IN THE SUMMER, Art in Pittsburgh moves outside. And starts a party. *  *  * * Fri. July 5, 5 p.m. to late night. Unblurred First Friday Art Crawl is hosted by Bloomfield Garfield Corporation. It’s a monthly art and entertainment stroll spotlighting an eclectic blend of galleries and art retailers along Penn Avenue from Mathilda to Negley in Bloomfield/Garfield — Pittsburgh Glass Center, Silver Eye Photography, Arts & Crafts: Bottanica & Occult Shop, Songbird Artistry, Imagebox, Vault Art Studio, KST Alloy Studios, Center for PostNatural History, Irma Freeman Center for Imagin ..read more

SOMETIMES, big change grows out of small conversations. You can listen in to the chat (and start your own) this June 13 when TEDxPittsburgh: Weaving Futures takes place at Foerster Student Center, Community College of Allegheny County main campus, from 6:00-9:30 pm. As in past years, TEDxPittsburgh features an eclectic lineup of innovators and changemakers: Caroline Fitzgerald (GOALS, women’s sports equity) Vivien Luk (WORK, using advanced recycling to aid Third World economies) Ronna Davis Moore (Za’kiyah House for recovery and homelessness) Sabrina Saunders Mosby (Vibrant Pittsburgh) Dr. A ..read more

“Hot weather opens the skull of a city, exposing its white brain, and its heart of nerves, which sizzle like the wires inside a lightbulb. And there exudes a sour extra-human smell that makes the very stone seem flesh-alive, webbed and pulsing.” ―Truman Capote, Summer Crossing _____________________ AND IN PITTSBURGH, you get a lot of amazing Art alongside the inevitable sizzling, exuding and pulsing. * Fri. June 7, 5 p.m. to late night. Unblurred First Friday Art Crawl is hosted by Bloomfield Garfield Corporation. It’s a monthly art and entertainment stroll spotlighting an eclectic blend of g ..read more

The Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival, a production of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, returns to downtown Pittsburgh May 31-June 9. Open 12-8 p.m. daily, the Artist Market features 300+ booths selling fine art and fine crafts. There are special exhibits at 707 Penn Gallery, 820 Liberty Gallery, 937 Liberty Gallery, SPACE, Anthropology of Motherhood: Culture of Care at Byham Theate, art demos by Union Project, PA Floral Academy, Pittsburgh Center for Arts & Media, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Andy Warhol Museum and a large-scale public art project, A Sudden Gust of Wind, by Lenka Clayton ..read more

GIVE A MAN A MASK, said author Oscar Wilde, and he’ll tell the truth. * In Saving Face: Memoir of a Circus Clown, storyteller Mike Perry takes off the mask and still reveals plenty of truth. Along with laughter. Lots and lots of laughter, as befitting a bonafide clown college graduate and former member of the fabled Ringling Brothers Circus. Prime Stage Theatre presents Perry’s latest stage creation Monday, May 6 from 7:00-8:00 p.m. at New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square East, Pittsburgh. It takes place on the active set of Prime Stage Theatre’s Witness for the Prosecution production ..read more

AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT of financial planning for today’s arts and nonprofit organizations is The Benefit. Wherein, the organization offers a unique, one time only, 100% guaranteed-never-before-seen, very special night of superlative entertainment (often with a very special superlative entertainer) in hopes of raising funds to supplement the year’s projected ticket revenue. For an arts group — besides the anticipated fiscal reward — a major benefit of the benefit is that it offers a chance to try out something entirely new … a performance venturing beyond the company’s usual fare, perhaps even e ..read more

“I had always planned to make a large painting of the early spring, when the first leaves are at the bottom of the trees, and they seem to float in space in a wonderful way. But the arrival of spring can’t be done in one picture.” — David Hockney, painter   SIR DAVID CALLED IT RIGHT … the arrival of Spring in Pittsburgh can’t be done in just one gallery show or museum exhibit. That’s why April’s Roundup has 39 (and likely more) venues to experience local visual arts, starting with the seasonal remergence of street fairs and art nights. Apr. 5, 6-10 p.m. Unblurred First Friday. Sponsored ..read more

“There are things that are not sayable. That’s why we have art.” — Leonora Carrington (“Britain’s Lost Surrealist”) *   *   * Galleries & Exhibits 937 Liberty Gallery. To Mar. 17: The Wind Got Up in the Night and Took Our Plans Away. New work by Serbian photographers (Aleksandrija Ajduković, Milan Aleksić, Ivan Arsenijević, Boris Burić, Goranka Matić, Vesna Pavlović, Ivan Petrović, Katarina Radović, Mihailo Vasiljević, Srdjan Veljović) and photography collectives (Belgrade Raw, Jednostavno rečeno, Kamerades). 937 Liberty Ave. Pittsburgh. (412) 456-6666. Associated Arti ..read more

“I paint the way some people write their autobiography. The paintings, finished or not, are the pages of my journal, and as such they are valid. The future will choose the pages it prefers.”  — Françoise Gilot, French painter and ceramicist (1921-2023) __________________ 2023 SAW THE loss of two popular Pittsburgh artists who painted their autobiograhies in very unique and memorable ways. Timothy Kelley died suddenly and unexpectedly Dec. 15 at age 59, just hours before he was to open a new show (Coffee Talk Festivus) with Eli Johnson at Inkwell Tattoo. He was a longtime member of Associ ..read more

“Nothing could exceed the brilliancy and gaiety of the scene by day. But it was at night that the carnival was at its merriest. For the frost continued unbroken; the nights were of perfect stillness; the moon and stars blazed with the hard fixity of diamonds, and to the fine music of flute and trumpet the courtiers danced.” — The Great Frost from Orlando by Virginia Woolf *  *  *  *  * ALL THROUGH DECEMBER Pittsburgh’s visual artists (plus a few musicians) will transform the city into a sprawling winter carnival, starting with holiday markets and arcades and progressi ..read more