Category Archives: Events

Art All Night Turns 21 and Moves to the South Side

Art All Night poster from 2008

Art All Night turns 21 this year and like many Pittsburghers who turn 21, Art All Night is heading to the South Side to celebrate.  Thankfully, the Carson Street metaphor ends there.  Everything about the event is the same, except for the location.  To get to Art All Night this year, you will have to cross a river (or two depending on your route) to the South Side.  The 21st annual Art All Night will be held at the Terminal Buildings (which have been renamed The Highline, but this is a Pittsburgh blog and we prefer to give directions that would make sense to most Pittsburghers.)  Art All Night everyone is invited to submit one piece of art to be displayed in the show.

Last week, I caught up with an old friend for lunch where we reminisced about local politics, talked about Hq2 and waxed poetic about the transformation of Pittsburgh from then to now. Pittsburgh has changed a lot in the past 30 years and one of the neighborhoods that has undergone the biggest transformation is Lawrenceville. If I had to pick one event that created a ripple effect for years to come – Art All Night might be that event.  (I would love to hear your thoughts on events that had an impact on Pittsburgh! Please share in the comments below).  You can read more about the history of Art All Night here.

Everything you need to know about Art All Night

    • To attend: stop by any time between 4 pm on Saturday (April 28, 2018) and 2 pm on Sunday (April 29, 2018) – yes, this event is 22 consecutive hours of art. The entire event is free to attend.
  • Location: Terminal Buildings/Highline – 198 S. 4th Street, Pittsburgh PA 15203
  • To display your art: register online here and drop off your art between 10 am and 2 pm on Saturday, April 28, 2018.
  • Follow the Facebook event here and @ArtAllNight on Twitter here for updates.

Volunteer Here: Art All Night is looking for volunteers

This is a 100% free event.  If you would like to help make sure this event is a success sign up to volunteer here.

Volunteers are needed to help with:

  • Registration: Register artists and check in their artwork, move art to the staging area.
  • Parking and Traffic: Help control the road and pedestrian traffic by the buildings.
  • Security: Oversee event space area to ensure no accidents occur and that safety and security protocols are met.
  • Hangers: Move the artwork from the staging area to the appropriate display area and curate/hang the art.
  • Green Team: Help keep Art All Night Green! Manage the recycling and trash receptacles.
  • Art Sales Table: No sales take place, but staff the table in order to collect contact information of interested buyers so they can be given to the artist when they pick up their artwork after the show.
  • Sales Table: Assist in the selling of merchandise.
  • Volunteers: Help the volunteer captains manage incoming volunteers and ensure all volunteers receive their t-shirt upon volunteer check-in.
  • Kitchen: Collect food donations as they come in for the volunteer team, keep food area neat and clean up at the end.
  • Stage: Assist bands and performers at the stage area.
  • Take-down: Remove art from the displays at the end of the show on Sunday at 2 pm.
  • Art Pick-Up/Check-Out: Checking artists’ IDs to make sure the right person has the correct piece of art.
  • Tear-down: Take down the display panels, pack our supplies, and clean the building on Sunday afternoon.
  • Children’s Activities: Help facilitate the children’s activity areas. This includes interacting with children to get them involved in art projects.
  • Interactive Art Assistants: Aid and monitor attendees in d.i.y. art projects.
  • Artist Assistants: Help facilitate onsite artists. Duties may include moving canvases and art supplies.
  • Onsite Art Clean Up: Assist with cleaning up lots and lots of paint, washing brushes and moving canvases late Saturday night.
  • Art Auction: Help out with a live auction and enter bids into a computer system.

Advice from Art All Night: Art is everything my parents told me not to do

At the 2013 Art All Night there was a giant timeline and visitors were asked to add their Art All Night memories to the board.   While there were lots of interesting memories stuck on to the board, this post-it note jumped out at me. In case you can’t read the post-it…

  • Green Note: “Art is everything my parents told me not to do”
  • Grey Note: “SAME HERE! It’s a damned shame I listened to them.  I’m 56 now and finally I’m enjoying art + LIFE”

Read our previous posts about Art All Night here: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014. 

PublicSource Facebook Live with Chris Ivey

Facebook Live with filmmaker Chris Ivey who has been documenting East Liberty for over a decade

The East Liberty Presbyterian Church tower

The East Liberty Presbyterian Church tower (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Somewhere around 2005 or 2006 I was sitting in the Shadow Lounge a coffee shop, bar, event space that was located at the corner of Highland Avenue and Baum Boulevard. The space was most recently the Livermore and is currently undergoing an update and will be reopened by the folks who own Independent Brewing and Hidden Harbor.

I can’t remember why I was there that evening, I think it was a week night. But I remember that Chris Ivey walked in and was eager to show off some of his most recent footage he had shot in East Liberty.  I have a clear picture of sitting there in the blue room, a room painted blue with a large projector on the wall, watching this footage and feeling stunned about how much I didn’t know about this neighborhood. I had spent most of my life less than a mile away from East Liberty, but my Pittsburgh experience could not have been more different.  I think of this evening every time I hear about a screening of East of Liberty.  Looking back this is probably one of the points that where I realized that thereis an importance of storytelling and story sharing.

East Liberty is a neighborhood that has changed many times in its history. Chris Ivey has been documenting the most recent changes for his documentary film East of Liberty.

Facebook Live with Pittsburgh Filmmaker Chris Ivey

PublicSource, an investigative news website that writes stories about Pittsburgh and Western PA (I have contributed to PublicSource and continue to work with them on researching stories), will be interviewing Chris Ivey on Facebook Live on Wednesday.  If you are interested in East Liberty, neighborhoods, urban planning and how people in Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods are impacted by development, this should be an interesting discussion.

RSVP for the Facebook live here.  If you have a question you want to ask Ivey, leave a comment during the interview or send it to jeff@publicsource.org ahead of time.

PublicSource Facebook Live with Chris Ivey

Recent PublicSource stories about East Liberty

Follow PublicSource

Coming this Fall, a Transit-Tastic Event!

Are you a big sustainability nerd? Or are you looking for ways to improve transportation in your area? Well, then you’re going want to check out the Rail~Volution conference coming to Pittsburgh this fall. What’s Rail~Volution, you might ask? It’s a non-profit organization that seeks to build more livable communities with transit. You know, like what’s happening in forward-thinking cities like Pittsburgh.

The annual three-day conference, previously held in places like Denver, Portland, Dallas, Boston, and San Fran, features 80 sessions related to transit and livability. The event is for “people involved in urban planning, people who are involved in policy-making, people who are involved in advocacy related to development issues in any way shape or form,” says Breen Masciotra, Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Project Manager for the Port Authority of Allegheny County. She explains that the event will “offer education, networking, and community…. and connects you to like-minded people that you can reach out to all year; it’s like summer camp for adults.”

Rail~Volution will be held on October 21-24, with registration in June. But before then, the Rail~Volution National Steering Committee, made up of 40+ livability professionals from across the United States and Canada, is calling for conference speakers. The committee seeks presenters for the event’s workgroups on topics that include: Innovations in Mobility to Enhance Livability; Transforming Communities through Transit-Oriented; Making Transit Great Again; Shaping Transit for Community Needs; Diversity: Equitable Development, Community Engagement, Communication and Placemaking; and Rail~Volution PK Slam, powered by PechaKucha. “Everyone and anyone should submit something; we are hoping to have a strong participation from local speakers,” notes Masciotra. Proposals are being accepted now till March 22nd. To learn more, visit the Call for Speakers page on Rail~Volution’s website.

To find out more about the conference or Rail~Volution head over to RailVolution.org. Also, stay tuned to Rail~Volution’s Facebook page for details on upcoming Happy Hour events and volunteer opportunities.

 

Soup N'at Union Project

Soup N’at: Eat Soup & Support Pittsburgh Artists

[tl;dr: $10 gets you some soup from awesome Pittsburgh chefs and the $ goes to local artists.]

Soup N'at Union Project

Soup N’At is back! Great to see this event continue. Soup N’at is the Pittsburgh version of the Sunday Soup crowdfunding. Check out some of our past posts on Soup N’at here.

How does Soup N’at work?

  • Each guest donates $10 in cash at the door
  • Guests eat soup donated by Pittsburgh restaurants, usually accompanied by delicious bread
  • Local artists present their projects
  • Each guest casts a vote for their favorite project.
  • The winning project takes home all of the $ that was collected at the door.

Soup N’at – Sunday, February 25, 2018

Location: The Union Project

Time: 6-8pm

Menu:

For more information about the dinner and the artists check out the Soup N’at Facebook event here and the Soup N’at website.

What are the best local church bazaars?

Calvary Church Bazaar

One of my favorite events as a kid was attending the annual holiday bazaar at our church. While my parents shopped, I would sit in the Sunday School room crafting elaborate gingerbread houses, consuming just as much candy as I was attaching to my graham cracker abode. I have a vague memory of my dad telling me we need to leave and I was insistent that I finish my gumdrop landscaping project before my masterpiece was complete. If only I spent that much time today on the maintenance of my own home today.

The purpose of this post is three fold…

  1. To let the thrift shoppers of Pittsburgh about the church bazaar scene.  I know they are out there and very secretive about their favorite thrift shops. (I’ve tried to write a blog post about Pittsburgh thrift stores and a few people have begged me not to publish that list.)  A serious thrifter should not overlook the annual bazaar in their quest for furniture, housewares, books and in some cases, amazing vintage clothing.
  2. To remind you that the Calvary Church Bazaar is on Saturday, October 28, 2017. I know several of the volunteers and they have been hard at work to make sure this event is a success. If you have not yet been to Calvary Church, the building is worth a visit. The building was designed by architect Ralph Adams Cram and the stained glass was designed by Charles J. Connick.
  3. To ask for recommendations of other upcoming bazaars to shop this holiday season (and year round – I know that St. Aloysius Church hosts a rummage sale every month in their rummage house).

If you love thrift shopping… don’t over look the church bazaars

I have renewed interest in church bazaars and rummage sales. A few weeks ago, I received a text from a friend about some sort of fall festival in Fox Chapel. I forgot about the text until she called me from the middle of a gymnasium surrounded by vintage chairs. “You might want to come over here, it’s crazy,” she said, “they’ve just marked everything 50% off.” I was on my way home for a nap, and decided I could make a detour across the Highland Park Bridge. I was in need of a new lamp and I had a hunch that a thrift sale in Fox Chapel might lead me to something more aesthetically pleasing than a lamp from ye olde Ikea.

The Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church Harvest Fair, is much more than a fall festival. “Harvest Fair” is a bit of a misnomer for this event. It is in the fall, and it has the feel of a fair of joyous shoppers buying all kinds of things. The Harvest Fair has got to be one of the best places to buy furniture, artwork, lamps, housewares and more. It is one of the biggest church rummage sale events I have ever seen. My friend advised me to hurry, the sale ended in 30 minutes. I assumed I would be pulling into an empty parking lot and as I crossed the bridge I was questioning if I had just squandered my nap time for nothing.

I arrived there in time for the last 15 minutes of the sale. The parking lot was packed and there were plenty of people still shopping. My friend was guarding a wooden chair, she had already put the bench she had purchased in her car. I got caught up in all of the excitement of this festival too. In less than 15 minutes I bought a couch for $8 (which they delivered to my house the next day for $30) and a marble lamp for $8. Following on the heels of our success in Fox Chapel, my friend and I have made a few other church sale stops since.

Churches as event venues and community centers 

The church bazaar is a great example of how Pittsburgh is changing. The church I attended as a kid no longer has a holiday bazaar. At the same time there are many great handmade and vintage markets happening all over the city. The popup market is one of the reasons I’ve become interested in how to re-purpose old church buildings.

One of the most popular posts on this blog is the post about Pittsburgh wedding venues. One of the questions I am frequently asked is where is an affordable venue that can hold several hundred people. Many of these churches were built to serve as community centers, with have kids rooms and kitchens. To prepare and serve food to the public, you have to use a kitchen that has been certified by the Allegheny County Health Department. Many churches have an industrial kitchen that is inspected by the health department (and often under utilized).

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There have been some church reuse success stories for churches that have closed and some churches that are still active. The Union Project in Highland Park had been abandoned for years and thanks to some neighborhood volunteers it now functions as an event venue, office space and ceramics studio. East Liberty Presbyterian Church runs Hope Academy of Music and the Arts, which offers art and music lessons to kids from all over Pittsburgh at an affordable cost. I would love to see some popup restaurant events take place in local churches.

Know of other holiday bazaars or church rummage sales? Please share upcoming events in the comments below. I would love to learn about other examples of how older community buildings are being reused in Pittsburgh.

A few more events you might be interested in…