programme. This programme is well established within the SCC and I taught on it last year, which was great fun. One of last year's students even signed up to take my main adults' workshop this year! This year, the approach was slightly different and instead of tackling ideas about using found materials as jewellery as a primary objective, we looked at repeating the project that I had done with the young people in the detention centre with this group with a view to exhibiting some of this work as part of the "Enough Violence" show.

The "Enough Violence" show is going to be phenomenal: during my time in Pittsburgh, I was lucky enough to meet with Rolf and Marta Loeber, the academics from the Unversity of Pittsburgh who came up with the original idea for the show. Their own research is based around a long-term longitudinal study of inner-city young people, starting in 1987. They discovered that of 4000 people in the study, 6% of them had either been murdered or had been convicted of murder, horrific numbers by any standard. As supporters of the arts, they decided to approach the SCC with a view to creating an exhibition tackling this difficult subject. Rolf and Marta are passionate about their subject, witty, worldly and refreshingly frank. There is no glory or pretentiousness about their aims, just an honest desire to make a difference, to make people aware of what is going on around them.

The young people in the "Artist and Kids" workshop - which I ran with able assistance from Gerry Florida and Sarah Loch-Test, to whom I am very grateful - were very different in their approaches to those in the detention centre. We started off making general "mood boxes" which reflected their own approaches to decoration and life.

Getting them to tackle the ideas around "violence" was something of a challenge and they seemed reluctant to discuss it. Most of them were either afraid of the topic or had no experience of it. We talked about it in very general ways and we discussed what they thought constituted "violence". It was fascinating to see how they changed when they realised that from seeing it on television to knowing that they were being bullied, they also had experienced this very scary idea. After this, they opened up and started to make work directly related to the brief.

My own favourite was this pair of tins, made by friends, who wanted to say that if you are positive and stick with your friends, you can beat bullying in school:

Gerry Florida and I also made some tins but I forgot to photograph mine, which is annoying as I made it so that it lights up!

Gerry's tin:

After this, it was time to prepare for my adults' class, "Secrets and Surprises".
More soon!

Shuman Detention Center and the SCC

After returning from Touchstone, it was time for a weekend in Pittsburgh followed by my work with the young people in Shuman Detention Center. The detention centre is a place for people under the age of 18 who have been charged with a crime but who have not been tried. I am not going to mince my words about this practice - which is also prevalent in the UK - and I think that there is something deeply wrong about holding people who have not been found guilty as if they were already criminals. When this practice is extended to people under 18 - children - it becomes more than simply wrong but turns into a question of morality. To treat a child who is "guilty until proven innocent" as if they were guilty by incarcerating them in a prison-like environment where they have no access to their friends, family, their own clothes, their music, their lives, is immoral. In the UK, someone held in these circumstances at least has some recompense: if guilty, they have their sentences cut by the detention time; in the US, this is not the case and the full sentence must be fulfilled. What happens in either country if the person is found innocent, I am not clear.

The first thing I would say about the Shuman Detention Center is that although it seems like a prison with locks and checks and guards and uniforms for the inmates, every single member of staff seemed to me to be completely committed to the welbeing of their charges and the respect shown in both directions was remarkable.

The children have classes as in a regular school, things like maths and history and, importantly, in art. I was brought in by my contacts at the Society for Contemporary Crafts in Pittsburgh, Sherrard Bostwick and Gerry Florida, with whom I had the pleasure of working for the two days that I was in the centre. Normally, the young people have classes throughout the day in periods of 25 minutes. It was something of an experiment to stretch this out to being two classes of four hours, with a break in the middle of each for lunch. Still, the majority of the students came back on the second day and I even had some extra students who were especially keen to come in and work.

Before I progress with talking about the work that was made, I should point out that I am forbidden - understandably - by law from mentioning the young people by name or from posting their faces online, so while I do normally credit other people with their work, I can't do that here.

Some of you may already be aware of the forthcoming exhibition at the SCC, "Enough Violence: Artists Speak Out" - I have been preparing some work for the show which I will post after it opens - and the people in the group at Shuman were invited to take part in this, making work which reflects their own experiences of violence in their own lives.

The Monday morning session started off with an introduction to me and my work and to the plan for the two days. I handed round my work for the young people to look at and handle and explore, to find out what it was that makes my own work interesting - hinges, hidden sections, narrative elements, gemstones, surprises, the fascination of identifying keys and nails in something like a neck-chain...

My plan was to get each of the people in the workshop to make a piece based on an "Altoids" mint tin. I have always had a fondness for these tins but have never really got round to making anything from them and without really thinking it through, it was exactly the right choice of project, to which they responded with enthusiasm.

Each student ended making up more than one box and I was really surprised at the way in which they tackled the issues, sometimes very obliquely, sometimes shockingly directly. Interestingly, Shuman rules forbade us from using any actual images of guns or other weapons in the work and this worked to our advantage, forcing them to think around their lives and experiences to create work which referenced violence in less obvious ways.

Above, "Mr Kdak", pendant into which you can look to see kaleidoscopic reflections of rainbows.

Above, "Jesus Was A Spaceman".

Above, "Box For My Daughter" with amulet to keep her safe.

This box was made by the person who features in the first image in this blog; the disconnect between his nostalgic feminine work and his wiry, tense persona is remarkable.

Above, "1400", a box about drug-dealing.

The person who made this box wouldn't tell anyone the significance of the number 1400.

Above, untitled - a box about being trapped.

All the boxes created and ready for the exhibition. A number more were made and taken away by the students to give to their families or friends.

I am proud to have been associated with this project. Perhaps people won't understand when I say that it was a privilege to have been able to go into the centre and work with these people but that is how I feel about it.

Tomorrow: more on the violence project, this time working with young people who were in the SCC as part of the "Artist and Kids" programme.

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Addendum

Sherrard Bostwick wrote the following article on what happened at the detention center and which she has allowed me to publish here:


In a detention center there is nowhere to go and adornment is essentially eliminated. This is why when Scottish metal art Dauvit Alexander was removing his neck wear to show it to the twelve detention inmate students, time hung with anticipation. Dauvit had just casually slipped off his heavy rings, created from nuts one might find in a dusty jar of nuts and bolts in a house lived in forever. The students eagerly examined the precious stones inlaid in the nuts. They lingered on the stones losing themselves in the color and luminosity, which was a stark contrast to the students’ dull dark blue uniforms and tan plastic slippers. Mr. Alexander was invited as a guest artist to teach at the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center in Pittsburgh, PA as part of the programming leading up to the Society for Contemporary Craft’s Enough Violence exhibition running September 2013 to March 2014. Dauvit is known for his complex and secretive fittings. These are what delayed the removal of the neck ware, and heightened the expectation. The chain is made of interconnected keys, which added to the mystery. One student asked, “What do they open?”


If the context had been a gallery with possible patrons examining the artwork, I do not think the power of the piece would have been as obvious. Distracted by to purchase or not to purchase, a patron may have not been so aware of something so marvelous happening. The neck ware fell free into Dauvit’s hands as he extended his arm to share it with the students. Here in the detention center time seems stopped because everyone is just waiting for his or her release. Dauvit’s release of the fitting unlocked the frozen time of detention for a few seconds. It made me think of seeing Cappy Counard open her Perceptions, 2011 during SCC’s Transformation 8: Contemporary Works in Jewelry and Small Metals exhibition. Each layer takes your breath away like the architecture of Hagia Sophia, which inspired the piece. Or remembering the timeless walks across cultures as Mariko Kusumoto opens her works to display the unfolding stories.


So what do these artworks open? What secrets in time? Mary Warnock argues in Imagination and Time, “To lead human life, a man must have a notion of himself as having a past and a future… it is an essential feature of imagination that it enables us to think about things that are absent, including things which no longer exist or do not yet exist. It is thus only through imagination that a man has a concept of himself as having a history which is not yet finished.” [1] So to answer the student, Dauvit’s keys open the imagination. They are the keys to time that give us hope we are not yet finished and there is more living to do.

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[1] Mary Warnock, Imagination and Time (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994), 2.