Millvale’s (unofficial) micro gallery, one of many opportunities to see outside art … if you get there at the right time
Off and on, for the last several years, one of the region’s most secretive art galleries has hidden in plain sight … you just have to know where to look, and get lucky when you do your looking.
Across two faces of an ever-under-construction house in Millvale is a rotating gallery of both discarded / repurposed / found artwork and original, site-specific pieces attached directly to the exterior plywood of the would-be home. It’d be an odd thing to come across anywhere, but here on this side of a side street, up the hill from down, on an out-of-the-way dead-end seems particularly unlikely.
Flowers and Tyvek, Millvale micro gallery
That phrase, lucky when you do your looking, is so apropos to the pursuit of Outside Art that I think we’ll use it for our title here. How else to describe the ephemeral experience of a chance encounter with art left out—out on the sidewalk, on the front porch, attached to a fence or telephone pole—that may no longer exist by the time you reach the end of the block?
In some cases, outside art is anchored on private property—it’s there for the long haul—but even this, we know, is temporary. The house will sell, residents will move along, time and tide will do their worst to anything left out in our all-four-seasons-will-get-you climate.
For so many others, public display time is measured in days, if not minutes, as any passer-by may take a swipe at the work, or toss it in the bin. So, like so much in life, enjoy it now while you still have the chance.
Outside art garage, Garfield
The hands of aquatic life, Polish Hill
Vegetable tributes, Lawrenceville
Thi$ i$ America, Garfield
Tall building, Garfield
Aboriginal patterns (?) by Jorgé, Upper Hill
Birdhouses, Garfield
The psychedelic triangle! Garfield
Wall/flower, Wilkinsburg
Poles and Fences
No violins no crying no crying, Bloomfield
Big Eyes x2, Lawrenceville
Big eye twins, Lawrenceville
Blow me up!! (But start with your cell phone), North Oakland
You’d be happy too if you had love in your heart and paint in your hair. Outside art on Mt. Oliver
Relaxing in the sun is a curious figure. Large enough to be an elementary-aged child, the wooden man has a goofy grin, bespectacled eyes, and a red nose. “Dressed” in a patchwork of crazy patterns and colors, he’s very much in tune with the paint-splattered retaining wall he rests upon.
As decoration or mascot for Johno’s Art Studio, Mt. Oliver, the little fellow could be considered anything from advertising shill (if you’re that cynical) to neighborhood character—at least, hopefully people look forward to seeing the little guy as they crest the hilltop. Regardless, he’s an objet d’art that Johno put out for all to see and enjoy.
Life advice from P. Miller, Strip District
The art is public, but it’s not public art. It’s on private property—presumably sponsored by the land-owner—but very purposefully there for everyone to see. While the placement is external to a private residence (or business, like Johno’s), this isn’t what people mean when they talk about outsider art.
Outside Art, the term coined by The Portland Orbit, exists in the liminal space between these worlds as a sort-of aesthetic alternative to flag-waving and yard sign messaging. Sure, you could have a perfect green blanket with a killer array of azaleas, but what if you own a six-foot abstract statue with a human head and hand holding a golden bird? Put it out front, man—let the world enjoy that marvelous creation!
The head’s doing all right, but the body could use some work, Reserve Township
Triple-header, Polish Hill
Red rooster, Polish Hill
Fingers crossed, Uptown
Still life with horse and aquarium cottage, Lawrenceville
Welcome to Frogtown
The psychedelic lizard of Frogtown, Stanton Heights
John Lee is back with artist Rachel McFarlane Davis in a new two-person show at Unsmoke Systems in Braddock this Saturday.
On a big open wall in a former Catholic school in Braddock hangs the largest painting artist John Lee has ever completed. Across its twelve foot span, an array of dancing figures—heads from all over the animal kingdom; bodies straight off American Bandstand—dance, twist, and turn in wild abandon. The painting still doesn’t have a title, but when it does it’ll have something to do with dead oceans and/or Bob Dylan.
“People of the Sky and Earth” by John Lee
“I just really like making art,” Lee says in an understatement we’ll not dispute, “If I really love something, I want to do it some more—I don’t feel in control of the process.”
When last we left The Cardboard Caravaggio™, he was long on paintings and short on gallerists willing to host them. The Honor System Art Gallery he set up on a condemned storefront is Garfield is long since gone—the building itself was razed not long after—paintings distributed throughout Hazelwood disappeared just as quickly.
You are invited! “Sorry for the Advertisement,” John Lee’s entry to Art All Night this year
This Saturday, though, Pittsburgh will have only its second chance to see John Lee’s work in a gallery setting. This time he’ll have a little more room to spread out than he did at The Silver Apple.
So much room, in fact, that the show is a double-bill with Columbus artist Rachel McFarlane David, an old friend and collaborator of Lee’s. David’s lovely detailed drawings and folk art-inspired wood-carvings will share wall space with Lee’s loose-limbed disco-dancing and yoga-flexing bird people and plaid-skinned omni-eyed “everyman.”
drawing by Rachel McFarlane David
More Heat Than Light, the name for the combined show, came with a backstory way deeper than your author had anticipated. There’s a Shakespeare reference, something dealing with a hit YA author’s marketing theory, and the history of electrical illumination. That preamble lead to art’s natural frustration between balancing light (presumably, all the good parts) with heat (the effort it took to get there) … at least, I think that’s where we got to.
“Running Tangled Everyman” by John Lee
However we arrived, the combined show is a two-great-tastes affair for sure. The contrast between David’s precision and Lee’s let-it-all-hang-out maximalism won’t be lost on anyone. You’ll have to get in nose-to-the-glass close to see the detail in David’s penstrokes and pyrography (wood burning with a stylus); Lee’s figures will read from Kennywood.
wooden bird by Rachel McFarlane David
“I thoroughly enjoy John’s work and mindset,” David says, “We think differently and we work differently, but there’s a commonality in the work.”
Both artists are frequent users of recycled and repurposed materials, for one, and they both love color. John Lee’s affection for cardboard is hard to miss, but David’s work on wood is much more stealthy. The source material comes from discarded cookware and furniture, wood scraps and curbside pickups from neighborhood walks. Some of the artworks’ former lives are obvious—there are a couple cutting boards that still look like cutting boards. Others require a peek at the back for a hint at the wood’s source.
a well cut cutting board, Rachel McFarlane David
More Heat Than Light happens this Saturday, May 11, 6-9pm, at Unsmoke Systems: 1137 Braddock Ave, Braddock, PA.
“Blue And White Pottery Birdman” by John Lee
birds/feet, collaboration between both artists
flowers mini, drawing by Rachel McFarlane David
Keep your fingers crossed. John Lee amongst friends.
Holy Mother of Jesus! Big Catholic, Ciudad de México-style
I know, I know … I know. Wrong holiday, dude! Christmas was three months ago—this one’s supposed to be about Jesus!
Believe me: in just a ten-day survey, there were Jesuses, crucifixes, arrows, death beds, and blood aplenty. Dyed eggs and bunnies? Notsomuch. If your author had properly thought ahead, maybe he’d have been able to put together a legit Easter sud de la frontera post, but this Easter—at least, here at The Orbit—you’re stuck with Mary.
Crying time again. Crystalized teardrops Mary, San Miguel de Allende
But with Mary—Mary!—we can’t keep away! Pittsburgh loves Mary, but compared to central Mexico, she may as well be Roger Staubach. Mary is ev-ery-where: Painted on the stucco walls of hillside homes and carved into public statuary. She’s mass-replicated on keychains and tchotchkes, trucker caps and shot glasses. And the churches—holy heck! The churches make our over-the-top look under-the-radar. Mary on high with cherubs and well-wishers; Mary chilling in her clamshell crib, decked-out in a crown-like halo and office-to-the-club goldleaf onepiece.
It’s Easter—who’s got time for this blathering when we’ve got teeth to rot and guilt to lay down? Have a nice Sunday, whether you observe the holiday or not. Remember: it’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.
Mary de la escaleras, Guanajuato
Flying cherubs Mary, Guanajuato
Alley mural Mary, Guanajuato
Big Mary, little Mary, San Miguel de Allende
Only 120 pesos (about $7.25) for a good-sized Mary, Mexico City
Everything Under the Sun: Kaufmann’s, The Big Store. One of many ghost signs for home goods. Tarentum
Everything under the sun! Everything for everybody! Everything to wear!
Believe it or not, The Internet didn’t invent superlatives, big promises, and in-your-face advertising. No, it just ceased to make them mean anything.
We’re back with our second catch-all review of the ghost signs cleaned out of the attic. This time: house goods—department stores, clothing, furniture, hardware—you get the idea.
Kaufmann’s, Homestead
Ike ? Clothing, Ford City
Sack’s Dept. Store, Burgettstown
Brooks Department Store, Monessen
Israel Simon Bargain Store, Southside
Gusky’s #1, Lawrenceville
Gusky’s #2, Lawrenceville
Stern’s, Monessen
Shenkan’s, Tarentum
Housermann Furniture, Wheeling, WV
Goorin & Harris, Furniture and Appliances, Rochester, PA
A painted ghost sign for Tom Tucker “That dirty mother … lover” Southern-style Mint Ginger Ale, probably from the 1950s-60s, faded and worn but still holding on. Brighton Road, Perry South.
Blocked by a freestanding billboard for decades, the advertisement for Tom Tucker Southern-style Mint Ginger Ale may as well have been unearthed by archaeologists when it arrived out-of-the-blue a few years ago.
A person can still purchase Tom Tucker, but it won’t come in a 32-ounce green glass bottle anymore. Looking every bit the champagne of Southern-style mint ginger ales it is, the big bottle was painted directly onto a two-story brick wall of a row house along Brighton Road probably 60 or 70 years ago.
A solid investment. Coca-Cola ad still working today, Tarentum
Ghost signs, though—the original “ghosts”! Advertising, from a time before billboards were as ubiquitous as they are now, was created by sign painters directly on the brick walls of buildings in prominent places. We’re lucky so many of them survive and—for the companies that persist, at least—one has to believe it was a solid investment to pay for one wall in 1960 and still have it working for them today.
We’ve got so many ghost sign photos in the backlog that we’re going to break up the collection into some themes. This week: food & drink edition. We’ll get to the other stuff soon.
Soda-Pop … and other beverages
(unknown) giant pop bottles with a family rightfully in awe, Uptown
Coca-Cola, Sharpsburg
Duquesne Pharmacy / Coca-Cola, Duquesne
Kempler’s Deli Market / Squirt, Weirton, WV
Royal Crown Cola, Duquesne
Snee Bros. Dairy, Clairton
Cold Beer, Monongahela [1]
Cut Rate Liquor Store, Cumberland, MD
(unknown) Whiskey, Ambridge
Junk Food Junkies
Yetter’s Chocolates, et al. Millvale
Clark Bar, Hill District [2]
DeMiller’s Potato Chips, Larimer [3]
Flour Power
Bill’s Bakery, East Vandergrift
Henry Wer(?)’s Wholesale Liquor / Gold Medal Flour, Carrick
Gold Medal Flour, McKees Rocks
(unknown—LaPollo?) Grocer / Mother’s Best Flour, Lawrenceville
Kuhn’s Quality Foods, Perry Hilltop [4]
Kellar’s Groceries and Meats / Mail Pouch Tobacco, Lyndora
Mowad’s Mill City Inn, Lebanese Foods …, Aliquippa
E. Sterling Groceries / “The Real Kind,” Sharpsburg
Fiore’s Home Dressed Meats, Larimer [5]
(unknown) meats, Lawrenceville
W. Boehm Co. Grocer, Bloomfield [6]
Notes:
[1] Cox Distributing still sells cold beer from this location, but the style of sign painting and subsequent meter placement suggest this may be from an older business.
[2] While this Clark Bar ghost sign looks like some holy grail of the genre, Orbit readers informed us it was created for the film Fences which filmed in the Hill District in 2016.
[3] No, you can’t read the name DeMiller’s in this sign, but somehow astute Orbit reader Maggie Ess identified the building as home to the Keystone Potato Chip Co., 6635 Kelly Street, maker of DeMiller’s chips.
[4] Kuhn’s Quality Foods is still very much a going concern with eight stores in the region, but this brick building on Perrysville Ave. no longer hosts one of them.
Wu-Shuryu-Do The Flowing Way / Strike Force Karate Academy, Mt. Washington
Your author won’t pretend to know what Wu-Shuryu-Do—The Flowing Way is, but it sure sounds cool. That said, a picture is worth a thousand words and what we don’t know by name, we sure get with the accompanying artwork.
The scene: two buff fighters are flexing and straining in combat. On the right is a warrior dressed like so many kung fu movie villains—shirtless, but with arm braces, wearing tight black trousers with the legs wrapped in some type of binding fabric. A thick red sash is worn about the waist with the end dangling for jaunty effect.
Wu-Shuryu-Do The Flowing Way, Mt. Washington
His foe is literally flying through the air with a leg extended in a kick that could surely split stone. This one didn’t skimp on the wardrobe on the way to the fight, though. He’s in a Tom Jones-style combat singlet accented with a necklace of oversized beads or baubles. A decorative toque literally tops the outfit in a style that would look equally smart on the ski slopes or the runway.
And can we say, what a location for mano a mano! We hope these guys can pause for a minute between bone-crackings to take in the view. Right behind their sweaty hindsides lies a breathtaking waterfall pooling into a misty river running between rocky peaks and twisting trees. If you’re looking for an Instaworthy place to have your neck snapped, The Flowing Way has got the place.
Wu-Shuryu-Do The Flowing Way, (since replaced) Mt. Washington
Not all martial academies (are these dojos?) are as invested in the arts as Wu-Shuryu-Do. The Mt. Washington storefront studio has extended the custom window art to other panes of its Southern Ave. location.
Enough of them are, though, that original art decorating—and dramatizing—karate schools and Tang Soo Do meeting spots is a legitimate thing. Sure, it’s a little bit frightening and you’ve going to need expert timing, but we hope the trend continues as long as the river flows and the grasshopper learns from the cobra.
unknown, Wilkinsburg
unknown, Wilkinsburg
Nam’s Korean Karate School, Mt. Lebanon
Nam’s Korean Karate School, Mt. Lebanon
World Tang Soo Do Assoc., Tyrone
Aikido of Pittsburgh, Etna
Battleground Training Center, where “iron sharpens iron.” Vandergrift
South Side Flamingo Sentries standing at googly-eyed guard, Wrights Way, South Side
Flo Flamingo has gone missing. Flavius Flamingo had nothing to do with it. Don’t worry, the South Side Sentries have it all under control.
Often the most vibrant and interesting public art exists undetected by the established art world or wider community. Instead, this is public art known and loved by a few neighbors and makers participating in its magic and upkeep.
“I didn’t know I was yarn bombing.” On Wrights Way, utility poles, street signs, downspouts, and at least one gas meter have gotten dressed-up.
You, Orbit Reader, have visited many of these places virtually with us—semi-hidden treasures like Pittsburgh’s Central Park and Remly Way. These special places aren’t exactly a secret, but they’re neither tourist destination nor commissioned public art.
Instead, these are environments created by dreamers who took the initiative to physically manifest their imaginations and insert them directly into their communities. Moving past the cultural gatekeepers, these artists forged ahead with their vision. These are art installations seeking community input, changing and evolving with the neighborhood around them.
My face is down here. Delli Speers’ art/planter/sweater (summer, 2022)
Such a place is Delli Speers’ Fiber Art Fence on the South Side. Located along Wrights Way, a residential alley not far from the South Side Carnegie Library, this 80-foot-long chain link fence lies between a UPMC parking lot and a quiet row of 19th century brick row houses. Speers, a fiber artist who recently turned 87, has been yarn bombing this fence since 2007.
The fence is bedecked with all manner of fiber artifacts, many knitted by Speers, her neighbors, friends, and family members. A giant pink knitted face with yellow hair looks questioningly at the viewer, eyebrows raised. Knitted flowers in reds, oranges, and yellows dot the fence, as do large kaleidoscopic hula hoops from fiber artist Cheryl Hopper.
Hopper hoop. Crocheted hula hoop by Cheryl Hopper
Speers, who lives across the street from the fence, asked Goodwill, her previous neighbor, to replace the old one some 15 years ago. “It was broken down and rusty and I had two little granddaughters and I was concerned it would fall and hurt them,” said Speers. “So I wrote a letter to the president of Goodwill asking them to build a new fence. I told them I would maintain the fence and the grounds in front of it.”
Eighteen months later, a new fence was built and Speers got to work. After asking Goodwill permission to hang art, she began with knitted plant hangers, fastened to the fence with zip ties. Soon, a set of family afghans were hung on the fence, musty from years of mothballs. These were first installed to air out, but left up as a kind of experiment to see what time and the elements would do to them. In fact, this environmental impact is what interests Speers the most about her outdoor art venture.
Blue and gold tribute to Ukraine by Judy Manion.
“For me it’s a process,” she says. “I’m really not as interested in the objects themselves, I want to see what the weather does to them, what the sun does to certain colors [of acrylic yarn]. The paddy green becomes a beautiful teal green, sometimes the pink turns into an orange.”
Speers, a longtime artist and weaver who attended art school at Pratt Institute in 1950s Brooklyn, encouraged other artist friends to take part. Pittsburgh-based fiber artists Donna Kearns, Judy Manion, and Cheryl Hopper have all contributed knitted and crocheted artwork to the fence over the years. All are members of the Fiber Arts Guild of Pittsburgh, which Speers connected with in 2012, after attending a knitting workshop at Contemporary Craft.
Knitted tree by Delli Speers
“I didn’t know I was yarn bombing,” says Speers, but she soon met artist Amanda Gross who organized the Guild’s impressive Knit the Bridge installation in downtown Pittsburgh in 2013. “When she found out about my fence, Amanda told me ‘you’re a yarn bomber.’ I had never heard the term.”
Speers describes a fence collaboration she did with artist friend Judy Manion of a giant knitted American flag. Manion created the flag with falling bars and stars in response to 9/11 and installed it on the fence in 2014. “The wind, the rain, and temperature changes started to do funny things to the flag, so I took it off and laid it on the deck and rearranged it.” The deteriorated and rearranged flag was entered into a juried art show. Speers then returned the flag to the fence, letting it decompose further. This later iteration was also exhibited professionally.
American flag in three stages. The original, as created by Judy Manion (left) along with two more weathered versions rearranged by Speers and used in subsequent exhibitions. [photos courtesy of Delli Speers]
One of the major themes of the fiber fence is Speers’ sense of playfulness and humor, the sheer fun she has with this project. Fixtures of the fence have been Flo and Flavius Flamingo, two plastic pink flamingos that Speers knits outfits for, changing them with the seasons.
At one point Flo Flamingo was stolen, taken from the fence. Speers responded with a wry visual message. A coffin and knitted skeleton hand was tacked to the fence with the message Rest in Peace, Flo Flamingo, 2023. Someone Stole Her! A month later, Flo was back with the message Thank you for returning Flo! Now, a row of pod-shaped creatures with black hats and googly eyes stand guard over the flamingos. Above them a sign reads Presenting South Side Flamingo Sentries. Speers has expanded her reach to festoon the telephone poles and gas meters with whimsical knitted snakes and other creatures.
Delli Speers with Flo and Flavius Flamingo and the South Side Flamingo Sentries
Speers welcomes contributions to the fence from others, especially from fiber artists and neighbors, but prefers people to reach out to her first. “I’m all for it,” she says, “I’m willing to take my stuff down” [to make room for new art]. “I have a lot of tchotchkes up there but mainly to fill up the fence and make it colorful. People like to walk their dogs down the street.”
There is no wrong way to see Wrights Way. It is a constantly evolving environment of beautiful, fun, and wacky invention—some of it bright and new; some of it experiencing the passage of time with all the sun-bleached, rain-soaked, and ice-cracked weathering Pittsburgh’s seasons will throw at it. Visit soon, visit later, while the sun is shining and when there’s snow on the ground—you’ll be glad you did.
Getting there: Delli Speers fiber fence is on Wrights Way, between 24th and 25th Streets, on the South Side. You can visit any time and if you’re looking for an excuse, the fence will be featured for the Doors Open event in the South Side on September 23.
The American Flag. It with all its symbolism and implication, patriotism and zealotry. It’s our flag—whether we choose to wave it or not—and it means radically different things to different people. We are all Americans here, sure, but it doesn’t feel that way to everyone.
Today, Independence Day, is that most flag-wavingest, reddest, whitest, and bluest day of the year. Flags and flag-colored things will be aplenty, jutting from front porches, staked into grassy yards, aggressively paraded in pickup truck beds, and decorating everything from courthouses and baseball games to cakes and cookouts.
Ft. Ashby, WV
This year, we made a movie! In addition to our annual roundup of interesting flags found in the wild, your author asked long-time friend and collaborator David Craig, he of the Portland Orbit, to write a poem about the flag. The result, “This Flag,” was recited by its author, put to music by yours truly, and turned into a rock-poetry video featuring flags in many forms, fluttering in the wind and otherwise.
“This Flag” by David Craig and Willard Simmons
Happy Independence Day, y’all.
The best fence is a good fence … on a fence, Lawrenceville
… and the gnomes of the free, Bloomfield
“To The” Army, Navy, Marines, Coastguard, Air Force. Lawrenceville
Pittsburgh Orbit 