Pittsburgh Murals and Public Art: Worm's Eye View by Kate Bechak

06 September 2015

Worm's Eye View by Kate Bechak

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Worm’s Eye View – From Dictionary.com, a perspective seen from below or from a low or inferior position. This mural is done on a set of garage doors. They don't appear to open any longer, but being garage doors put this mural at eye level and below, versus the many murals we’ve seen either high up on buildings or covering entire walls. The impression we get is of someone zooming in on, or magnifying, a scene happening on the sidewalk. A close up view of the passing pedestrian traffic. What an urban worm might see of course.

We mentioned in another mural story that a visitor to Pittsburgh once asked us What’s this city’s thing with pigeons? He had seen this mural as well as Lend Me Your Ears and wondered why we immortalized pigeons in our artwork. I don’t remember having a good answer for him, but I wonder if it isn’t Pittsburgher’s down to earth attitude. Maybe we don’t view pigeons as the illegitimate stepchildren of doves. Maybe we admire the street–wise ways of these birds? Maybe it’s just as simple as the fact that there are a lot of them around and they’re as much a part of our landscape as the buildings.

Jordan Monahan and Alison Zapata used the pigeons to substitute for doves as a peace symbol in their mural. Kate Bechak portrays this one as your average street pigeon though. If you can call a bird with bling average. It’s those little details in this mural that make it amusing.

There are a lot of other little details that can be easily missed by the casual observer. We took the liberty of dramatically increasing the contrast and saturation in these photos in order to try to show some of them. We also rotated some images so you can get a better look: