A Blues for the Block by Bob Ziller

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Kicking off New Years Day 2015 in a positive way, artist Bob Ziller headed out for a stretch of abandoned properties in Wilkinsburg and left his mark. He started with two murals, but eventually he plans to extend the project to cover the entire block along Penn Ave. The boarded up, empty storefronts have left this area forlorn. Fresh, colorful artwork will now be replacing the blank eyes of those old businesses.

Mr Ziller was inspired by the Romare Bearden mural titled The Block. (There’s actually a copy of that mural in Larimer.) He adopted the idea of a collage and used different sizes, shapes and colors of boards to create his composition. With no finished design in mind before he begins, he selects the pieces on the spot and screws them onto the drab plywood boards that currently cover the building’s windows. Little by little he uses the vibrant colors and interesting shapes to create a new urban landscape.

One look at the transformed storefronts and you get a sense of hope that’s been missing here. Art really does make a difference, and in some cases it marks the start of a transformation. We hope this new artwork is the spark that ignites that process.

Wood St Murals by multiple artists

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This mural is part of an intersection full of wonderful murals - spread over three buildings and more. We initially starting calling these all The Amazing Plaza because there is a small park/plaza surrounded by these murals. There is so much to see here it's a bit overwhelming. Because of the shear volume of artwork, we decided to break this grouping into three entries. On this page we look at the art on the building to the left of the plaza facing Wood St. For the artwork on the side of this building that makes up the left wall of the plaza and the other walls surrounding the plaza see this page. For the building across the street from the plaza facing Franklin Ave, see this .

On each building there are numerous images. For the most part we were not able to identify which artist did which images. There were a few exceptions though.

Uriel is the name of an archangel that just so happens to be known as a patron of the arts. It’s also the name that came to Colleen Black when she was first painting this angel on a canvas. The painting was done while she was going through a bit of a rough patch and she came to think of it as a Blessing Angel – an empathic being, lifting the burdens from others and taking them on herself. It brought this artist a sense of peace and when the name came to her she didn’t question the fact that it was also the name of an archangel. It felt right for this angel.

The image is striking. In a collection of many great images on this block, this was one that drew our attention immediately. We were enchanted and intrigued by her and the story of her helping to channel peace and calm to people as she lifts their burdens. It made her that much more intriguing.

We don't have background stories on any of the other images on this building unfortunately. We do have pictures for you though:

Franklin Ave Murals by multiple artists

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This mural is part of an intersection full of wonderful murals. It’s across the street from a plaza with murals that surround a central gazebo. It’s also across from another wall of murals on Wood St.

Update August 2014
We’ve been riding back to all the artwork we discovered last year to check on them. Some of the murals have been removed since we were last there. A few of the buildings that had murals on them were demolished, taking the artwork with them, so we were very pleased to find this huge display was still intact and still in good condition.

When we first found this intersection full of art we were overwhelmed. I don’t know how long we spent staring and photographing it, but it wasn't long enough! This time we approached the area from a different direction and discovered that we had completely missed the art on the far side of one of the buildings! It never occurred to us to search for more art than what we were seeing at the time. Lesson learned.

The side of the building that we completely missed last year.

We decided to add some more photos of the details. There’s just so much on each of these murals, that you have to stop and look at each image to really appreciate it all.

Hamnett Station Park N Ride murals by multiple artists

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This mural's theme was the City of Pittsburgh. Several artists worked on it, including students from Wilkinsburg, and each added something for, or about, the city as they saw fit.

Some close ups of the mural from left to right:

In this section of the mural Jeffrey Katrencik painted his version of Joe Magarak. If you don't know about Joe, you may enjoy reading about the legend of this local steelworker and folk hero.

The creator of this angel is artist Colleen Black. She loves Pittsburgh and told me that she always called it Oz because she thought it was a magical place. Angel of Pittsburgh is modeled after her daughter. She blows fairy dust over the old, polluted city, and on the right side you see it transformed into what we know and love today. She sees Pittsburgh as a city in a constant state of flux, always improving and changing. Although Colleen no longer lives in the area, she left us this angel to show her wishes of love and blessings for our city.

Whitney Ave Art Gallery by Lazae LaSpina, multiple artists

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The Whitney Avenue Art Gallery "Houses in Waiting" program was begun by Lazae LaSpina in 2010 as an effort to spruce up abandoned properties in a Wilkinsburg neighborhood. Professional artists work with neighborhood youths and adult groups to paint what inspires them on the boards that cover windows on these houses.

What a difference the art makes! What is essentially a street filled with sad, abandoned, deteriorated houses doesn't feel so abandoned or derelict anymore. It is window dressing in the true definition of the word, but it does make an emotional difference in how you feel when you ride down this street.

For more information see the article from the Post Gazette and the Whitney Avenue Art Gallery website.

Whitney Ave Tunnel Mural by Andres Ortiz Ferrari, Multiple Artists

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We rode our bikes right past this tunnel one day and didn’t realize what was there. It’s a relatively narrow, 100 foot long, pedestrian walkway that runs beneath the east end busway in Wilkinsburg. It’s not far from the Hamnett Park and Ride in fact (where there’s another mural). We spoke with a couple of the artists that worked on this one and they told us that there were some drainage issues. When they started painting, water leaked in and ruined the artwork. Eventually it was done again with some different paints and now there’s only minor damage evident from the water.

This mural taught some valuable lessons. Much like artist Anthony Purcell discovered when he did Trainscape: Community and Industry, the backers on this mural found out that they failed to consider the entire community’s feelings when this project went forward. Several local philanthropic organizations (The Heinz Endowments, Grable Foundation, Poise Foundation) had their eyes opened when the complaints started to come in and when residents had to be thrown out of a town meeting because the fight over this mural had become so heated. It had never occurred to any of the people involved in approving and financing this mural that it would offend a portion of the local population. Some described it as an eyesore and said that it was no better than graffiti. What they ultimately realized was that there must be more community participation in the decision process. Future projects like this would need to have a credible organization (based within that specific community) to oversee it. The organization used would have to be respected and acceptable to a broad base of the population. Because of what happened with this mural, changes were made to the process for deciding on public art in this and other local communities. In a report from the Heinz Endowments they came to this conclusion: When it comes to art, beauty certainly is in the eye of the beholder. But in a public art setting, the eye of the grant maker needs to be focused on how well artists and project commissioners deal with an entire community of beholders.