Amanda Gross is a transplanted Atlantan, living and working in Pittsburgh for the last few years. You might know her if you helped knit the bridge.
knitthebridge.wordpress.com
Her presentation is on the artwork she’s created for her blog, Mistress Syndrome, which is “part of a lifelong journey of personal and collective healing from the multi-layered, generational trauma of what it means to be a white woman.”
Francis Crisafio was born and raised in Lawrenceville, where his father was a barber for 80 years. His father, recently deceased, is the subject of Samsons Hair Repaired, a way of looking at him, his neighborhood, and his longtime clientele.
His PKN presentation will focus on another project, Holdup in the Hood, where children on Pittsburgh’s North Side create self-portraits. The larger body of work that incorporates drawings, re-cycled photographs, print media and body gesture to explore issues of race, class and gender.
Images from the project have been exhibited since 2006, and most recently the project was a finalist for a 2015 LensCulture Exposure Award. It will be exhibited in London beginning in May 2016, and Francis also hopes to publish a book on the project in the near future.
Maranie Rae is a photojournalist and has been documenting social issues with her camera for the past few years. Here’s a small selection of photos from her website.
Maranie has several social issues that she is working to raise awareness on including acid attacks on women [graphic image warning] and human trafficking. She is involved with a Pittsburgh-based NGO called “The Project to End Human Trafficking”. Visit their website to find out how you can help.
Annie is doing experiments to create a model of a mouse’s olfactory system, the part of the brain that processes smell. She uses dye to create these beautiful images of the brain:
They also happen to be very important to her research.
You can also follow her on Twitter. She has intelligent things to say, so if you’re on Twitter that might not be your thing.
Gwyn is working on a memoir of her sister’s life, who died at an early age. At PKN, she will be sharing a “chapter” from that memoir about her mother and stepmother.
In case you missed the last episode where I teased this talk with Freddie Croce you can get caught up here.
Freddie lives and works in Garfield at inter*ARCHITECTURE. We each independently had the idea for a logo consisting of 2 letters and a punctuation mark. Great minds, I guess.
I hope to update this page soon with some of the images that Freddie used in his presentation, so check back soon.
Today on the show we have four of the presenters for PechaKucha Night happening this Thursday, October 9: Addy Smith-Reiman, Freddie Croce, Julie Mallis and Nikki Dy-Liacco.
Come out and see these people present. They’ll be joining many others, including Phyllis Kim, who you remember from last time.
PKN vol. 19 takes place on October 9 at 6:20 pm at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Center, 805 Liberty Ave in Downtown Pittsburgh. Admission is $15 and includes, drinks, eats, and entertainment.
To start out the show we have a fun audio tour of the sand casting process. Here are the pictures that accompany that tour.
the forms, made of high density foam, sitting inside a flask
a tool for packing sand, and some more flasks
the resin
the mixer. you’ll be hearing a lot from the mixer
scrap iron …
to be broken down …
… all the way down
… so it can be melted to be poured into the sand casts. Hope you enjoyed the tour.
First we hear from Nikki Dy-Liacco. When she’s not working for DDI, she’s looking at cities through their lamp posts.
… but they’re all good. Make sure you check out the moving images, too.
She’s got a million other things going on, too. Like helping run BOOM Concepts (who you can like on Facebook), or her collaboration with DS Kinsel, Magic Organs (getting some press here).
Freddie Croce runs inter*ARCHITECTURE with his wife, Jennifer Lucchino. More on him in the near future.
Today I have for you my first full hour with a female designer, Jen Bee.
This interview was recorded prior to the passing of Gary Carlough, co-founder of Edge Studio where my guest today developed her love for restaurant design. He also taught at my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University. He was a force in the Pittsburgh design community and he will be missed.
Lindsay Grauvogel works for ThoughtForm Design, and has her own website. If you all else fails you should just show up at a PKN event, she’s probably presenting.
Her video and blog series will show up right here once it is the future and those things are real.
Jen used to drive an ice cream bike like this one:
… except hers had the cooler on the back.
Now she designs things that sell food, but out of buildings, not out of coolers. They’re called restaurants, like Spoon in Penn Circle:
Spoon, selected as one of the top 10 new restaurants in the U.S. in a 2011 publication
… and Blue Line Grille in Uptown:
Blue Line Grille, voted best new bar in Pittsburgh
If you’re like Jen and me and you want to sketch more, use the hashtag #5minutesketch on Twitter and Instagram.
Whoever you are, the AIA needs people like you to help make it work. If you’re an architect or concerned citizen interested in getting involved check out the Young Architect’s Forum or any of the other committees. And of course, you can always email: info@aiapgh.org
