Sometimes Pittsburgh is Awesome

Posted on August 9, 2009 by ruthek

This weekend was the Pittsburgh Visionary Arts Festival. It's a great show, the brainchild of one artist with help from the Sprout Fund. Here's what the City Paper had to say about it:

A few years ago, Alberto Almarza began making a kind of art he (actually his young son) named pok.
Hand-working clay, using hand-mixed glazes and firing his creations
without electricity or gas, he crafted intriguingly primitive works
from tiny pots to evocations of human mummies. He exhibited them partly
through fellow Carnegie Mellon art student Ally Reeves' Mobile Museum
project, bringing art to neighborhoods via bicycle. It's in the spirit
of both projects that Almarza created this weekend's Pittsburgh Visionary Arts Festival.
It's a new open-air showcase for local artists in any medium — whether
self-taught or merely left-of-center — who have an unconventional
approach and a unique aesthetic. It's also for artists whom you
wouldn't just stumble across, unless you were in the habit of haunting
cutting-edge galleries. With help from the Sprout Fund, Almarza
corralled dozens of artists for a three-day stint in Schenley Plaza.
Familiar names like Mike Budai, Lowry Burgess, Vanessa German, Mr.
Imagination and Laura Jean McLaughlin are joined by such folks as Curt
Sell, whose religiously infused work is created with discarded glass
melted by focused sunlight. Other contributors include art collectives
Encyclopedia Destructica and Unicorn Mountain and noted local "outsider
art" curator Pat McArdle. There are also nightly performances by the
large-scale experimental sound collective HiTEC. Plus, you can meet the
artists at their booths, some of which will host demonstrations or
activities like "scribbler" Connie Cantor's "yoga scribbling,"
featuring actual yoga instructors wielding pencils. Even Almarza, for
his part, doesn't know everything that will happen. "I've told the
artists to surprise me with their ideas," he says. "I think a lot of
them have been keeping the information from me!" Bill O'Driscoll Noon-9 p.m. daily, Fri., Aug. 7-Sun., Aug. 9. Schenley Plaza, Oakland. Free. www.pghvisionaryartsfestival.com

I am enormously impressed with the art, and even more impressed with the fact that one person could accomplish this in Pittsburgh. I doubt there are many "Sprout Funds" in other locales. You can learn more about it here. Be sure to check out Almazara's other blogs–good stuff!

I didn't take any photos of the art, but here are a few photos from the festival.

The youngest vendor

Recycled bird–from found objects

Making art with yoga postures

Exercise can be dangerous

Posted on July 27, 2009 by ruthek

I'm not really an obsessive personality, but once in a while something will get to me. I think of these things as waking nightmares. When I lived in New Jersey and worked in upstate New York I constantly worried about being hit by a truck as I crossed the George Washington Bridge twice each day. After 9/11 when my Chicago friends asked me if I was worried about a terrorist attack I realized I was much more concerned about those trucks. Over the years I've had a number of these concerns, most of which never materialized.

When I lived in Chicago my concern was about the possibility of getting stuck in Cabrini-Green, one of those notorious housing projects unwisely built very close to the most desirable areas of the city. On New Years Day, 1985, I went to visit a friend, mistakenly sailed past the North Avenue exit of the highway, and foolishly got off at Division Street, putting me right in wrong place. I was driving a VW something; I don't remember the model, and it had an electrical problem that the dealer hadn't been able to find. Needless to say, as I got to the stop sign in the middle of the area, the car stalled. Two men came over and tried to help me–actually, one tried to help–I wasn't sure about the other. The car wouldn't start, they pushed it to the curb, I gave them whatever money I had (about $25) and left as quickly as possible. I also got rid of that car as quickly as possible.

My most recent waking nightmare is about falling: either on my face or breaking something important like a hip. Friday morning, after finishing my tutoring gig at the library, I decided I would take the bus to the Strip if it came before my usual bus. I got there, had a fish sandwich at Benkowitz, went to the Society for Contemporary Craft to see the current exhibit and continued walking to downtown Pittsburgh. It's not very far, about a mile and a half. I got to Penn Station and decided to take the bus on the East Busway, giving me about another half mile walk on the other end to get home.

The area had been newly fixed up. There was a park-like place in front of the building and the walkway leading to the bus stop was newly paved with red brick. I never saw that the pavement was uneven: my foot hit and I went flying, landing on my knees forehead and nose. My glasses cut into my forehead, my nose was broken and I've never seen so much blood except on television.

I laid there for a moment unable to move, decided I'd better do something or I'd be soaked in blood. A man passing by came over to help me. He was wonderful. I'm sure he must have had some EMT training. He helped me sit up then moved me to a shady spot. He picked up the book and jacket I was carrying and helped me take my bag off my shoulder; picked up my hearing aid, which came off when I took the bag off, and found the case for it in my purse; each time showing me and telling me exactly what he was doing. I realized how vulnerable I was and how very fortunate that he had stopped to help me. I wish I knew who he was. I'd like him to know how much I appreciate him.

Someone else called for help. The police showed up, my good samaritan left, the paramedics came. Everyone was great. The paramedics cleaned most of the blood off my arms: I looked like I had been bathing in it. They took me to the ER at Shadyside Hospital (my choice) where I was cleaned up, CT scanned, (fractured my nose), the cut was glued (not a good place for stitches) and Steve and Charna came and took me home. I look terrible–like one of those Kabuki masks you can see here, but I feel OK, even went out for dinner with the kids on Friday night. So, don't worry Carol.

Brown water in Pittsburgh

Posted on July 15, 2009 by ruthek

Last Friday morning just as I rinsed my toothbrush after finished brushing my teeth, the water coming out of the tap turned brown, along with my electric toothbrush. I don't know what was coming out of the pipes, but there was no way I was putting it into my mouth. I made the mistake of flushing the toilet, which also turned brown. I finshed dressing and prepared to go out–the water was still brown. I put the issue on hold and went to meet the Somali I'm tutoring. We meet at the library. I spoke to two librarians to find out whom I should bitch to. To my great surprise neither seemed troubled by the idea of brown water coming out of the tap. Before I returned home I bought bottled water, which I don't like to use, but I don't know what else to do. I sent an email to the water company and got one of those automated emails telling me they would reply in one to three business days. Time's up.

This is not the first time it's happened. The first night we lived in Pittsburgh, four years ago, brown water came out of the tap. We called the water department and were assured it was OK. What does that mean. An hour ago, I went to wash my hands after I walked in: the water was brown. I decided dirty hands were better.

I don't recall ever having this happen when I lived in Chicago or New Jersey. When someone was working on the plumbing and shut off the water you got a spurt of rusty water lasting only for seconds. This is an entirely different issue. Where do I bitch next: Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Tribune Review or the EPA? Any suggestions?

The ultimate bitch

Posted on July 14, 2009 by ruthek

I found this on a street in NYC, of course. I've been feeling very bitchy–lots to complain about–this expresses it perfectly. My last night in New York really set me up. Renee went to sleep about 10:30, still jet-lagged, and never heard a thing. I got in bed about 11 listening to sirens. New York is always noisy; twenty eight floors up we still hear everything from the street. The sirens and flashing lights continued to such an extent I began to think of 9/11 and finally got out of bed to look. I saw nothing out of the ordinary except for a helicopter hovering overhead, making the flashing light. I tried to turn on the TV, but Verizon has been at work in Renee's apartment and, somehow, I didn't press the secret button combination. Left in the dark, I didn't fall asleep until the copter finally went away, about 1:30.

I'm usually a good sleeper. My last 22 years in Chicago and the subsequent 8 years in New Jersey were spent very near or, in Jersey, next to highways. None of this ever bothered me. It took a helicopter to get me really worked up.

What was it all about? You can read about it here. It involved three police officers, a woman and a pit bull. The helicopter, no doubt, was one of the media outlets. Did they really have to remain there for an hour and a half? There ought to be a law about using those things in heavily populated areas. It was much too close to my building for comfort.

My next post will be about brown water in Pittsburgh. I'm just waiting to see if the water department answers my complaint about that one.

Heart and art

Posted on May 16, 2009 by ruthek

My heart monitor was silent for more than 36 hours, making me think it was broken. It has two recording modes: I can press a button and the loop (tape?) is recorded, or it can decide it has detected something and retain the recording automatically. In the ten days I've had the thing I have pressed the button three times. It has found the need to record several times each day, with the exception of yesterday and last night. Ringing after it records is extremely annoying. The ring tends to startle me and we won't take about how I feel when it rings if I am in a class. Transmitting the signal stops the ringing, but I can't always get to a phone; using my cell phone doesn't give a good transmission. Before I go to a class I push the transmit button, but don't erase the tape. It seems to remain silent, at least for the length of time of a class, then I actually transmit when I get home. If I was trouble-shooting this as a device, I'd be very suspicious of that silence.

I don't fully understand this thing. I've talked to people in the dr's office, the techs who answer the phone and even managed to get to an engineer (or salesman) for the company. I get a slightly different story from each person I speak to. I have pretty much figured out how to live with it, but I have no idea if any useful data is coming from it.

I am now taking Osher classes at both Pitt and CMU; I'm very busy. I'm taking a drawing class, a stitching class, a class about Pre-columbian and tribal art, a mystery reading class, a class that visits private art collections and artist's studios, and tai chi, of course. I really love the stitching (embroidery) class and the visits to the art collections. Last week we went to a fabulous private home with an interesting collection of contemporary art along with a huge collection of Palissy ceramics. This is certainly a way to get into places I might not otherwise see here in Pittsburgh.

Walking around

Posted on May 4, 2009 by ruthek

I saw the last two
runners in the Pittsburgh Marathon at 11:30 this morning. They were
walking separately, each with an ambulance, a police vehicle and a
truck or two achingly, slowly, riding behind. I intended to get out
early to see the front runners, running just a block away.
But I forgot all about it until I heard the winners announced on the
news. I can't imagine walking a marathon, let alone running, so I
really admired those last two women. I was walking one mile to meet
Robin over at the Center for the Arts. I almost never walk on Penn
Avenue near my apartment—too much traffic. The street was
blocked off this morning; I took the opportunity to walk the two
blocks I never see.

There always seems to
be something strange or interesting or wonderful as I walk in
different areas. This was just inside a gate in a high fence. Since I never walk on that block I don't know whether the gate is always open or this was special for the marathon.

When I walk to class
this tree appears just as I round a corner. It's a flowering crab
with wonderful pruning. I've been looking at it for weeks now
thinking I ought to take its picture when it was full of blossoms.
Somehow I actually like this better.

This is one of those awful public housing projects that were built in the early days of urban renewal. They are getting ready to implode it; you can see where some of the facade has been removed. I wish I knew when they were going to do it. I'd like to be there to watch. This is on my way to Whole Foods and other good places and will be replaced by a Target.

UPMC, my medigap insurer, sponsors zoo walks twice a month during spring and summer. You can get in at 8:00, well before the crowds come. I love walking in these kinds of public spaces when they are empty.

The queen of beasts, lounging around while the king loudly announces his presence. Another male, housed separately, answers him, like an echo.

Mama is getting a shower while baby tries to steal the treats given to Mama as a reward. Baby did not want to participate in the shower.

The guy with the burlap bag was carrying it around just like Linus with his blanket.

Wild turkey in the children's zoo. There are lots of wild turkeys around Pittsburgh but I've never seen one strutting quite like this.

Sunday walk

Posted on April 19, 2009 by ruthek

Sunshine of the early morning rapidly moved into the gray tunnel of Pittsburgh’s usual sky. The sun lured me out of the house; walking was easier under the gray sky and I went to Phipps for the last day of the spring flower show. Pittsburgh is beautiful at this time of year. Trees are in bloom; tulips and daffodils bring blazing color to the pink and white of magnolias, Bradford pears, weeping cherries and flowering crab apples.

I don't know if this is supposed to be sculpture or a child's installation, but it really caught my fancy.

Some of the landscaping here makes wonderful use of the hillsides the houses are built on. I so much prefer this to grass. And it's very Japanese.

I was happy to sit down to lunch when I got to Phipps, resting up to be able to walk around the conservatory. It was pretty crowded but big enough that I was able to enjoy walking around.

Some of the spring flowers.

The Red Hat Society was also visiting. I love the purple boots.

This is a huge fern. The fronds uncurl just like the smaller ones.

This is a cycad, and it's huge. Supposedly something like that is inside the wrappings in this picture I took in the botanic garden in Kyoto, but I have some trouble imagining it.

Keeping busy

Posted on April 13, 2009 by ruthek

I've been tutoring a Somali refugee.
He's been in Pittsburgh four years. His spoken English is pretty
good, but he wanted help with reading. He's taking classes at a
community college, both ESL and preparation for the citizenship exam.
We have been going over a printout (from a Powerpoint) of 100
questions that might be on the exam, such things as “What are the
three branches of government?” “Who do we pledge allegiance to?”
Evidently they repeat these in class without explaining the meaning.
So we read, repeat, and I explain. I still remember the pledge of
allegiance, which irritates me. I'm sure my brain could be put to
better use. I am loyal to this country, but to a flag? That's just
nonsense.

I found a mistake in one of the
answers. “Name one of the states that borders on Canada.” They
included Pennsylvania. Unless we've ceded all of Lake Erie to Canada
there is no way PA borders it. New York is in the way. There may be
other mistakes. Some of the answers are fairly obscure, such as,
which amendment to the Constitution does what. I don't want to make a
research project out of this, that's the government's job.

This Somali family lives in an
apartment they have decorated by hanging fabrics and rugs on the
walls and fabrics from the ceilings. It's quite marvelous. Last week
when I went there everything had been removed, and it looked pretty
bad. They are preparing to move. I think they will be in a new place
when I return next week. I hope it will look as good. Maybe I can ask
to take pictures.

All in a day’s work

Posted on March 5, 2009 by ruthek

I was so tired yesterday I was in bed by nine–most unusual for me. It was a long, but interesting day. First was my pacemaker phone check. It's a simple procedure, every eight weeks, requiring the use of an old telephone, the kind with the separate handset and round ear and mouth pieces that get placed on receptacles in a box to which both of my hands are tethered by bracelets that look like expansion watchbands and I'm supposed to move things around and sit and relax. I have yet to find a good place to plug in the phone and put both phone and box at a comfortable height where I can sit and relax. The whole thing becomes an exercise in clumsiness with lots of tension on my part, but it all seems to work.

After I finished this and completed my usual morning activities, breakfast and blogs, I got on the bus and went to tai chi. While there is no aerobic exercise in this class, my legs get a big workout and ache afterward. Then back on the bus for a ride downtown. I've been offering to work in so many places someone finally wanted me. I went to Oasis, another group providing educational activities for older people, which meets at Macy's, which used to be Kaufmann's.

I must confess I had never been inside the store, which was originally one of the largest department stores in the country. I've been reading about it in Franklin Toker's book, Fallingwater Rising, a wonderful book about how Fallingwater was built and about the Kaufmanns who built it, so this was an opportunity to look at the store, although I am sure it no longer resembles the place Edgar Kaufmann built. Oasis, being on the tenth floor, gave me the opportunity to ride the escalators and get some idea of what was for sale. After meeting some of the people at Oasis and getting a tour of the facility I went to lunch.

My volunteer stint, helping out in a computer class, began at 1 pm. There were six people in the class including one who is about to celebrate her hundredth birthday, or maybe it was her hundred and first. She was a writer and wanted to continue writing. She had published her autobiography, a formidable book, and had a lot more to say. The word processor she had been using no longer worked so now she needed a computer. I was to be her tutor. I tried to keep her following the class work, but it was very difficult; she never really mastered the basics, like moving the mouse and using the buttons.

Truthfully, there is a lot of things about a computer you don't need to know if you just want to write. She really only needs to know how to turn it on, get to Word or whatever, open a document, save, turn it all off, with cut, copy and paste thrown in for good measure. But that lady is so smart she wanted to know about back ups. Bravo to her. She doesn't have a computer, yet. I promised to give her my phone number when I come back next week and help her get started when she got a computer.

By the end of the class I was pretty tired. I guess I have to figure out a way to sit while I'm teaching. I took the bus home, had a cup of tea and went out again. I have tiny black ants infesting my kitchen. I went to buy borax, which is supposed to kill them, then went over to Whole Foods for a few other things. By the time I finished dinner there wasn't enough of me left to finish the day and I have to go spread the borax now.

Classes

Posted on February 24, 2009 by ruthek

I was really looking forward to my class on Fabric Collage at the Center for the Arts, in spite of having to drive out to Monroeville to Joann's to get some of the required supplies. I don't like going to Monroeville, which seems to be a collection of shopping malls, because I'm never sure where anything is. I looked up the Joann store online: the map showed the store straddling the highway, leaving me no wiser as to where it was. They gave an address, of course, but have you ever found any numbers on mall stores? After cursing a lot I finally found the store and bought my two items. Last night I got a call that the class was canceled. I was tempted to wait until today and obviously should have. Sometimes procrastination pays.

I've been taking a class on growing plants indoors, sponsored by the Phipps Botanical Garden. I'm really enjoying it. We were given an orchid as part of our instruction; mine is doing fabulously. All of the buds have opened and it looks wonderful. I'm being very careful about watering it and making sure it has high humidity. I don't know what will happen to it the next time I go away.

My other two plants only need water every 10 days to two weeks. That's always been one of my requirements for plants, the other being low light. Only my first house, many, many years ago, had good light for growing plants. I hated the house and nothing grew there. Maybe my feelings were spilling over and poisoning them.

I'm only taking one Osher class this term: tai chi, but I've been going to all the special, one-time lectures. Next term I will take a class called, How Numbers Work. I think it's geared for math phobes like me.

100 Books Before I Die

Ruthe Karlin

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