Well-Dressed at The Frick Pittsburgh

A girlfriend and I made a date for the Saturday after Thanksgiving to try a new restaurant for lunch (Hemlock House: great mocktails, food almost too salty to eat) and then take ourselves to the Frick Museum. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that while their special exhibition on The Great Migration in the automobile section, and of course tours of the house itself, require tickets, the art pavilion is now free!

In front of the museum is Of Thee We Sing (2023), a new installation from vanessa german (1976- ) of Marian Anderson, in a blue-bottle gown, surrounded by flowers and hands reaching up from the mass of Black Americans who relocated from South to North to realize their dreams in the early 20th century.

My friend wanted to see The Red Dress, which is the product of 380 embroiders from 51 countries over 14 years. The brainchild of English artist Kirstie Macleod, who started it in 2009 by wearing the dress and sewing on it as performance art, it became a way to connect women as artists, immigrants, entrepreneurs, refugees, and survivors of many kinds of violence to showcase their hopes, dreams, and selves. Each was paid for her time and continues to receive a fraction of the exhibition fees.

There are all different styles of stitching in a rainbow of colors, women, animals, birds, flags, flowers and vines, stars, and creative abstract designs in thread.

As part of the exhibition, the Frick commissioned a local piece, The Calico Dress, which includes pieces from people of all ages and abilities who live here. Among the designs on it are one of the yellow Three Sisters bridges, the Frick building, a Steelers logo, flowers, a seahorse, a peacock, fancy fish, a rainbow, hearts, a cat, smiley faces, and big black buttons for contrast.

We also got to (re)visit Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave's exquisite paper sculpture based on Peter Paul Ruben's Portrait of Charlotte-Marguerite de Montmorency, Princess of Conde, which hangs in the same gallery.

While there, we enjoyed some Chinese vases and a nice little exhibit on Shakespeare's Folios on the 400th anniversary of the printing of the first one, from the Carnegie Mellon University Library. I thought my maternal grandfather and -mother would have particularly liked this one, although probably they already knew that John Milton's first publication was the dedication in verse to Shakespeare in the Second Folio (1630).

I made that!

I've been a busy bee and want to share some of my "honey." 

First up is a special issue of a German-studies journal that I co-edited with a colleague at another institution. Neither of us had edited anything before, so we figured out together how to write a call for papers, publicize it, sift through the abstracts, and select a group of papers to shepherd through the writing, editing, and publication process. The two of us wrote the introduction and selected artistic images for the cover and between the essays, which is why I was disappointed not to receive the finished product initially. Finally, after the annual meeting, I reached out to the press, and they mailed us our paper-back copies. It's so pretty! And now that it's done, I can devote my precious writing time to turning my dissertation into a book.

Second is a trio of balsa-wood nightlights that were an impulse buy at the craft store. I picked out the moth, the brain, and the ribcage with flowers. They are colored with paint pens, and I haven't decided yet whether to keep, gift, or donate them.

Third, I finally finished the second copy of the Princess Bride cross-stitch sampler I was working on. I received the first copy for Christmas last year, but it was missing some of the thread, so the Etsy seller sent me a whole new kit, which had enough supplies to finish both. This one is on the side table in the entranceway but will probably eventually be hung in my office. A woman at church made the knitted cactus, which I just love.