Hello, friends! I hope all is well and that everyone is staying warm and dry wherever you happen to live. It is currently gently raining here, but on the particular day I was able to visit Contemporary Craft for the gorgeous Swoon/Caledonia Curry exhibition, The Heart Lives Through the Hands, it was a lovely sunny day.
I first fell in love with Swoon’s (Caledonia Curry’s artist name) work when I started to learn more about street art as I was researching it for a project for my students. Her work as a street artist consisted of life size portrait linocut or woodblock prints that were adhered to surfaces with wheat paste (which I still have not done with my own work and am thoroughly kicking myself right now). She continues to make life size portraits that are interwoven with imagery related to plant growth, anatomy, and interconnectivity. Her work is socially conscious as her influences Kaethe Kollwitz and Honore Daumier were. As we are all interconnected with the earth and universe, so are we connected through our actions as social beings, whether as a business owner who owns several steel mills, or as a steel worker who labors in those mills and supports their family. As the beautifully printed program states, “To regenerate our communities, to preserve and regenerate our ecosystems, we need to change how we think about everything. Portraiture may seem like an unlikely place to start. But Curry’s portraits point to healing, and the need to go through what is necessary to face a future that isn’t rosy, or even guaranteed.” (Katie Peyton Hofstadter wrote the program for the exhibit.)
Pittsburgh is considered a Rust Belt city, as its population has declined since the steel industry moved abroad. One of Swoon/Curry’s pieces, Braddock Steel, was inspired by a documentary called Struggles in Steel, which focuses on African-American steel workers and the racism they experience. One of the subjects of the film, Henderson Thomas, is the subject of the piece, with his arm draped around the piping of a steel factory montage, other workers performing their job duties in vignette below him. As Hofstadter writes, the concern here is that capitalism and its devotees, do not care about the workers they exploit or the environments they leave behind when they relocate to more profitable locales. While portraiture does not solve this problem, it does humanize the issue, and provide a glimpse of the member of the team we’re on, and the people we can stand up with. And Curry does that with her community engagement through her foundation, Heliotrope.
Curry was invited to Braddock, PA, an old steel town near Pittsburgh (connected to Pittsburgh?), by then-mayor John Fetterman (now Lt. Gov, go JF!) to do something with an abandoned church that had been damaged by fire. She acquired it and, long story short, over the course of ten years, Curry’s Swoon Studio worked with art collective Transformazium, Braddock Youth Project, and Braddock Tiles to provide job skills to community youth in making tiles for the church’s roof. While the roof was never completed, the catalyst of art sparked a sense of community and relationships that were vital to the success of many of the young adults they worked with. The tiles they made are on display in the show, as well as an explanation of the project. As Curry said in an interview quoted in the program, “I take myself, my drawings, and this little bundle of creative forces that is me, and I try to make a chemical reaction with the world.” And that she did with Braddock Tiles, and the city of Braddock. Her work hangs in the local Carnegie Library and the Community Center, which I am going to try to see.
So, that’s the back story. Don’t you want to see the show? Street artist/kickass artist in general/community activator/helper? She’s doing wonderful things and her artwork is equally beautiful, all worthy of spending time with. There are 15 pieces in the show, most hung on the walls, but two towering over us all in the middle of the gallery floor. I won’t describe them because I don’t want to tell you what to expect, but my favorites were the ones that spoke energetic life and quiet joy, with touches of color acting as highlights, and biomorphic forms interacting with geometric ones. It’s definitely worth the visit to Contemporary Craft.
To visit Contemporary Craft, they are at a new location in the Upper Lawrenceville neighborhood on the corner of 57th and Butler Street. There are two differently abled parking spots in the front of the gallery, but more ample street parking is available on 57th Street by the playground. Admission is FREE, my lovelies! For COVID reasons, however, you need to reserve a timed ticket and wear a mask. Contemporary Craft has some great shows. I first discovered them when I initially moved to PA five years ago, at a show that featured artists and crafters who had been touched by mental health issues. Swoon/Curry also had a piece in that show, which was a marvelous surprise. They are a museum that focuses on bringing contemporary craft to the public, engaging the community, supporting artists, representing all the perspectives, and “filling in critical gaps in public education.” There is a lil studio space for the kiddos as well, because families welcome:) You can find out more about visiting Contemporary Craft here.
My next adventure in Pittsburgh will be virtual: Vanessa German’s one-woman show, hypersensitive, featured by the Pittsburgh Playwright Theatre Company. You may recall I was able to see Vanessa German’s artist talk when she came to speak at IUP when I was in grad school and she blew my mind. She opened with a monologue performance that was amazing, then proceed to amaze further with her talk. I cried. She is also socially conscious and spreads her message of love in her community by placing I love you signs throughout her neighborhood encouraging people not to shoot each other. I am very excited to see it, and if you would like to purchase tickets ($25) for her virtual performance, you can visit here. I am telling you, it. will. be. worth. it.
That is all my friends. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and stay safe.