Tag Archives: Pittsburgh

Women’s Studio Workshop

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Located within a small group of houses next to the Wallkill rail trail in Ulster County New York, these two buildings house printmaking, paper making and ceramic studios. I have been working in the bindery and will also be in the printing studio when we work on the cover of my book. I am living in a house just down the road.

In the nineteenth century this area produced Rosendale cement, which was used in such famous landmarks as the Brooklyn Bridge. Today the quarries are evidently covered in water and all that remains is a chimney, kilns and a few other stone ruins.

I have been walking on the Wallkill Trail, much different experience than my daily walks in Pittsburgh during the covid lockdown and my recent walks in my new neighborhood in Chicago.

Another month gone by

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The older I get, the faster the time goes and the less I accomplish. I seem to be stuck in picture selection mode. Bill was here yesterday and put up three pictures and 2 pieces of sculpture (wall-hung types). I am now contemplating placement of five largish photos. Three of them were hung in my last apartment. The other two will have to be framed. Having been a photographer for many years, I have lots of framed photos in different sizes. So, unframe two and reframe two others. Then measure and make tiny x’s on the walls where Bill will drill holes.

I spent a lot of time this week being annoyed about the next building over from my bedroom windows. This building belongs to a large Catholic girls’ high school, mostly housed in a newer building. The building near me is old; my apartment’s previous owner mentioned something about it possibly being torn down. I became aware of work being done there when they started making noise late one afternoon. There are three dumpsters and men were throwing things out of windows and into the dumpsters. It struck me as strange. Usually trash is guided into the dumpsters using tubes coming from the windows. I didn’t give it much thought until the next day when I walked past the building. I looked for a work permit and found none, but I found a sign warning about danger from asbestos. I am not happy about this activity. I think it is being done without proper supervision. I suspect the workmen are in some jeopardy, and possibly I am also. I thought about making someone aware of the potential problems and I will think about it again next week if the work resumes.

I have cable TV here–no choice, it’s a comes-with. I must have close to 100 channels, but strangely enough I find myself watching, if at all, the same stuff I watched when I didn’t have cable. Neither public TV or ABC were available to me without cable, but I don’t think I missed much. Haven’t found anything yet that I want to see. I do watch CNN and MSNBC. I suppose I should be happy with that.

I haven’t been taking any of those very long walks, but I walk at least a mile most days to go to classes either at Pitt or CMU.  This is a great location right in the middle.

The book is finished

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although I plan to do it again. I still want better card stock and better craftsmanship. Here's the book, closed.

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The closure, on the left, is fragile, even worse than I anticipated, so I want to figure out another way to do it.

Back view:

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That's the Allegheny River at the back end of the tunnel. Here is the wrapper opened.

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The same closure works this way, also, finishing the back of the book when it is open. A view from above:

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Photographing this thing is a nightmare. I no longer have proper backdrops or the lighting. Here is the front of the open book with the wrapper loosely encircling it.

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With the two flaps opened you can look into the book. Here you can see four or five of the ten pages.

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Unlike some of the commercial tunnel books much of this one has to be seen from above and as with many other books, each page, or group of pages, has to be seen serially. A few more pictures:

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Here is why I want to do it again. Each of the pages should be flat, no curves, with sharp creases and no gaps. 
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Picture taking in Pittsburgh

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I've been admiring these trees at CMU for awhile, but never thought to look closely at them until I saw a student taking this picture. Of course, I had to stop and look, even with the rain and darkness.

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Sometimes Pittsburgh is just as beautiful as a garden in Japan.

Looking in the other direction there is a huge construction project to fix the sculpture, Walking to the Sky, which had evidently been threatening to take off. I missed a wonderful picture (another image for my museum of pictures I wish I had taken) last Thursday with all of these cranes and another machine emitting a cloud of steam. My excuse was rain. Here's one I took earlier in the week.

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Here are a few more shots from around the 'burgh, because I like their geometry or their weirdness.

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There is something surreal about that school bus. It's actually parked at the top of a parking lot, but it took me a while to figure it out.

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My second favorite place in Pittsburgh, under the convention center. I've never seen the lights on before.