One Mellon Center

Kathryn Gagermeier

Two-Door-ondack , 2008

reclaimed doors

48” x 25” x 43”

Jason Shirey

Untitled, 2008

Maple, poplar and cork,

42” x 18” x 32”

The Adirondack III: Transformation and Reinvention

The Adirondack III: Transformation and Reinvention, curated by Christopher Weiland and Steve Loar, opened at the University Museum of Indiana University of Pennsylvania in early spring of 2008, and included 33 chairs by students from 12 universities and colleges from across the country. Participants were challenged, “to revisit, explore, and redesign the century-old Adirondack chair.” The Adirondack III: Transformation and Reinvention, curated by Christopher Weiland and Steve Loar, opened at the University Museum of Indiana University of Pennsylvania in early spring of 2008, and included 33 chairs by students from 12 universities and colleges from across the country. Participants were challenged, “to revisit, explore, and redesign the century-old Adirondack chair.”

The exhibition at One Mellon Center presented a selection of chairs from the show that were designed by IUP students, along with four other student projects. The works featured represent a focus on green design developed through initiatives at CenterWorks, the Center for Turning’s professional development and business practice division. Through a series of models, sketches and documentary photographs viewers can learn about the student’s creative and green design processes.

Past Exhibitions

traveling exhibitions

Borne With Us

(March 6 - May 16, 2009)

This exhibition highlights fiber and mixed media quilts created by Missouri artist Kim Eichler-Messmer. Pieces with titles such as Exhuming the Anonymous and Barren reveal the artist’s interest in how past experiences relate to and shape the present and future. Through pattern, color, design and imagery, she explores her own personal history and how her feelings about family relate to her outlook on nature. Eichler-Messmer’s curiosity about the mystery and uncertainty of life comes across in her quilts as a darkness that is at once familiar and discomforting. The nine works in this exhibition demonstrate the artist’s talent and a wide range of skills. Eichler-Messmer uses many different surface treatments and quilting techniques including screen-printing, appliqué, discharge and embroidery. Utilizing a combination of approaches, she creates quilts that are rich with imagery and infused with visual and conceptual depth.

Click on the image to see Eichler-Messmer’s work!

Standing Room Only: A 15-Year Survey

Stephen Litchfield

(July 6 - September 1, 2009)

This exhibition presented a series of sculptural works by nationally known sculptor Stephen Litchfield. Featuring three distinct bodies of work and 12 unique objects, the show explores function, utility, and communication.

Click on the image to see Litchfield’s work!

Nailed and Riveted: New Works by Robert Villamagna

(December 11- March 14, 2010)

This exhibition features 14 works by assemblage artist Robert Villamagna.Combining found machine parts, hardware, toys, furniture parts, plumbing and building materials with art materials such as acrylic, oil and enamel paints, oil sticks, clay, wood and metal. Villamagna creates thought-provoking and often humorous compositions, giving these found materials new life and transforming them into art.

Whisper-Romance: Day and Night

Jiyoung Chung

(September 5 - November 30, 2009)

Using the traditional Korean technique of joomchi, a paper felting process in which separate pieces of handmade paper are joined through agitation, Chung crafts delicate, simply-composed canvases that demonstrate extraordinary depth and skill.

Click on the image to see Jiyoung Chung’s work!

swarm

(March 27- June 20, 2010)

Divinsky visualizes silk as an equivalent to skin, which she molds and stretches—changing function and meaning—as she explores relationships between body, nature, and fiber. In this installation, titled swarm, Divinsky has created two- and three-dimensional forms inspired by groups of insects, birds, cells, and growths. Through painting and installation the artist reveals her own overindulgence in mark making and repetition and a fixation with red and pink. She examines the relationship between extremes—minimalism and excess, compulsion and control, open and saturated, bright and subdued. Reminiscent of strange millipedes and hairy larvae, three-dimensional rugs burst with long, leg-like protrusions creating a playful, visual interaction that uncovers the artist’s interest in animated organisms and the natural world. swarm is a visual overload of vibrant colors and crawling silken sculptures.

Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, the artist had resided in Pittsburgh for 16 years. DIvinsky is an adjunct faculty member in the University of Pittsburgh’s Studio Arts Department and in Penn State’s school of Visual Arts. She has a Ba from the University of Pittsburgh in Studio Arts and Art History and an MFA in Printmaking from Penn State.

My Walden: New Works by Atticus Adams

(June 25- September 26, 2010)

My Walden: New Works by Atticus Adams features 15 artworks sculpted from industrial metal mesh by Pittsburgh artist Atticus Adams. Working with shapeless metal mesh screen, and utilizing only a small number of simple tools, Adams pushes, pulls, cuts, stitches, folds and assembles the material into large, fluid sculptures. These forms float and undulate in space, creating dramatic shadows that are as much a part of the piece as the mesh itself. Small bits of glass, scavenged from beaches and broken windshields, are sometimes woven into the sculptures casting color and reflecting light onto walls and viewers. Adams’ intuitive handling of the material guides the organic and philosophical results, allowing the raw materials to provide direction in it’s reshaping. These ethereal pieces reflect Adams’ engagement with process and making.

Originally from West Virginia, Adams received a degree in a Health Science field from West Virginia University. After graduation, Adams continued to explore a broad range of studies—from drama to architecture—through programs at the Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University and the Yale School of Art. He moved to Pittsburgh in 2006. In reference to writer Henry David Thoreau’s famous Walden Pond experiment to live deliberately he comments, “I found a Walden Pond of my own. Thoreau’s experiment has guided me in my life and art.”

Since becoming a full-time maker Adams has achieved an inspiring degree of success both as a regional and national artist. He has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including Gestures 12 at the Mattress Factory and Then and Now at the Carnegie Museum of Art, as well as a solo exhibition with Christine Frechard’s Europ’art in Pittsburgh. Works in the exhibition are available for sale. For more information or to view works online visit www.contemporarycraft.org, or call Kati Fishbein at 412.261.7003 x 26.

SCC’s Satellite Gallery is located at

500 Grant Street in the lobby of the Steel Plaza T-Station at One Mellon Center in downtown Pittsburgh. It is open daily through midnight.

Works in this gallery are generally for sale. For more information about an exhibiting artist or to purchase work please contact Kati Fishbein, Exhibitions Coordinator, by email or by calling 412.261.7003 x 26.

Atticus Adams, Jubilee Cloud, 2009, Stainless steel mesh, wire, jingle bells.