PA & NY 2023: Pittsburgh - Duquesne Incline, Randyland, Heinz Field, Warhol Museum, Contemporary Crafts

 

After exploring Downtown Pittsburgh, my husband Rich and I spent a day visiting sites on the North and South shores of the Ohio River, starting with the Duquesne Incline where we took a funicular ride to the top to get a panoramic view of Pittsburgh from above. This historic funicular has been in operation since 1877 and was originally steam powered before converting to electricity in 1935.  We started the trip at the lower station on West Carson St. down by the river and rode up to the top which took us to Grandview.  It cost $2.50 USD per person round trip, but you can buy a one-way ticket for $1.25.  I can see people taking this as a short cut to get between the two funicular stations since it is a long way around by foot, taking over an hour.  Today, the Duquesne Incline carries about 482,000 passengers per year with about 75% of them being tourists like us who are riding it just for fun and for the spectacular views of the city.

The incline is 800 feet long, rising an altitude of 400 feet at a 30 degree angle.  There are two incline cars going in opposite directions with each one holding about 18-25 passengers.  Windows are available on all side of an incline car so that you can watch as it rises or descends, like a roller coaster, or look out from the sides to see the views.  The cars travel at a maximum speed around 4 miles per and takes less than 5 minutes per ride. The wooden cars are painted red on the outside and have an ornate ceiling that looks like it is made of golden copper although this might just be a decorative effect.   There is a lantern light attached to the ceiling which presumably lights up at night, since the incline cars run from early morning until past midnight.

As we climbed towards the top, we could see views of the downtown area that we had explored on our guided walking tour the day before.  We spotted row of yellow bridges including the Robert Clemento and Andy Warhol Bridges, as well as the Pittsburgh Skyline.  We recognized the distinctive architecture and gleaming glass façade of the main PPG tower as well as other skyscrapers in the area including the top of the Gulf Tower which has a weather beacon that lights up to display the weather conditions.

The upper station of the Duquesne Incline houses a small museum that provides information and exhibits about the incline’s machinery and operations.  From a platform, you can watch as the gears grind and rotate to propel the incline cars up and down the slope.  The museum also describes the history on the funicular railway.  Outside the upper station, there is a viewing platform with binoculars available for use.  It was very crowded on the platform when we first exited our incline car, because a big tour bus had just pulled up in front of the station and the occupants were flooding onto the platform.  Rather than jostling for position with the hoards, we decided to walk around the area.  By the time we returned to viewing platform, the tour bus had departed, and we could leisurely continue to admire the vista including the WWII-era submarine USS Requin on the river in front of the Carnegie Science Centre.

On our short walk, we strolled a few minutes west on Grandview Avenue to reach Points of View Park where we had the same gorgeous views without the crowds. We could see where the 3 rivers meet and far into the distant to parts of the area that we had not visited.  We also got to admire the bronze sculpture called “Points of View” created by James West in 2016 which depicts the 1770 meeting between George Washington and Seneca chief Guyasuta.  The clever title of the sculpture refers both to the meeting of minds between the two historical characters, as well as the views that we could see from this location.  The funicular ride was a fun excursion that allowed us see Pittsburgh from a whole different vantage point (or point of view .. pun intended).

Following our funicular ride, we crossed the bridge spanning the Ohio River to reach Pittsburgh North and visited several sights there, starting with a popular outdoor art museum known as “Randyland”, which is also the home of eccentric local artist Randy Gibson.  Starting in 1995, Gibson transformed his 3-storey house and the area surrounding it into a vibrant, quirky spectacle with a mixture of murals, sculptures, potted plants, outdoor furniture, found objects and signs including conflicting ones that say, “Welcome to Randyland” and “Home Sweet Home” as well as “Enter at your own risk” and “Danger, No admittance”.  There are several large cutout images of what presumably is Randy himself.

My favourite sections of this space are the ones devoted to music and dance.  Painted-over windows depict the silhouettes of a jazz band featuring a bassist, saxophone player and drummer playing musical notes that float in the air.  Large colourful cutouts of another saxophone player and a couple jiving to the to beats are found against a long fence.  On another wall is a painted map depicting “Old Allegheny City” which shows the locations of homes, buildings, parks and the Allegheny river.

Even the sidewalks surrounding this house are decorated with brightly coloured chalk drawings of flowers and vines.This was a really wonderful place to visit as a tourist, but I wonder whether the neighbours enjoy living next to this display and whether they find it fun and cheerful or overwhelming?  At least a few neighbours across the road seem to have gotten into the spirit, as their homes and sidewalks are also brightly painted.

Continuing on, we went to the former Heinz Field (2001-2021), now named the Acrisure Stadium after Acrisure Insurance bought the naming rights in 2022.   We first saw the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team from across the river when we were standing by the Point Fountain. Despite the new naming rights, the history of Heinz at this stadium is still apparent with a large Heinz sign and a giant tilted ketchup bottle prominently on display.  Nearby the stadium are several notable memorials.  The Southwestern Pennsylvania WWII Veterans Memorial highlights the role of Pittsburgh during World War II.  Amongst the various tributes is a triangular pedestal with a folded flag on top and the words “Duty”, “Honor” and “Country” on each of the sides.  Dedicated in 1996, the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial of Allegheny County is a monument honouring fallen officers of the Pittsburgh police force.  Located in a scenic enclosed area surrounded by flora and a view of the river, there is a sculpture of an officer and his police dog as well as a police call box with the label “The Last Call”.

A bronze statue of baseball Hall-of-Famer Honus Wagner (1897-1917) is located outside the home plate entrance of PNC Park where the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team plays. Wagner was an American League shortstop playing for almost his entire career with the Pittsburgh Pirates and is considered as one of the greatest shortstops ever. He won 8 National League batting titles and led the league in stolen bases 5 times, earning his nickname of “The Flying Dutchman”.  The Manchester Bridge was a steel truss bridge that spanned the Allegheny River from 1915 to 1969 with four large bronze sculptures featured on its portals.  Two of these sculptures depicting American Indian chief Guysuta (the same figure that we saw earlier at Points of View Park) and pioneer Christopher Gist now sit by the Stadium, near their original location of the bridge.  Various tour companies offer riverboat sightseeing tours and we spotted one of the riverboats docked by the harbour.  One of the main reasons to come down to this area was to see the sculpture of Fred Rogers (from Mr. Rogers’ Neighbourhood) positioned to look outward over the three rivers.  To my dismay, the sculpture was blocked off for maintenance so I could not get close to it.  I had to settle for a quick photo from behind the barriers (which I mildly considered hopping before dismissing this as a bad idea).

Our final stop in Pittsburgh North was a visit to the Andy Warhol Museum.  We have seen many examples of Warhol’s most iconic pieces from his various phases including the soup cans/Brillo box consumerism, celebrity silkscreens, use of multiples, forays into film and a few works from his early days.  Accordingly, we were not sure how much of what we would see in this museum would be new for us.  But since this 7-storey museum is known as the one of the largest in the world to be dedicated to a single artist with over 10,000 artifacts created from different mediums, we were hopeful of seeing new aspects of Warhol or at least different examples of his various styles.

As it turned out, we did not need to worry since along with familiar works, we saw many “new” (to us) Warhol art pieces for the first time.  This started out in the parking lot across the street from the museum, where the parking attendant sat inside a large Brillo box, one of Warhol’s iconic commercial packaging-related references.  The entrance hallway was covered with multiples of Warhol’s self portrait and in the main lobby is the red couch that was originally kept in The Factory, Warhol’s New York studio in the 1960s.  Above is a large photographic image of Andy reclining on the couch, basically inviting tourists to mimic his pose.  I did my best but should have put on my sunglasses to complete the impression.

Telling the story of Andy Warhol’s life and works, the museum is divided chronologically with different decades represented on each floor, starting from the top (7th) floor which concentrates on Warhol’s earlier years between 1930-1959.  Here we saw photographs of Andy as a child (when his name was Andrew Warhola) and young man, images of his family and in particular, his mother Julia who was also an artist.  There are examples of Julia’s sketches including a series of pencil drawings from the early 1950s depicting cats, which directly influenced a book that Andy produced in 1954, called 25 Cats Named Sam and One Blue Pussy.  We had seen an exhibit focused on this book before, but not Julia’s images which inspired Warhol. By the 1950s, Warhol was producing commercial drawings such as an image of a cycling family that he drew for Sports Illustrated, and a set of shoe drawings including a plain pump labeled “This is a shoe” followed by an ornate stiletto captioned “This is a shoe made with Fleming Joffe leather”.

A series of drawings titled “In the Bottom of My Garden” depicts whimsical fairies and cherubs playing with one another.  There were black and white sketches and colorized version drawn with Warhol’s technique of using blotted lines. The illustrations were published as a book in 1956.  Other examples from the late 50s include Warhol’s drawing of a tattooed female holding a large flower while wearing a dress, hat and boots, and a delectable ice cream sundae in a cornucopia-shaped cone.  Other commercial drawings including advertisements for vacuums, television sets, Listerine anti-septic mouth wash and more.  On the 6th floor, which covers Warhol’s works from 1960s, we started to see examples of his silk screen process, which involves laying a photograph on a mesh screen and then passing an ink-covered squeegee over the mesh to transfer the image onto the canvas below.  A unique silk screen on linen from 1962 depicts 7 Cadillac cars with each image from top to bottom revealing a bit more of the car, almost as if it is driving towards you.

Since the early 1960s, as opposed to depicting everyday objects and products as advertisements, Warhol began using them as subject matter in his pop art works.  In particular, the Campbell’s soup can was an iconic image that Warhol represented repeatedly, at least partially because he actually liked the product and ate varieties of the soup every day for over 20 years.  In 1962, he created 32 canvases, each depicting a different flavour of Campbell’s soup.  We have seen many examples of this series, but at the Warhol Museum, we saw versions of this ubiquitous soup can that we had never seen before.  This included the “Big Torn Cambell’s Soup Can (Pepper Pot)” depicting a partially torn label that exposes the tin can underneath, and a version where a crushed Beef Noodle Soup seems to morph into a shopping bag.  Many examples of Warhol’s multiples were also on display including “Three Coke Bottles”, a large sheet of S&H Green Stamps, and overlapping black and white images of Natalie Wood.

The fifth floor is dedicated to Warhol’s works from the 1970s.  A mostly empty open-space, with silver-painted bricks on the walls, a silver steamer trunk and stool, is a reference to Warhol’s Silver Factory on 47th Street in New York.  This was an experimental art studio and social space where artists, musicians, actors and writers gathered during the 1960s and early 70s.  Photographs on the wall depicted the actual factory space.  The bar stool was used in the film “Kitchen” starring Edie Sedgwick while the trunk served as storage for film prop as well as a platform for film projectors during screenings and was featured in another Sedgwick film titled “Vinyl”.  While we had seen versions of Warhol’s paintings of famous characters including Elvis, Elizabeth Taylor, Chairman Mao and Nixon, at the museum we saw for the first time paintings he did of cats and dogs, including ones of his own pet dachshunds Amos and Andy.  We also saw a series of works featuring revolvers, knives and gangsters, in line with his more well-known morbid images of car crashes.

In 1985, Warhol bought a pink papier mâché elephant as a prop for a fashion exhibition at MOMA.  Following the exhibition, Jean-Michel Basquiat attempted to redecorate the elephant but did not complete the job.  Eventually Warhol asked pop artist Keith Haring to paint the sculpture with his iconic dancing figures.  In 1986, Warhol created his “Last Supper” series based on Da Vinci’s masterpiece, producing over 100 different renditions using silk-screening, hand-painting and collage.  While there are religious depictions in Warhol’s version, it also features motorcycles and “The Big C” which ambiguously could have referred to Christ, but also Cancer and AIDS.  One of the final rooms that we explored in the museum is reserved for rotating exhibitions.  The one on display when we were there dealt with the band “The Velvet Underground” and their debut album “The Velvet Underground & Nico” which was produced by Andy Warhol.  The album cover was designed by Warhol and featured a peel-away banana, leading to the album being known as the “banana album”.   A large grid with different versions of this album cover were arranged as another example of Warhol’s multiples.

We thoroughly enjoyed visiting the Andy Warhol Museum, and while many of the techniques and phases were ones that we had been exposed to before, we were able to see examples that were new to us.  One interesting aspect of the museum was the use of custom-built tactile reproductions of some of his most iconic works, making the art accessible to blind and low-vision visitors.  On a side wall outside the museum was a final tribute to Andy Warhol.  In 2022, artist Laura Jean McLaughlin was commissioned by the museum to create a ceramic mosaic made of porcelain clay, glaze, slip and luster.  Titled “Julia”, it depicts Andy’s mother Julia Warhola in midst of painting her works including an angel and several cats.

The next day, we visited the Contemporary Craft Museum, an art institution which showcases crafts made from a variety of mediums including ceramics, glass, fiber and cloth, metal, paper, mixed media and more.  The museum offers rotating exhibitions as well as a retail store that sells handcrafted objects made by both local artists and artists from across the country.  When we visited, the exhibition was called “Climate Awakening: Crafting a Sustainable Future” which explores the effects of climate change, environmental degradation, pollution and other environmental issues through the use of art.  Susie Ganch’s piece titled “Remember me, Katrina” looks from afar like a gorgeous floral tapestry, but up close you can see that the work consists of used, discarded coffee cup lids.  Some of the lids are marked with the coffee stains.  The “swirling vortexes of trash” reference to the raging storm caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Ganch also created Purisima, a geographic landscape representation of Purisima Creek Redwoods, made from collected used pill bottles, wood, silk and faux pearls.  The heights of the pill bottles reflect the elevation change of up to 2000 feet that exists in the area while engravings on the bottle caps indicate the micro-climates in this region.  Courtney Mattison’s series of works titled “Surface Tension” are made of glazed stoneware and porcelain, shaped to look like coral reefs that have been damaged by climate change and fossil fuel mining, turning white and dripping down the wall as they die.  Her series called “Fossil Fuels: Oil Drum” continues to explore the connection between the oil industry and threats to the coral reef ecosystem.  These pieces depict ceramic red fuel containers and oil drums with various corals and other sea life attached to them, bleached white from pollution.  We saw a couple more works by Susie Ganch including a whimsical piece called “Landscape #5: Pixel” which consists of a wood and steel frame covered with thousands of strips cut from used plastic bags to form a giant cube hanging from the ceiling with a circular hole at the bottom that allows you to stand underneath and stick your head inside.

A similar work by Ganch titled “Bale” is a photograph of what looks like a large roll of bubble wrap sitting in a field as if to simulate a hay bale.  The bale is made from a compressed collection of debris including discarded plastic, fabric and other consumer goods sitting.  Positioned in outdoor, pastoral landscapes, the juxtaposition highlights consumerism and packaging waste. In the piece called "Molalla River Meander",  Adrien Segal uses carved plywood to represent the way that the Molalla River flows through Oregon, highlighting how its path has changed between 1995 through 2009 due to flooding.  Segal’s work “Sea Ice/Albedo” consists of coloured slabs of cast glass meant to represent Arctic sea ice that is melting due to global warming.  Albedo relates to the proportion of light or radiation that is reflected on a surface.   The poignant works of art in this Climate Awakening exhibition are so creative and beautiful to look at, yet their message is alarming.

In addition to the rotating exhibition, the Contemporary Crafts Museum also has a large retail area where works are for sale. There were so many items to look at including small sculptures, jewelry, clothing, greeting cards, wall hangings, wooden stools and a wide assortment of ceramic vases, bowls, plates and mugs.  Even though Rich and I had self-imposed a “strict” ban on purchasing too many souvenirs on this trip because we were in midst of renovations at home and had no where to store new items, we could not resist all the beautiful pieces for sale.  We ended up purchasing a tall mug with an octopus attached to the handle, an ornately decorated squat mug with a face and four feet, and a bowl painted with an image of a woman and a black cat that reminded me of the Julia mosaic that we saw at the Andy Warhol Museum.