Braddock Journey

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

On December 5th & 6th Obscurae will premier with one-of-a-kind framed photographs of Braddock’s details—showcased and given away in Braddock. I’ve had the immense pleasure of working on this show with Jodi Morrison and Ryan Brubaker, and I’m so excited about the event itself that I keep forgetting to post about it here!

We have more than 100 donated and framed photographs of Braddock from over 25 photographers that ticket holders (you!) will win and take home at the Obscurae art photography lottery. Works are mounted and framed with found-materials from the community—I’ll post sneak previews of some of the frames later this week—there are some amazing reclaimed materials being used!

Now for the details:

A $45 ticket guarantees you take home one of these framed art photographs in addition to enjoying the show, fresh-baked pizza by Josh Tonies from the wood-fired community oven, drinks, Merissa Lombardo’s photo booth installation and more!

Public viewing of the work, open to all and free of charge, begins Friday from 7 – 11pm and continues Saturday at 2pm; the art lottery is at 4pm Saturday. All pieces are stunning to display or give as a gift this holiday season.

Change is underway in Braddock: It is with this spirit that our photo show Obscurae views the maligned town – turning a photographic eye towards the borough’s oft-overlooked beauty amidst the former grandeur and “urban blight” that Braddock has come to represent for many.

I would love for you to join us during the two-day photography exhibition/fundraiser on Friday, December 5 and Saturday, December 6, 2008—Benefiting Braddock Redux’s continuing revitalization efforts in this historic steel mill town.

If you aren’t local and can’t support the change in Braddock in person, we will have a follow-up online gallery that opens December 5. A special limited edition run of each image, signed and numbered by the photographer, will be available for a limited time in our online gallery. (The first of each edition will be won at the lottery!) Photographs in the online gallery will be sold as individual prints but can be paired with custom frames for an additional cost. Unfortunately, the prices on the gallery may be higher than the $45 tickets—but the good news is proceeds will benefit not only projects in Braddock but also all of the amazing photographers who took their time and energy to explore Braddock and then work with us to make this show possible!

Be a part of the change, support the movement!

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

We took a trip up to Cranberry to stay in a hotel for our anniversary. It was a nice break from the house and everything else going on here. It was on the drive out of Pittsburgh that we noticed the colors. Beautiful fall colors. The seasons didn’t really change much in Juneau—it went from summer to winter. There was a lot of rain and grayness, and that’s about it. The west coast in general and Florida don’t have seasons either. So we both stared in awe.

This shot is on Braddock Ave across from the orchard.
I love the colors of fall. I can’t wait to start planting our yard next spring.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

I’m not really sure I’m spelling it right, but Joel hosted scaraoke at Puhala’s on Halloween. Elgin and Kevin were tearing it up all night, it may have been the first karaoke night when there were arguments over who got to sing next.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Bill Daniel has an upcoming photography and video installation at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers Galleries, opening the same night as Art in the Dark at Jeb’s gallery.

Starting October 24 and running through January 10, 2009, The Great Depression will be at the Filmmaker Galleries at 477 Melwood Avenue.

The opening reception is next Friday, October 24, from 7-9:30pm with a performance on December 6 at 8pm and closing events on January 10 at 8pm.

Art In The Dark is a Halloween party at UnSmoke Systems. $3 cover gets you in for art, bands, DJs, games, and prizes. The artists are decking it out in spooky decor and costumes are expected.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Art Makes Eye Contact, a fund raising art show for the Transformazium church, was this past weekend. 

Almost everyone from Braddock headed east to Brooklyn for the event. I’ve heard some great reports on the show, and I’m really sorry to have missed it—especially Merissa and Bianca’s Braddock-themed photo booth.

I stayed here to take advantage of the rare low energy level in Braddock so that I could get some reading done for my dissertation. I finally really did get some things done. But not without distractions, after all even with everyone out of town it is still Braddock. There is always the house to work on, Lowe’s to be tormeted by, and then Melissa tempted me out for most of Saturday with the promise of scouring through items from a house that were headed for a thrift store. Now we have two boxes of kitchen things waiting (on me) to be washed and stocked in the convent. 

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Volunteers planted the orchard the day I flew out to Atlanta. 

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

A contractor in New York was arrested for scamming over $80,000 from an 88 year-old. It was the Attorney General who pressed charges, which led me to investigating information about contractors through the Pennsylvania Attorney General.

The press office put out a release with tips on choosing contractors at the start of summer. Although I can’t find a web page where I can check for legal action against contractors, the Attorney General’s Bureau of Consumer Protection (1-800-441-2555) is listed as a source as well as the Better Business Bureau. If it’s too late for that, you can file a complaint online.

One thing that I learned from the Post-Gazette article about a lawsuit and the Attorney General’s tips is that by law consumers have three days to cancel the contract, and this should be in the contract. It would have been nice to know this when my plumbing contract doubled in price the first day he was on the job and he refused my request to cancel the contract.

Here are some interesting artilces and sources for more information:

• Consumers to receive more than $93,000 resolving complaints about contractors in Allegheny, Westmoreland & Lackawanna counties
  Contractors included:
  
  • Darrell Defalco - Premier Contracting - Allegheny County
  • Marcus Geiser - Four Star General Remodeling - Allegheny County
  • Ronald Day - Ameritech Home Services - Allegheny County
• Attorney General Corbett announces lawsuits against two Pittsburgh area home improvement businesses falsely implying to be government programs
  This September the suits were filed against:
  
  • William and Karen Livorio, 116 Gatehouse Drive, Corapolis, and their business, Revitalization & Funding, Inc., of Pittsburgh.
  • Wayne Scholar, 222 Stockton Ridge Drive, Cranberry Township, Butler County, doing business as Western Pennsylvania Housing Alliance, of Cranberry Township
• How do you take the “con” out of a home improvement contract?

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Monday, September 29, 2008

This weekend Braddock will be hosting a Gist Street Reading. I’ve also heard there will be an urban hike earlier in the day, though I don’t have details on that. Below is the information on the reading:

Please come join us for a collaboration between the community of Braddock and the Gist Street Reading Series

Wood-Fired Words: Braddock, PA
Grand Opening of the Braddock Community Bread Oven and Gist Street Reading

The Unsmoke Systems Compound
1137 Braddock Ave.
Braddock, PA 15104

Directly across from the USS offices

A collaboration between the community of Braddock and the Gist Street Reading Series, Wood-Fired Words features 4 fiction writers, a poet, and a brand new Community Bread Oven.

On Saturday, October 4th (The day after Gist Street’s reading featuring Jan Beatty and Amy Knox Brown on Friday, October 3rd), Gist Street will take to the road (on Penn Avenue through Wilkinsburg to Ardmore Blvd to Braddock Avenue – Mayor John Fetterman warns to NOT take the Rankin Bridge to Braddock for this event. There is construction and Fright-Night at Kennywood.) A link to Google-map directions is at www.giststreet.org on the home page). Gist Street is hosting a reading at 1137 Braddock Ave. in the shadow of the region’s last operating steel mill, which serves to christen Braddock’s new bread oven.

John McNally, Amy Knox Brown, Sherrie Flick, and Nancy Krygowski will read for 10 minutes each. Bios follow.

It’s $2 at the door, which gets audience members literature read aloud along with free hand-made, wood-fired bread and pizzas. Doors open at 7pm; readings begin at 8pm. It’s BYOB.

Last month Gist Street hit the North Side for Writers in the Gardens; this month they hit Braddock for Wood-Fired Words.

The Wood-fired Oven was built by a North Braddock mason using over 75% salvaged and reclaimed materials. Braddock’s Community Bread Oven will be churning out free hand-made, wood-fired pizzas topped with ingredients grown organically on Braddock Farms and artisan breads crafted by Braddock’s own Josh Tonies.

This event is made possible by and special thanks to Gist Street Reading Series, Mayor John Fetterman, Joe Bonifate Masonry, and Ray Werner.

Come listen and eat.

BIOS:
John McNally is author of two novels, The Book of Ralph and America’s Report Card, and two story collections, Troublemaker and Ghosts of Chicago.  He’s also edited six anthologies, most recently Who Can Save Us Now?: Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories, co-edited with Owen King.  A finalist for the National Magazine Award, John has published short stories in over sixty magazines, including Virginia Quarterly Review, Open City, and The Sun, and he’s a frequent book reviewer for the Washington Post.  A native of Burbank, Illinois, John now lives and works in North Carolina.

Amy Knox Brown is a fourth-generation Nebraskan currently living in Winston-Salem, NC, where she is an assistant professor of creative writing and English at Salem College and director of the college’s creative writing major. Her collection of stories, Three Versions of the Truth, was published in September 2007. It was a finalist for the Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers. Amy is also the author of a poetry chapbook titled Advice from Household Gods.

Sherrie Flick is author of the award-winning flash fiction chapbook I Call This Flirting (Flume Press, 2004). Anthologies include two from Norton: New Sudden Fiction and Flash Fiction Forward. A recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant, she has had residencies at Ucross, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is co-founder and artistic director of the Gist Street Reading Series. Her novel Reconsidering Happiness will be published in Fall 2009.

Nancy Krygowski’s book of poems, Velocity, won the 2006 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press.  She’s received grants from the PA Council on the Arts and from the Pittsburgh Foundation, plus residencies at the Jentel Foundation and The Kimmel Nelson Harding Center for the Arts. She works as an adult literacy instructor and is co-founder and assistant artistic director of the Gist Street Reading Series.

This project was supported by Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts (PA Partners), the regional arts funding partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. State government funding comes through an annual appropriation by Pennsylvania’s General Assembly and from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. PA Partners is administered in Allegheny County by the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Last month I posted about the changing landscape in Braddock. No surprise—things keep moving forward!

The brick oven now has a roof and was set in motion with a pizza and bread baking evening. Today the oven is puffing away again as Josh bakes up bread and pizzas for the Post-Gazette coverage.

What I thought was going to be a sculpture garden on the lot behind the Verona bus stop was actually being made into a mosaic garden. The Post-Gazette covered Braddock’s mosaic and linked efforts to create an art community.

This weekend volunteers will be planting fruit trees on the lot at the entrance to town near the steel mill. The urban orchard will take the place of an abandoned lot, which already looks better since it has been leveled and seeded.

And down on 6th street between Talbot and Braddock the building that burnt down this past winter is being rebuilt at an impressive speed.