Two, count ’em two shows open at the Digging Pitt Gallery in Larryville this Thursday night.

Side one features “The Year Series” by Kate Temple, an artist known for prints that possess a “quiet, contemplative quality”. It’s a large-scale print/installation project made by leaving zinc plates outside for a year, each one buried in a location significant to it’s theme – the sky/constellation plate was created from a plate set up on a hill facing the sky, the spring/flow plate was buried near a spring, the earth/pool was a plate set face down in a vernal pool. Prints were then made from these plates, their patterns etched by time and nature. Each series is then displayed according to it’s nature – the earth/pool series, for instance, will be installed low on a flat platform, and is meant to be viewed from above.

Side Two is a reunion of sorts, as “Pittsburgh Alumni: Twenty Artists from Beyond the Rivers” opens with work from artists who have made their home here in the past and then moved on. Curator John Morris(*) started his search last year for these gifted artists who have spent some of their time here, and the flat files at the Digging Pitt Gallery serve as an archive, allowing this show of work as diverse as the artists current locales. Artists featured in this show include Paul Brainard, Linn Meyers, Richard Purdy, Jim Pustorino and Jill Scipione.

The opening reception runs from 6-9 p.m. at the Digging Pitt Gallery, 4417 Butler St., Larryville. If you can’t make the opening, no worries – the exhibits both run until November 4th.

(* Personal favorite John Morris quote: “Pittsburgh is no longer covered in black filth. She sits like a beautiful woman whose husband ignores her to look at pictures of Anna Nicole Smith.”

Note to self: Buy that guy a beer if you get the chance. That’s a good line.)