Last week Ed Wolf posted all twenty-four pages of the June 19, 2008, “Bridgeville Area News” on the “Bridgeville, Then and Now” Facebook page. My column in that issue discussed the optimistic plans for the Bridgeville Public Library, located at that time in the old railroad station, to build a new facility at the end of McMillen Street, funded by a campaign to raise $3,500,000. I lauded their efforts and recorded my hope that the station would survive as an historical building.
What a change we have seen in the ensuing sixteen years! Thanks to the generosity of the McDivitt Foundation and numerous large and small donors, the community is blessed today with three new impressive cultural assets — the Bridgeville Public Library, the Bridgeville Area History Center, and Public Art Bridgeville. It is indeed the cultural center of the Chartiers Valley. Much as I would like to see the newspaper return, these three assets more than compensate for its demise.
This was exemplified last Saturday evening when we were invited to a reception at the Library in honor of this year’s indoor sculpture exhibit, jointly sponsored by Public Art Bridgeville (PAB) and the Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors (SOS) and facilitated by the Library. If only Bill and Grace McDivitt were here to witness the fruits of the seeds they planted when they established their foundation! This is the third year SOS has sponsored this exhibit here, the first time it has occurred in the Spring. The Library is particularly appropriate as a gallery for these exhibits; the folks there are particularly gracious hosts.
“Ridge Walk”, the first piece we saw as we entered the display area, was an immediate hit with me. It is a long, narrow piece of driftwood, pierced with rusty nails, balanced on a brick, with a small terra-cotta Native American figure walking along it through a field of wind-blown tall grasses (actually bent pieces of wire). The artist was Duncan MacDiarmid, currently President of SOS. His other contribution to the exhibit, “Freshet Song”, a bronze statue of a woman, perhaps thirty inches high, was equally impressive.
We were admiring “Wisdom”, a handsome life-sized head of a Native American chief, when its creator, Len Kaminski, came over to talk with us. We remembered him from last Fall’s Native American Art exhibit at the Library, where his seven carvings dominated that show. He explained that this specific piece was of white walnut and took us over to the wall to inspect two of his bas-relief pieces of similar subjects, one carved from black walnut and one from Montana cottonwood bark. Regardless of the raw material, he is capable of producing quality work. As a joke, he offered to carve an old man with a long beard on the shaft of my cane.
We then saw a collection of three pieces that looked familiar – shapes of weathered tree parts that had been coated with very shiny resin. Sure enough, they were the product of Fritz Hartman, a contributor to last year’s SOS exhibit. Another familiar contributor was Dan Droz. “Cocktail Party” is intersecting thick Carrara Marble planes shaped almost like jigsaw pieces; “Hidden Spaces” is a single flat piece of sheet steel with ten large geometrical shapes cut out of it; and “Hieroglyph 2” is a Droz classic folded plate construction mounted above the Library fireplace. Each is excellent and is a perfect example of the artist’s versatility.
We also talked to artist Howard Goldfarb. He had stacked small acrylic cubes, painted red, blue, and yellow, imaginatively to produce “Cityscape – Modular Structure”, which immediately reminded me of the life-size Habitat 67, which we saw in Montreal at Expo 67 fifty-seven years ago.
Another familiar artist is Jan Loney; we fondly remember “Flight”, a popular piece in the 2022 PAB outdoor exhibit. She contributed two excellent pieces to this exhibit. “Leaf Form” is a large cast iron (literally) leaf, oversized and detailed; “Pressed Vase” is a thin-walled four-inch steel square tube that was subjected to high compressive forces while being heated with a blow torch, generating a triple node buckle.
A new (to us) artist whose work is intriguing is Maria Durci. At first glance her piece, “Nature Prevails”, appears to be a jade plant pruned Bonsai style. On closer examination, it is a section of a thick-stemmed shrub with shards of green stained glass leaves. Had my wife seen this forty years ago, when she was in her stained glass period, it would have kicked off a new art initiative for her.
Guy Bellaver contributed three maquettes, each with its own explanatory placard, to the exhibit. A maquette is a miniature first draft of a sculpture, a preliminary model. The one for his masterpiece, “Reflections”, is particularly interesting. Two artists were represented by fine ceramics. Chelsey Albert contributed “Between the Object and an Impasse” and “The Taste of Sunrise”; Lorna Vincent, “Evelyne”, “Saying Goodbye”, and “Abi and Waffle”. Again, nostalgia for an earlier time when my wife was into ceramics gave a special flavor to these pieces.
Dino Deluliis’ large foam “Pittsburgh Pup”, appropriately painted gold with black specks, was a show-stopper. In different ways Ron Nigro, Sarah Simmons, and Sandy Kessler Kaminski combine real world components imaginatively to produce work that is somewhere between surrealistic and abstract. The engineer in me is impressed by Mr. Nigro’s “Geometry in Amber”; the draftsman, by Ms. Kaminski’s “Clouded Circuitscape Vol 1”; and the poet, by Ms. Simmons’ “Ripe Words”. Alexander Sutlic was represented by “Susan”, a mixed-media bas-relief.
This exhibit, open during Library hours from now till May 17, is a remarkable demonstration of the broad spectrum of themes, media, and style implemented by contemporary sculptors. We urge everyone to make an effort to see it before it closes. And, we encourage everyone to consider donations to Public Art Bridgeville so they can expand their programs.