The 2010 new year has welcomed in many new and exciting announcements in my life. I have been selected to have a solo show at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, a contemporary arts gallery in the Shadyside section of Pittsburgh. Having grown up going to see their shows, I am thrilled and honored to become a part of its amazing exhibition history. As my dear friend told me when she heard the news, Keith Haring showed there. So yes, I am quite honored.
As a pre-college student at Carnegie Mellon, I remember going to see my sculpture professor Carlos Szembak's solo show at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. I promised myself on that Friday night while gazing at his re-imagined wheat fields and stacks of bread that someday I, too, would have my art within the gallery's rooms. I wonder if this is how Shackleton felt as he read the memoirs of Norwegian Arctic explorer Fridjtof Nansen, whose many accomplishments included crossing into the depths of Greenland. Someday... someday, did he think? The thrill of new territory for an artist is not unlike the adventure of finding one's feet in the first fallen snow for the Antarctic explorer.
I have also set up a new studio and am continuing the Angalavaa series along with a few new sculpture pieces: one for my solo show at the 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA, and two for the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts show. Having not worked as an artist in Pittsburgh before, I am excited to take in the energy of the city and my neighborhood of Lawrenceville and then huddle away in my studio for some long hours and nights.
Yes, 2010 is a good year.
