Lina Cavalieri by Jeremy Raymer

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photo by Jeremy Raymer                           

Jeremy Raymer pays tribute to Italian opera singer Lina Cavalieri, who was known as the most beautiful woman in the world.

Homer Simpson Mural by Matt Gondek

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Although the address is on Butler St, this image of Homer Simpson coming apart is actually at the back of the building, along Dresden Way. Artist Matt Gondek has drawn quite a few cartoon characters in some form of explosion or deconstruction. If you look on his website you’ll find several images exploding, melting or dripping away. Sometimes the skeletal structure or the organs beneath are revealed, as if he’s peeling away the layers.

In 2016 Matt returned to Pittsburgh to do a mural in Uptown of Donald Duck.

Goat and Deer murals by Kaff-Eine

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While Australian street artist Kaff–Eine was visiting Pittsburgh, her friends located this boarded up storefront in Lawrenceville that needed fresh artwork. There had been previous layers of posters at this location, including an old Shepard Fairey mural that had deteriorated almost beyond recognition. Kaff–Eine told us that she wanted to use the beautiful layers of posters that were already there and that she basically used their colour and texture, painting highlights and shadows but leaving the original old posters to come through in the image. She painted a white-tailed deer for the Pennsylvanian State Fauna, and the goat was done in memory of a dear friend.

If you look closely you can see the old artwork bleeding through the new images.

UPDATE July 2015

The deer is gone. There’s new artwork on the right side where the deer used to be. We talked with artist Jeremy Raymer who did the new art and he told us that someone removed the plywood that the deer had been painted on. Apparently the building is scheduled for demolition at some point, so his new artwork along with the goat won’t be here long either. We kind of hope that the thief was trying to save the artwork rather than just vandalizing the building. Good intentions n’at. The hooves remain, making it a bit interesting:

2016 - GONE

Freewheel by Will Schlough

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We love biking. We love murals and public art. That’s really what this entire website is about – us riding our bikes around the city discovering public art and mapping it so you can find it too. When we saw this piece we thought it was as perfectly in synch with our mission as it could get: Public Art with a bike theme! Almost a bit of Nirvana.

Will Schlough created this sculpture and donated it to Bike–Pgh. It’s a great way to identify the offices of the organization that makes it so much better and safer for us to pedal around the ’Burgh. If you bike in Pittsburgh, you should seriously consider joining.

On Mr Schlough’s website we found his description of Freewheel: This creative piece of street art depicts a lonely bike wheel sprouting wings and attempting to escape from the three rivers bike rack to which it’s been locked.

If you aren’t a cyclist, then you may not be familiar with the bike racks. The familiar shape seen all over the city was designed, of course, to mirror our real three rivers. Designed by Wall–To–Wall Studios the racks were created under a 2003 Sprout Fund grant that Bike–Pgh received.

R Hero by Karen & Tony Barone

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A sculpture to inspire children to take the first step in understanding the concepts of bravery, sacrifice, compassion and friendship. R Hero’s website.

A Park full of Murals by Jeremy Raymer

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There's a small park tucked in between buildings along Butler St where artist Jeremy Raymer has surrounded you with murals. On the left side is the black and white image shown above. Along the back wall there are murals of a bear and an eagle, and the right side wall has a very colorful mural of a child.

It creates a great spot to relax and escape.

Update: Artist Matt Gondek came back to town to collaborate with Jeremy Raymer on the Exploding Demeter Mural that replaced the image on the eastern wall in this plaza.

Stephen Foster mural by Jeremy Raymer

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The owners of this home wanted to make it stand out. They were looking for something to make their home unique and wanted to add some art to the neighborhood. They contacted Jeremy Raymer and when he showed them some designs they fell in love with the idea of Stephen Foster.

There’s a Stephen Foster Memorial in Oakland, and most Pittsburghers know he was from the area. The background in the mural ties him specifically to his home town of Lawrenceville. Doughboy Square is a big part of Lawrenceville’s identity.

Considered this country’s first songwriter, Stephen Foster composed over 200 songs. You’ve most likely heard and sung his songs numerous times without knowing where they originated: Beautiful Dreamer,Oh! Susanna,My Old Kentucky Home,Camptown Races,and Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair are some you might recognize.

Update: 1 Sep 2017
Recent controversy over the Stephen Foster sculpture outside the Carnegie Museum of Art has apparently influenced the homeowners to remove this mural.

Blowing Bubbles mural artists unknown

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A mural of pure, simple fun on the side of the Loyal Order of Moose Lodge 581. They’ve created a small park area with flower boxes and picnic tables and this colorful mural as a backdrop.

We’re told the mural was a part of the 2013 Love Your Block event, which is a servePgh initiative. The idea being to beautify the city one block at a time, servePgh offers grants for supplies and equipment for volunteer block improvement projects. In 2014 there were 18 organizations that received grants for projects to mobilize community volunteers to transform blighted lots into community assets. This was the sixth year of this program.

Update 2015: This mural is gone.

Connections by Patricia Bellan-Gillen

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The dinosaurs from the Carnegie Museum’s DinoMite Days were all adopted and moved to their new homes years ago. A handful remain scattered around the city in public places and those are the ones we’ve included in this website.

Patricia Bellan–Gillen was another artist that had some school children help with the artwork. On Connections, she had fourth grade students at Burgettstown Elementary paint the vase on the dinosaur’s head. On the rest of the dinosaur she shows connections between all living things.

Look for this dinosaur between buildings at Children’s Hospital. It stands under an overhang next to some cool, old remnants from St. Francis Hospital.

Lawrenceville Life Links Charm Bracelet by Joanna Commanderos

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Bob Batz Jr of the Post Gazette explained this piece as three–dimensional icons that represent the community – – everything from the prevalent architectural star to the Doughboy statue. He goes on to explain that the charms were to be linked and mounted on four buildings along Butler Street. We found these charms linked, but only on three buildings.
Originally named the Lawrenceville Charm Bracelet, this piece is also called the Lawrenceville Life Links Charm Bracelet. Lawrenceville Corporation worked on this project and explains the charms on their website:

• the Doughboy statue, which sits at the intersection of Butler Street, Penn Avenue, and 34th Street (Doughboy Square) in commemoration of World War I soldiers
• angel wings, as found in Allegheny Cemetery and representing the neighborhood’s spirituality
• a rose, representing the beauty and life–giving sentiment of Lawrenceville
• a door and steps, representing the entrance to home, comfort, and security
• a star anchor support, found as a decorative and functional structural support element on many Lawrenceville buildings

As we said, we found three locations. At the fourth location listed on the Lawrenceville Corporation’s web site, we found no sign of the artwork.  We received confirmation from the artist that the fourth piece was removed in 2012.   The first section (photo above) is at 4113 Butler St. A second display is on the side of a building at 5136 Butler:



The address provided for this third display was given as 5722 Butler, but we found it about a block farther east. The building it’s on had no address visible, but the artwork faces the road so it’s hard to miss if you’re looking for it:

Zapatista Woman by Shepard Fairey

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In 2009 Shepard Fairey had an exhibit at the Andy Warhol Museum on the North Side. Known originally for being a street artist, he posted artwork all around the city prior to the opening of the show. This was one of them. These wheat-paste pieces were never meant to last forever and many of them are in very poor condition now.

Mary Thomas of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes about the art show and the artist here, explaining some of these images and influences.

Update – May 2014
This mural is gone. Although it was still in good condition, we noticed that someone had climbed up and vandalized it recently. On our next ride by we found that the mural and graffiti had been painted over.

Jesus by Marc Runco

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Tucked away in a side alley, this incredible mural is almost hidden. If you don’t live in the neighborhood, you have to pretty much be looking for this mural to find it. I’ll confess right now – our photos do not do this one justice. Not even close.

The buildings here are close together and the business beside the mural has parked cars and equipment that block the view of the bottom portion. We’ve ridden out to see this mural at least four times and we’ve never yet had a clear view of the entire thing.

Like so many neighborhoods in the area, Lawrenceville has been working to have it’s own renaissance. At the time this mural was done, the area it’s in was being over run with drugs and prostitution. The owner of the building at that time had recently moved in and the conditions in the area shocked him somewhat. He and a friend of his (artist Marc Runco) discussed the idea of a mural. The two friends decided on a religious theme and Marc Runco looked to the Book of Revelation for inspiration. In a Post Gazette article by Patricia Lowry, James O’Toole (then owner of the building) described the mural as a vision of hell and hope.

The imagery is amazing. Satan as a multi–headed dragon fighting the Archangels on winged horses; skeleton figures of demons coercing people to fight and kill; angels struggling to pull sinners from the brink of hell.

In the same Post Gazette article mentioned above Mr O’Toole points out the prostitute with one leg in hell holding onto the chalice, which represents the Power of God.

The mural is titled Jesus. The artist’s message is Jesus lives. If the images aren’t enough to show you that, the bottom corner is tagged with Jesus’s name using a can of spray paint. God telling everyone that He’s in the neighborhood, even if you don’t think you’ve seen him lately.

Update
December 2014

The business next door has apparently changed. All of the cars and the large dumpster blocking the bottom of the mural are gone! For the first time we were able to see the details at the gates of Hell:

Thoughts on a Blue Sky by John Pena

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Artist John Pena posted his thoughts about this mural here. Other than commenting that it’s an unusual, thought provocing mural, we don’t have anything to add.

Wheeling Heliocentric Orrery by Kevinn Fung

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The name alone draws us in. Wheeling Heliocentric Orrery. What does that mean? From the New Oxford American Dictionary: an orrery (noun) is a mechanical model of the solar system, or of just the sun, earth, and moon, used to represent their relative positions and motions.
ORIGIN early 18th cent.: named after the fourth Earl of Orrery, for whom one was made.

As we’ve mentioned before, we bike to these murals around Pittsburgh. Being cyclists our attention was drawn immediately to the very prominent figure of the red headed cyclist and we decided that the world is revolving around her. Because it’s all about us! We figured the artist wasn’t referring to Wheeling, West Virginia here, so he must be referring to the wheels on that bike. It all makes sense! Sort of. Turns out that we were partially right.

In 2004, Kevinn Fung created an image that depicts scenes from Lawrenceville as you travel through history. A human timeline from left to right. Using different phases of daylight to show the passage of time, it starts on the left side with images of the Native Americans that once called this place home.

To the right of that you'll see the progression to civil war soldiers, victorian era ladies, and turn of the century miners.

As the landscape continues to evolve, yet maintain it’s character of rolling hills, the image moves into present day recreation, art and multiculturalism. The reinvention of Lawrenceville as a place for artists, galleries and studios.

Kevinn Fung has used not only the changing levels of daylight and subtle transition of the geography to convey the march through time, but also a change in artistic style through the mural. From left to right he’s used simple and graphic images followed by natural/realistic portraits and finally more of a cartoon style for the modern scenes. What at first appears to be a fairly simple mural turns out to have many, many layers in it. This is not a drive by mural. This is one that you need to stop and really look at to fully appreciate everything that's going on in it.

When you do stop and really look you’ll also notice how well the mural works with it’s location. From the start there were a couple of significant obstacles with the location. Not only is it a long wall with a parking lot right in front of it, but there’s a tall lamp post in the way and a brick fence post that butts up against the wall at the right side. Instead of ignoring these problems, Kevinn chose to work with them. The lamp post ends up looking like it’s supposed to be there. It’s a part of the street scene that the cyclist is riding past. The brick post became a place for the girl on the far right to sit. At first you don't even notice that the brick isn’t a part of the mural, it’s integrated that well.

The far left of the wall initially wasn’t going to be used for the mural. When it was included Kevin realized that the street traffic would have a hard time seeing that end of it and chose to keep the design there limited to a simple graphic element representing a creation myth motif.

The first image – circular, yellow and ringed with orange – is for the sun. The second – protozoic life. The third image of a two–toned blue square is there to represent order out of chaos.

So, back to the name... It turns out that the cyclist here really is the center of the universe, but not for the reasons we were thinking. A fellow cyclist himself, Kevinn Fung just happens to have had an infatuation with red heads and liked to incorporate them into his works. When he first showed the design of the mural to friends they all kept asking him Who’s the redhead? The Who became WHO (Wheeling Heliocentric Orrery). Along with the self-portrait (the artist at an easel) the title is a personal connection to his creation that few would have known about if he hadn’t been willing to share that detail with us.

Kevinn provided a photo for us, taken while they were painting the mural.

Something else he’d like to share is his thanks to the artists who assisted him on this mural: Felicity Newell, Sara Stanek and Andrea Celani – for all their hard work and emotional support in the summer sun of July 2004.