As this past school year approached, Brad Adams was chatting with his daughter, a high school junior, about the upcoming Pittsburgh Regional Science & Engineering Fair.

“She started doing the Science Fair in the ninth grade and said, ‘I wish there was this opportunity in the sixth or seventh grade,’” recalls Adams, who teaches at Indiana Area Junior High School alongside his wife, Lisa. “That’s a conversation at home that got us involved in research. What about our sixth, seventh, and eighth graders?”

Previously, due to financial and logistic constraints, Indiana’s middle school had not been among the dozens throughout western Pennsylvania and Maryland to send kids to the Science Fair, a Pittsburgh tradition that dates back to 1940.

But Brad Adams’ conversation with his daughter would turn out to be well timed. 

Shortly thereafter, he discovered an opportunity to get his own middle school students involved in the Science Fair, hosted by Carnegie Science Center in early April.

Thanks to grants via the Science Center’s Lucchino Science Inspiration Fund, Adams was able to bring 23 first-time students to the North Shore, where they presented projects about all things science at the regional science competition.

Featuring 230 judges and 65 volunteers, the 86th annual iteration of the event attracted 476 students from 75 middle and high schools.

Increasing access to Science Center events and resources is the objective of the Science Inspiration Fund, which was established six years ago and offers grants to middle schoolers.

“We’re trying to get students to participate who wouldn’t otherwise participate,” says Steve Kovac, associate museum director for service & engagement at the Science Center. “The kids that we’re trying to reach are ones that maybe don’t have a mentor or role model or someone to show them that, ‘Hey, this is something you can do.’ We’re trying to even the playing field between where they fall in terms of ZIP code and what kind of access they have.” 

While Adams had been interested in getting his students to the Science Fair, the commitment and coordination of doing so seemed daunting.

That’s where the Science Inspiration Fund came in, providing teachers with stipends and workshops while reimbursing students for the material costs of their research projects. 

“It took a lot of the anxiety away,” Adams says. “How do you get started? How do you get the kids to dip into an actual subject that they’re interested in?”

Brady, a sixth grader from Indiana Area School District, was one of the students participating in the Science Fair for the first time.

Inspired by a family member who deals with acid reflux, Brady’s project examined the acidity of various fruits—including lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruit—in order to better encourage their dietary decisions. (Of note: Eat more grapefruit and oranges, fewer lemons and limes.)

“I really liked it because it’s about science and showing your mind to people, showing what you know,” Brady says of his first experience. “I really love chemistry, first of all, and some people have acid reflux problems, so they should know this information.”

“There are some incredibly bright students out there, and that’s the great thing about the Science Fair—it taps their potential in a way that doesn’t get tapped by writing down notes, reading them, taking a test, or taking the SAT.”

Jason Brown, Henry Buhl, Jr., Director of the Science Center

Indiana Area Senior High School also sent students, one of whom went on to be selected for an all-expenses-paid trip to the prestigious International Science & Engineering Fair in May for her project about integrating prosthetic materials with the human body. They joined students from other schools around the region who explored a variety of subjects, such as the culinary arts (the best way to bake a cheesecake) and the future of robotics in medicine (how to improve recovery times from surgery), as well as botany (which fruits grow best in Pittsburgh). 

Alegria, an eighth grader at St. Kilian Parish School in Cranberry, focused her project on the impact of platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook on child learning development based on her mom’s belief that nothing good comes from kids having access to social media.

“My mom was like, ‘You’re going to hurt your brain. You’re not going to retain information as well,’” Alegria says. “So, I was like, ‘I’m going to prove you wrong!’” 

After her Science Fair project, Alegria will enter the next debate with her mom about the perils of kids’ social media consumption equipped with new insights: Her experiment showed that being distracted by social media had less of an impact on puzzle completion times among her tween and teenage subjects than it did people in their 20s. 

Others won cash prizes, recognition from judges, and college scholarships. But for all attendees, the Science Fair was a chance to explore their curiosity and dig deep into the topics and issues that most interested them.

“There are some incredibly bright students out there, and that’s the great thing about the Science Fair—it taps their potential in a way that doesn’t get tapped by writing down notes, reading them, taking a test, or taking the SAT,” says Jason Brown, Henry Buhl, Jr., Director of the Science Center. 

“This is a totally different way of tapping into that world of brilliance. Our goal is to have a science fair that represents everyone—all of the districts from around the region.”

The post Inspiring More Kids appeared first on Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

A New CFO for Carnegie Museums

“I’ve been visiting the museums all my life, and I still feel the awe that the four Carnegie Museums inspire on every visit,” says Beth Wright, the new Vice President, Treasurer, and Chief Financial Officer for Carnegie Museums. “I can now look forward to being a part of bringing the joy of the museums to future generations.” Wright joined Carnegie Museums in April after most recently serving as director of finance and operations for Chartiers Valley School District. She has also served in senior leadership roles at Propel Schools—a regional network of eight public charter schools—and the accounting firm R.D. Hoag & Associates.

One of the Nation’s Best Art Museums  

Readers of USA Today have chosen The Andy Warhol Museum as one of their favorite art museums in America. The Warhol came in at No. 10 on USA Today’s annual Readers’ Choice Awards for 2025, with the newspaper noting the museum’s expansiveness—“the world’s largest collection of Warhol art and archives” spread across eight floors.

 “Making some of these small changes in what we call a particular plant can change how people think about that plant and how people think about the problem.” 

– Mason Heberling, associate curator in the Section of Botany at the Museum of Natural History, speaking about invasive species and the museum’s current Uprooted exhibition to The New York Times

CMU Student Artists Show Their Work at The Warhol    

The Andy Warhol Museum for the first time hosted an exhibition of art by students from Carnegie Mellon University, its namesake’s alma mater. This spring, the museum co-presented Holding Still, Holding On with the university’s School of Art MFA program, which featured new works by the Class of 2025—Frankmarlin, Izsys Archer, Tingting Cheng, Chantal Feitosa-Desouza, and Max Tristan Watkins. “This is an amazing collaboration with The Warhol Museum for the third-year thesis exhibition. I’m incredibly proud of everybody,” said Kattie Hubbard, director of the MFA program, in a TribLive story.

The post Seen+Heard: Summer 2025 appeared first on Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

Giving Forward

When Bob Fierst was a young adult in his 20s, the social mindedness of his parents and grandparents had an undeniable impact on how he saw his role in the world.

He recalls how his maternal grandmother helped care for wounded soldiers through a Ladies’ Aid Society. His stepfather’s generosity was more personal, quietly offering financial support to anyone that he knew who was in need.

“I understood early on that this was the right and moral way to live,” he says. “I never knew anything different growing up.”

Fierst has lived out this sense of responsibility to give back throughout his life, largely through his philanthropic giving to local institutions that he feels create a more culturally rich, equitable society. And the four Carnegie Museums are among the top institutions he supports.

“Carnegie Museums is, in my opinion, the most important cultural institution we have in the Pittsburgh area,” he says.

This is why he wants them to be open and accessible to all Pittsburghers, through programs like the Community Access Memberships, which include a free teen membership and reduced-price family membership, and Carnegie Museum of Art’s Neighborhood Museum, which offers free programming and memberships for refugee families.

“I feel it is very important for everyone, regardless of their means, to be able to enjoy these jewels,” he says. “By giving back to the Carnegie Museums, if it helps touch even one individual, I will have accomplished my goal.”

His own connection with the Carnegie Museums dates back to the late 1940s, when he was just 5 years old and his grandfather took him to Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Those trips sparked an interest in Earth’s history and the world beyond, planting a seed of curiosity that took root and flourished.

“The vastness, the grandeur … and it did tend  to be a little spooky, which I enjoyed,” Fierst says. “I had a vivid imagination, and what better place to indulge?”

As a teenager, his footsteps beat a well-worn path along the sidewalks that connected his home in Squirrel Hill to the “palace of culture” in Oakland, where he’d spend hours roaming the halls. “Some of my earliest memories were the dinosaurs, the Egyptian exhibition, and the Hall of Architecture where the large plaster casts of ancient buildings are.”

That personal connection is what continued to feed his desire to give back, first by becoming a member. As his long-standing relationship and attachment with the museums continued to grow, he eventually made the generous decision to bequest a Legacy Gift to the museums.

“I am 82 now but in good health, so it may still be awhile,” Fierst jokes, having shifted into semi-retirement with an advisory position in the family business, a wholesale flooring distributor.

In recent years, he’s committed to additional philanthropic support by joining the Patrons Circle, and he remains a familiar face during events and openings, as well as a proud tour guide for out-of-towners.

He is especially eager for the opening of the Museum of Natural History’s Egypt on the Nile exhibition, planned for 2026.

Reflecting on his memories and the wonder he continues to experience whenever he walks into the building, it’s his desire that other children, teens, and adults from all walks of life—especially those in underserved communities—will experience the same spark; one that makes an indelible impact on their lives, just as it did on his.

“The value that Carnegie Museums brings to our region is priceless,” he says. “It’s a pillar in the community.”

Learn more about how you can support our museums!

The post Opening up the World for Others appeared first on Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

But her journey west was not merely transactional. Covell-Murthy, who is the archaeology collection manager and head of the Section of Anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, was there to connect. She immersed herself into Quapaw culture by volunteering at their fall gathering, learning how to play Quapaw dice, helping set up for the Stomp Dance, and selling raffle tickets.

It was repatriation in action—the culmination of a decade of consultation between Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Quapaw Nation. What evolved was an organic connection between the museum and the Quapaw people, and a lasting friendship between Covell-Murthy and Quapaw Nation members Carrie Wilson and Betty Gaedtke.

“It was an honor to be able to experience the food, fun, and camaraderie of the fall gathering,” Covell-Murthy says, “but my favorite part was meeting Carrie and Betty.”

“It’s not just business,” says Wilson. “It’s more than that.”

Wilson and Gaedtke have continued to work with Covell-Murthy on repatriating objects and remains. And now, their partnership has extended to co-curating an exhibition, Keeping Traditions Alive.

This yearlong exhibition, which was unveiled in the Alcoa Foundation Hall of American Indians on Indigenous Peoples Day, is the first in a series featuring individual tribes that will be rotated annually on that October holiday. In addition to images and text telling Quapaw stories, the exhibition includes a display case that contains objects sent by the Quapaw Nation.

Visitors will find images of modern-day life, including culinary arts such as fry bread preparation and celebrations like a Quapaw Powwow, plus items such as a turtle shell shaker used in dances. The exhibition also contains a Quapaw pot and dog effigy vessel that Gaedtke, an artist, created using her people’s ancient pottery practices, showing the continuity of traditions that have survived.

“It’s all about making people aware we’re still here,” Gaedtke says. “We do still exist, and we’re thriving.”

For this exhibition, Gaedtke sewed a traditional Quapaw dress using cloth gathered from used flour sacks and featuring the color red, which is worn by firstborn sons and daughters.

Gaedtke estimates there are now about 6,600 living Quapaw. Her grandmother was one of the last purebloods. “There aren’t many in the tribe who are still here and live that life,” she says. “I can actually remember and feel obligated to pass it along while I still can.”

The project has been inspired by ongoing compliance and reparation work, something the Museum of Natural History has been addressing since 1990. That year, federal law dictated the protection and return of Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony through the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). But Covell-Murthy says her focus has been on more than returning human remains and cultural artifacts.

“We’ve been prioritizing relationships over objects,” says Covell-Murthy.

The museum has been working to repatriate the remains of about 800 individuals—mostly of Native American descent. So far, the remains of more than 100 individuals have been returned to their communities.

“We’ve been prioritizing relationships over objects.”

Amy Covell-Murthy, archaeology collection manager and head of the section of anthropology, Carnegie Museum of Natural History 

Wilson, the Quapaw NAGPRA director, has repatriated more than 35,000 cultural items for her people. The Quapaw Nation’s ancestral homelands are in the Lower Ohio River Valley, but after forceful removal over time, today the tribal capital can be found in Quapaw, Oklahoma.

The co-curated exhibition approach provides a platform for authentic, living voices. Its aim is to let museum visitors know that Indigenous communities aren’t relegated to the past.

The project flowed differently than most developed by Anna Mirzayan, the content developer and writer for exhibitions at the Museum of Natural History. Typically, she meets with experts to hear about their research, then develops and writes a story in the museum’s “voice.” But in working with the Quapaw, she notes, Wilson and Gaedtke developed the story, and the museum kept the content explicitly in their voices.

Because of the first-person narrative style, Mirzayan thinks this exhibition reads more like a story than traditional labels. “Betty and Carrie’s words come to life in an organic, authentic way that highlights the Quapaw Nation as a living, contemporary culture,” Mirzayan says.

She explains how co-curation, or community curation, can be a “justice-oriented” practice of empowerment. It helps build democratic relationships between institutions and communities who then get to take control of their own stories, and how they’re told.

“One of our core values is inclusive perspectives—the idea that different kinds of knowledge are valuable and important,” Mirzayan says. She says co-curation is also vital in being accountable to the museum’s own ambivalent history and practices as a 129-year-old institution. “It requires us to reflect on how we acquired and treat the objects and specimens in our care.”

Both Wilson and Gaedtke look forward to sharing their story with a new region. “The Quapaw have no real affiliation to Pennsylvania that we know of,” Wilson says, “but the relationship that developed through the NAGPRA process—and the collaborative effort that went into it—lets people in Pittsburgh know, even though we’re removed, there’s a connection there.” “This could not have happened if Amy and Carnegie hadn’t made that extra step to engage with the Quapaw people—having a kind attitude toward wanting to experience us and engage,” Wilson says. “It was an organic and natural step forward.”

The post ‘We Do Still Exist, and We’re Thriving.’ appeared first on Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

Last spring, Kulhalli responded to a LinkedIn ad about Carnegie Connectors, a group for young professionals at Carnegie Museums. It offered opportunities to interact with other culture-loving people in their 20s and 30s, including engaging with exhibitions through hands-on activities that were perfect for stimulating conversation.

Kulhalli says it helped him meet people from all walks of life.

“I’ve never been part of such a diverse community, possibly in my entire life,” says Kulhalli, 33, of Squirrel Hill.

Launched in early 2024, Carnegie Connectors aims to entice adults aged 21-40 with membership to its four museums, exclusive events, and discounted admission to 21+ evenings at Carnegie Science Center and Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Carnegie Connectors events feature complimentary beer, wine, and snacks.

Shannon Jeffcoat, senior director of membership and annual giving at Carnegie Museums, says the program is designed to help young professionals have more personalized museum interactions with their peers.

Throughout her 25-year museum career, Jeffcoat has seen a participation gap in younger adults. Parents of young children tend to be engaged with the museums while their kids are young, but they often let their memberships lapse once the kids are grown. And many single adults who frequented the museums in their youth don’t return to them once they’re living independently. 

Prior to coming to Carnegie Museums in 2020, Jeffcoat established membership programs for young professionals at museums in Houston and Seattle and saw how they served an overlooked demographic.

“Members, in general, are the heart and soul of a museum, and our visitors, camp parents, and donors are our best community advocates,” Jeffcoat says. “This is a way to reengage them, get them back in the door, and start building out loyalty.”

Jeffcoat hoped to attract 100 members in the program’s first year. The first event at Carnegie Science Center’s TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition maxed out at  150 registrants. 

The momentum continued in May with a Connectors event at The Stories We Keep, a look at 80 items in the Museum of Natural History’s collection from ancient Egypt. Carnegie Connectors have also enjoyed events at KAWS + Warhol, Beate Kuhn: Turn, and Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape. 

“It’s pretty hard to make friends as adults, so it’s fun to see adults making crafts together, having fun, and making friends at the events,” says Bridget Hovell, assistant director of membership and annual giving.

Carnegie Connectors already boasts close to 250 members, with a steering committee of 30 people that includes young professionals from Highmark Health, the International Poetry Forum, Columbia Gas, Duolingo, Pittsburgh City Council, UPMC, Vibrant Pittsburgh, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

Steering committee member Jake Grefenstette saw potential for collaboration between Carnegie Connectors and the International Poetry Forum, where he is president and executive director. 

He thought that working with Carnegie Museums’ network of young professionals could introduce a new generation to his poetry-focused nonprofit. In December, he plans to invite Carnegie Connectors members to the International Poetry Forum’s evening with Emily Wilson at Carnegie Music Hall.

Grefenstette says he appreciates the diverse experiences the Carnegie Connectors membership provides. He can make daytime visits with his dinosaur- and art-obsessed 2-year-old child while encountering the museums in a more personalized way at the after-hours events.

“There’s just something about being in a museum after dark,” Grefenstette says.

Etna, Pennsylvania, resident McKenna Gilbert grew up visiting the Carnegie Museums and enjoys the relaxed feel of Carnegie Connectors events. The 30-year-old communications specialist recalled a thoughtful conversation about the striking similarities that a cup, sandals, and jewelry in the Egyptian exhibition bear to objects we use today. Gilbert says these kinds of conversations are easier to have in the more intimate atmosphere provided by Carnegie Connectors events.

“I don’t think a conversation like that would have happened if I had gone on a [typical] Saturday,” Gilbert says. “You don’t have crowds and children and large groups [at Carnegie Connectors events]. It’s definitely an attractive program and a way to increase accessibility.”

Quinn Kirby, 26, also felt a connection to the Egyptian artifacts.

“I’ve never been part of such a diverse community, possibly in my entire life.” 

–Shaunak Kulhalli, Carnegie Connectors member

Kirby is manager of strategic initiatives for the North Side/Shore Chamber of Commerce. They initially joined the Carnegie Connectors steering committee to build a relationship between the chamber and its North Side neighbors, The Warhol and Science Center. After joining, they realized membership is an incredible value.

“Every single weekend of September, I went to Carnegie Museum of Art at least once, and there was a weekend I went twice,” Kirby says. “That in itself paid for the membership—and I also go to the events.”

Kirby experienced profound moments of emotional connection with exhibitions, as well as shared lighthearted moments with fellow guests. After viewing remnants from Titanic’s ill-fated voyage, Kirby was surprised by a fellow Carnegie Connector dressed as the controversial ship door from the Titanic movie—the door that was (allegedly) too small to hold both Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as they floated in the icy waters. 

“Art begets art,” Kirby says, laughing at the memory. “And [the door] was big enough for the two of them!” 

Young professionals at a Carnegie Connectors event held at the Museum of Natural History.

The post Creative Connections appeared first on Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

“It was terrifying,” he says. 

Fortunately, the North Side resident found another way—leveraging a digital content creation program at The Andy Warhol Museum to break into the burgeoning field of video production. 

“When you try to break into creative industries, it’s very difficult, very competitive,” says Jones, 20, who is now an assistant editor and junior producer for The Warhol’s boutique production studio, The Warhol Creative. “This really helped me make connections, and it led to a great job.”

The Warhol Creative is one pillar of The Pop District, The Warhol’s multi-pronged, 10-year strategic expansion announced in 2022 to transform the six-block section of the museum’s North Shore neighborhood into a cultural and economic hub.

Launched with support from the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, The Pop District features public art installations, workforce development programs, and eventually a creative arts center in what is now a parking lot across the street at the intersection of Sandusky and East General Robinson streets.

After two years, The Pop District has already met and in many ways exceeded its original goals, especially for the workforce development component, says Dan Law, associate director of The Warhol. 

“We hoped it would be successful, but it’s really gone through the roof,” Law says. 

He notes that the museum envisions the $60 million Pop District as a way to provide new revenue streams while advancing Carnegie Museums’ overarching vision to turn its museums “inside out” by engaging with the community outside their walls. 

“There’s a tremendous opportunity to take the museum outside the four walls,” Law says. “There is a growth mechanism and a growth mindset that unlocks revenue potential and sustainability potential for the museum.”

The initiative has garnered accolades for The Warhol. The tech entrepreneur news site Technical.ly named The Pop District its Culture Builder of the Year in 2023. The New York-based news site Observer has cited it as a possible “blueprint for museum recovery” as cultural institutions continue to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic. And Artnet pondered whether it could be a new model for museums’ civic engagement. 

“We’re able to lead the way nationally, demonstrating that museums can evolve and innovate post-pandemic,” Law says.

All the while, the entrepreneurial initiative remains aligned with its namesake’s legacy. Andy Warhol was famously entrepreneurial while making art, once saying, “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

The Warhol Academy

Last year, Clarise Fearn was operating her part-time crafting business as a pop-up store, and it was proving so popular that she wanted to turn it into a permanent operation. Fearn conceived a kind of restaurant for art where patrons could make reservations to come to a cafe-like setting and order from her menu of craft projects.

But she lacked the tech savvy to promote it online. Then she heard about a new digital marketing course offered through The Warhol. Fearn, 30, says the 24-week course she took last year gave her the confidence and digital skills to open up the Mindful Craft Cafe in the Mexican War Streets on the North Side in August.

“The course really did change my life,” Fearn says. “It gave me the confidence to know that I could open a brick-and-mortar business and market it.” She says the course helped her elevate her website from “OK to amazing.”

A critical part of the vision for The Pop District’s creative workforce development efforts was to provide people with the skills to participate in the 21st-century economy. The Warhol Academy became the hub for this programming. 

Operating out of The Pop District headquarters next door to the museum on Isabella Street, The Warhol Academy offers paid fellowships in filmmaking and post-production, as well as digital content creation. It is also the home of Carnegie Museums’ digital marketing diploma program, which currently is free to participants. Specifically aimed at providing pathways to employment for marginalized communities, The Warhol Academy does not require its diploma and fellowship applicants to have a high school diploma. The only requirements are that they be at least 18 years old and eligible to work in the United States. 

The Warhol aimed to remove as many barriers to entry as possible—including cost and prerequisites—so that its programming was attractive and accessible to a diverse array of students, says Ryan Haggerty, school director for state-licensed programming and adult workforce development at The Warhol Academy. 

“We consider accessibility in everything we do,” Haggerty explains. “It’s part of the mission of empowering people to be competitive.”

“If you did a fellowship with The Warhol Academy or you were able to jump in on a shoot for Dell or The Warhol Museum, that’s massive. Having that line on your resume or project in your portfolio can get your foot in the door.”  

–Ryan Haggerty, school director for state-licensed programming and adult workforce development at The Warhol Academy

By the end of 2024, nearly 600 people—ranging from teenagers to mid-career professionals—will have participated in The Academy’s programming since the pilot program launched in 2021. This year, The Academy was named “Innovator of the Year” by Goodwill of Southwestern PA.

The Warhol Academy also offers paid fellowships to about 32 people a year—one in digital content creation for brand videos and other short-form work, and a film and post-production fellowship for longer-form videos and films. These fellowships offer a $3,000 stipend and are highly competitive. 

Since last year, Pop District mentors have been available to work one-on-one with fellows and digital marketing participants, helping them make connections and offering career advice or resume-writing guidance even after the participants leave the program. The fellows also are given projects intended to stretch the boundaries of their creativity.

For Erika Kondo, who was part of the film and post-production fellowship, that meant creating a music video of Pittsburgh pop musician Kahone Concept. “They gave me access to equipment that I don’t have. I produced everything myself within the span of two months.”

Haggerty notes that the fellowship opens doors for job seekers and small business owners. “If you did a fellowship with The Warhol Academy or you were able to jump in on a shoot for Dell or The Warhol Museum, that’s massive. Having that line on your resume or project in your portfolio can get your foot in the door.”

Expanding on these successes, in May 2023, Pennsylvania’s Department of Education licensed Carnegie Institute, the state-registered entity for Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, to launch its first-ever diploma program in digital marketing at The Warhol. That program, which is unique as the only museum-based school licensed to operate in Pennsylvania, is also currently offered for free and has averaged more than 40 annual graduates. 

Students who graduated with a digital marketing diploma are landing jobs, Haggerty says. Eighty percent were employed within a year, with an annual salary between $35,000 and $75,000, Haggerty notes.  

It adds up to a lot of wealth created for the region. Those salaries, as well as the wages, contracts, stipends, and honoraria paid by The Warhol Creative and The Warhol Academy, totaled $1.5 million this year alone, Law says.

“That’s money going back on the street, money in people’s pockets.”

Emily Armstrong was hired as project coordinator of Pittsburgh Robotics Network after receiving her digital marketing diploma in 2023. Armstrong, who studied studio art at Carlow University, had been working at The Warhol as a museum youth program coordinator when she heard about the program.  

She notes that instructor Maddi Love demystified the process of digital marketing. “New technology is really scary and off-putting. She was really supportive,” Armstrong says of Love’s guidance. “She said, ‘You can do this. It’s not that hard.’  She definitely helped mentor me.” 

The Warhol Creative

In 2023, when Kondo graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in cinematography and film and video production, she faced a bleak and depressing job market in the highly competitive film industry.

“I applied to over 150 jobs,” she says. 

Every job listing was flooded with applicants, Kondo says, and one New York-based editing position she saw posted to LinkedIn had 3,000 applicants in 48 hours. “It is an absolutely awful market right now,” she says.

Thanks to the work she did during her fellowship, Kondo was offered a position as a junior producer and assistant editor at another pillar of The Pop District—its production studio, The Warhol Creative. 

“Everyone wants to go to New York and LA, and they want to go big,” Kondo says. “I have huge ambitions, too, and I think I can really bring forth some of my ambition here.”

This was, after all, part of the intention behind The Pop District: to nurture young creatives in Pittsburgh so that, according to Law, “the next Andy Warhol doesn’t have to leave the city to become Andy Warhol. It’s kind of our North Star, the guiding principle of our vision—don’t let our creative community go elsewhere. Keep them in Pittsburgh and help them grow here.”

The Warhol Creative does this by offering paid opportunities to people—mostly those who, like Kondo, have come through The Warhol Academy training programs—to produce social media content and films for local and national clients. These include Dell Technologies, NBCUniversal’s Creative Impact Lab, and Miami City Ballet. 

The Warhol Creative has produced more than 1,000 videos for 33 clients and generated $1 million in revenue through contracts and sponsorships.

Age and experience are less important criteria in hiring decisions than finding people who are highly motivated to learn, says Christian Lockerman, executive producer of The Warhol Creative. Lockerman is a filmmaker with two decades of experience who has developed original content for corporate clients like Spirit Airlines, and held research and teaching positions at Point Park University and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. He manages a team of seasoned professionals who work with their charges to produce award-winning work.

“The important idea is to help young people who don’t get an opportunity,” Lockerman says. “We provide a professional environment where you can be mentored. You can gather experience on sets, on shoots, on projects that most people—even in film school—don’t get.”

In the late summer and early fall, a group of young producers of The Warhol Creative were filming and editing videos for Dell, shooting a docuseries about contemporary artists, working on a video promotion for a City Theatre play, and creating video content for both The Warhol and Carnegie Museum of Art, to name a few. The team also is producing its first feature-length film, a documentary on the LGBTQ+ prom held every year at The Warhol. Lockerman says they plan to submit it to several film festivals.

“One of the things we’re most proud of is providing these opportunities for people from less-represented portions of society to get into this world of film production,” Lockerman says. 

He cites Alejandro Jimenez as an example of someone whose career has flourished after completing the fellowship program during the first cohort in 2021.

This fall, the 35-year-old Jimenez, who emigrated from Ecuador and now works for The Warhol Creative as a producer and editor, flew with Lockerman to Miami to do a shoot for the Miami City Ballet. “He’s the lead on some very big projects,” Lockerman says. “The opportunities are there.”

“There’s a tremendous opportunity to take the museum outside the four walls. There is a growth mechanism and a growth mindset that unlocks revenue potential and sustainability potential for the museum.”  

–Dan Law, associate director of The Warhol

Jimenez, a former painter, says, “I’m always trying to combine fine arts with filmmaking—even though we make a lot of promotional videos and nonfiction work, there’s always a way to add something extra.” 

Jimenez says he was captivated by Warhol while studying art in Argentina—“He changed the way people looked at art.” But having a deep prior knowledge of the legendary Pop artist is not a condition of employment. Students don’t need to have a background in art, period.

Jones, the former fellow who now works for The Warhol Creative as an assistant editor, had never heard of Warhol growing up in the North Side, not far from the museum.

His introduction to Warhol came when he enrolled as a high school junior in The Academy’s digital content creation program. That opportunity led to a sports marketing job and then a dream job with The Warhol Creative. He now brings his own creativity to his video-production work, such as adding a visual effect he might have seen on Instagram. 

“I’m really getting a sense of artistry,” he says. “We do videos based around marketing, but art is at the center of it all.”

Public Art and the Factory

A critical piece of being a “district,” however, requires engaging with the public outside on the streets.

Along the museum’s exterior wall on Silver Street is Typoe’s Over the Rainbow, a vibrant mural painted on the exterior wall that was the first public artwork commissioned by the museum in 2021. Accompanied by stringed bistro lights and seating, it transformed an otherwise hidden alleyway into bright space for the public to gather.

“I hope that all who visit The Warhol are welcomed by these fields of color and leave having experienced their own journey in form,” Typoe said at its unveiling.

Meanwhile, across General Robinson Street in Pop Park, The Warhol unveiled in May a newly commissioned sculptural work by the artist KAWS to mark the museum’s 30th anniversary. Titled Together, it’s a massive teak sculpture two stories tall that represents two of the artist’s signature cartoon-like characters embracing. It was preceded by other temporary art installations in Pop Park that include Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree, and Anatomy of the Human by local Nigerian American artist Mikael Owunna. 

Law notes there’s still work to do in getting the public to identify it as a “district,” like the Cultural District in Downtown, where visitors would want to make return trips. He acknowledges that most people don’t yet recognize The Pop District as a cultural destination, although the outdoor art installations are slowly changing that. 

That’s sure to change when a planned creative arts center—another key plank of The Pop District called “The Factory”—opens at the site of the current Warhol parking lot. Its name harkens back to Warhol’s famed New York City-based Silver Factory, a hub of activity where Warhol managed his art and business empires, all while hobnobbing with celebrities.  

“That’s when banners will go up,” Law says.

Law believes the new 800-person standing room Factory—part interdisciplinary arts space, part concert hall—will generate a lot of excitement, hosting musical acts and shows that traditionally bypass Pittsburgh on their concert calendars. Expected to open by 2027, the space will enliven The Pop District—located just across the Andy Warhol Bridge from Pittsburgh’s Cultural District—especially during the evenings.

When that happens, it will become a kind of capstone for The Pop District, and further The Warhol’s larger goal to have a more dynamic relationship with its audience.

“I think there’s a contrast to be drawn between a static, one-directional paradigm where we are the holder of these precious valuables to a more direct relationship to the community,” Law says.

Ezra Jones agrees. The Pop District, he says, will help revitalize the place where he grew up. “It gives people the direct route to make connections in the art world, the
world of filmmaking, and I want to help foster that.” 

The post Progress in the Pop District appeared first on Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

Wearing a celestial-themed necktie with planets floating amid a starry night sky, Kamin gestured from behind a lectern to a 4-foot-long metal tube at his right, which was angled toward the heavens. 

“I vividly recall crafting my own telescope during many inspired visits to The Buhl,” Kamin told the audience. “So, I have a great appreciation for the role the Science Center plays in educating and inspiring our young people.”

Kamin would follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and pursue a career in commercial real estate development. But he never lost his fascination with astronomy and the big existential questions he would ask himself as he peered through the telescope eyepiece after visits to the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science, the precursor to the Science Center. 

‘A Lifelong Love of Astronomy’: Read about how Dan and Carole Kamin formed a personal connection with Carnegie Science Center.

That’s why he and his wife, Carole, had come to the North Shore that day—to announce a $65 million gift to the Science Center, which will be renamed the Daniel G. and Carole L. Kamin Science Center in their honor. This, the largest-ever monetary gift since Andrew Carnegie founded Carnegie Museums in 1895, will provide transformative financial support as the Science Center pursues its ambitions for inspiring new generations of science enthusiasts and becoming a national leader in its field. 

“As a continuation of Dan’s passion for the night sky, this gift enables future generations of visitors to discover their own passions, powered by curiosity, here at the Science Center,” says Jason Brown, Henry Buhl, Jr., Director of the Science Center and vice president of Carnegie Museums. 

Part upfront gift to the endowment and part bequest, the Kamins’ gift—when fully realized—will quintuple the Science Center’s endowment, from which it can draw about 5 percent annually to support its operating budget and fund special projects. 

Over the coming year and a half, the Science Center is investing in a rebranding, with a new visual identity and logo to reflect the name change, new signage, and a new website. It will expand its already robust staff training. And, longer term, the Kamin gift will advance planning efforts to overhaul the Science Center’s 12-acre campus to be more welcoming to a wider community, especially its North Side neighbors, and provide ongoing support to plan new exhibitions that incorporate the latest, most relevant science.

“Our mission has always been to connect people with science, igniting a curiosity that lasts for a lifetime,” Brown says. “Our expanded vision is to become the most relevant science center in existence, where we focus on the most relevant topics in science.”

Current Science 

Last summer, as wildfires devastated Canada and blanketed much of the Northern United States in an eerie orange haze, the Science Center’s leadership team wondered how they could quickly respond to this major event.

The Science Center offered digital programming in which the public could hear a virtual presentation by scientists and ask questions. But the museum’s vision is to do much more.  

Photo: John McColgan

Since its inception, the Science Center has aimed to be a trusted source of current scientific information. But science is constantly changing and exhibitions are expensive to produce, requiring years of fundraising and development. The Kamin money—in combination with other gifts—will provide the financial flexibility for the Science Center to begin planning new exhibitions much more quickly and regularly, says Marcus Harshaw, the Science Center’s associate museum director of museum experiences.

In creating new exhibitions that respond to current events, Harshaw wants to tap into the local expertise of Pittsburgh’s scientific community. To do that, the Science Center is creating a science communications advisory council of academics and researchers from local universities, a group that can be “kind of on speed dial” to offer input the next time there’s an issue of scientific importance in the news.

“So the next time there is a Canadian wildfire, we have people we can just reach out to so we can immediately build a program, build discussion, build exhibitions around,” Harshaw explains.

“Our mission has always been to connect people with science, igniting a curiosity that lasts for a lifetime. Our expanded vision is to become the most relevant science center in existence, where we focus on the most relevant topics in science.”

Jason Brown, Henry Buhl, Jr., Director of the Science Center

This ability to discuss relevant topics using the latest science is a critical aspect of the Science Center’s vision, and involves more than just exhibitions, says Kim Amey, the Science Center’s chief of staff. It includes responding to scientifically significant events through social media or news interviews, hosting panel discussions at the Science Center, and putting on other public programming like camps, classes, and theater shows.

“What this Kamin gift allows us to do is invest in new exhibition concepts and program ideas, to accelerate the pace of fundraising and planning, and to be more responsive to community needs in a changing world,” Amey says.

Investing in new exhibitions, of course, is at the core of the Science Center’s mission and Dan Kamin’s desire for its future. 

“As someone who vividly recalls many inspiring visits to the Buhl Planetarium as a child, I look forward to a continuation of experiences that foster interactive and hands-on learning experiences for both kids and adults,” Kamin says. “The Science Center is an incredible place to dream, explore, and contribute to the world of science.” 

In the meantime, the Science Center is embarking on major updates to its Highmark SportsWorks® gallery and also the third floor, where its BodyWorks exhibition will be replaced by the relocated BNY Mellon Fab Lab anchoring a new maker learning hub. Those changes, which are being supported by other funders, are expected to be completed in 2025. 

Investing in Staff

Exhibitions that explore the vanguard of science require investments in staff as well. That means expanding professional development opportunities.

Amanda Murphy is an early childhood educator at the Science Center who has taken advantage of any and all training opportunities, from fire safety to attending professional conferences. She’s even taken a theater improv class, offered internally through the Science Center’s “CSC University.”

Why improv?

“Kids say the darndest things, so you have to respond to whatever they say to you, and sometimes it’s in front of the whole class,” Murphy explains. “You have to be quick on your feet.”

Photo: Nic Lockerman

The CSC University trainings are designed and taught internally by existing staff who have expertise in an area, whether it’s exhibit fabrication or working with Microsoft Excel. The Kamin gift will fund expanded training opportunities, both inside and outside the museum, which will be essential for staff members to keep up with newer exhibitions that respond to current events. 

“The professional development opportunities that are good for a program presenter who’s in the education department are very different than those for an exhibit designer who is fabricating and developing new programming and exhibit ideas,” says Steve Kovac, associate museum director, service and engagement. “Part of our training model is to have staff find those opportunities themselves. We think if they identify the opportunities, they’re going to be much more invested in it. And this gift allows us to do just that.” 

For Murphy, attending conferences has been a valuable way to make connections and grow in her position. She’s met educators at other museums, such as the Field Museum in Chicago, to compare notes and learn about different approaches. But the grant funding that has supported her participation in these conferences is ending this year. Having a portion of the Kamin gift available to her will open up new opportunities after the grant is finished.

“I was excited that [professional development] was one of the priorities. Not everybody in our museum is an educator or has a science background,” she says. “Me being able to go to conferences and get the latest science information is life changing for my own professional growth and for the Science Center’s programs. The opportunities are endless.”

Brad Peroney, director of public and community programming, has been at the Science Center for 21 years and has been a big booster for professional development. He helped start CSC University and has taught many of the classes, from Science Denial in the 21st Century to Backyard Bird Science.

Expanding learning opportunities outside the museum is more than a nice employee benefit, he says. It’s essential to the institution’s mission.

“We’re an educational organization,” Peroney says. “If we’re not also learning while doing this work, then we’re only fulfilling half of our duty as an educational institution.”

The Kamin gift will also help furnish a place for staff to take lunch breaks, something they’ve asked for in the past. These kinds of investments will hopefully return dividends in staff retention, says Kelly Gascoine, director of workforce development.

“We’re an educational organization. If we’re not also learning while doing this work, then we’re only fulfilling half of our duty as an educational institution.”

Brad Peroney, director of public and community programming

“Our hope is that they’ll continue their careers within the Carnegie Museums,” she says, “and the training and professional development that we’ve been pouring into them, they will just pour back into their interactions with visitors, build those visitor experiences, and we can support them throughout their careers.”

Being a Good Neighbor

Another essential aspect of the Science Center’s vision for the future involves being a good neighbor on the North Shore, be they residents of the Manchester neighborhood or staff of nearby employers.

John Thornton, who is CEO of the Manchester-based space research company Astrobotic, can see the Science Center from his office window. But the two places are physically separated by Route 65 and a gauntlet of pedestrian hazards. It would be an unpleasant walk, to say the least, he says, crossing busy multilane roads and beneath a dark overpass to get to the Science Center.

“Route 65 creates a big divide that cuts the Science Center off from the community here in Manchester,” Thornton says. “That’s been a real challenge for the community. If the Science Center is successful in bridging that divide, that’s going to be a really big deal.” 

The Science Center is still figuring out how to be that bridge. Part of it will involve offering more public programming beyond its own walls. The Science Center campus stretches across 12 acres, much of it surface parking across the street from its main buildings on Casino Drive. Brown and his team are contemplating how better to use that space to engage with its neighbors, whether it’s through one-time events or something more permanent to serve as “connective tissue” with the rest of the North Shore.

“We want to be a place that draws people in as a destination that is not just the Science Center itself,” Brown says. “That would involve creating opportunities to engage with science outside of our building, so people could come and experience outdoor science, hands-on stuff.”

Engaging with the community also will involve creating a more accessible and inviting riverfront experience, Brown says. A pedestrian and biking trail runs directly behind the museum. And the Cold War-era submarine USS Requin is moored along the banks of the Ohio River, where it hosts tours and special events. Brown wonders whether there are more effective and sustainable ways to use that waterfront space.

“Is there a way we can bring people to the riverfront differently?” Brown muses. “What about a public marina? What about a longer dock where we can interpret the submarine while walking alongside it instead of a single gangway that runs out onto it?”

“The Science Center is an incredible place to dream, explore, and contribute to the world of science.”

Dan Kamin

He notes that the USS Requin is in need of significant repairs. The Science Center has started to craft a vision for Requin’s next chapter that may involve the monumental task of lifting the 1,516-ton craft from the water to repair and restore its deteriorating hull, make cosmetic improvements, and change the way it’s displayed. 

“The submarine has been in its current location for over 30 years, and there has been inconsistent maintenance below the waterline on it,” Brown says. “We find ourselves in a position where it really needs a full set of maintenance.”

Once those repairs are made, the Kamins’ gift to the Science Center’s endowment will offer a steady source of funding for ongoing maintenance, so that it never has to fall into such disrepair again.

“We’ll have the money every single year to do whatever maintenance it needs, regardless of what it is, and hopefully not get back to a point where we need to raise millions of dollars to fully restore and conserve it,” Brown says. “That’s really exciting.”

Meanwhile, the Science Center is engaging with Riverlife, a nonprofit organization devoted to redeveloping Pittsburgh’s downtown riverfront, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create a plan for improving the waterfront for pedestrians, cyclists, and also the wildlife that lives there. 

Riverlife and the Army Corps of Engineers are collaborating on a $20 million ecological restoration project to improve a three-quarter-mile stretch of riverfront from Acrisure Stadium to the West End Bridge. The Science Center sits right in the middle of that project and will be key in deciding whatever happens there. 

Riverlife CEO Matt Galluzzo says his team has been in biweekly conversations with the Science Center, whose vision for the future of its campus, he says, “aligns perfectly with our organizational values and priorities.”

“The transformation will not only enhance the overall visitor experience but create a lasting positive impact on the link to the Manchester community for generations to come,” Galluzzo says.

These are long-term initiatives that will require additional fundraising. But the Kamin gift means that people can begin work on some aspects immediately. It means that the Science Center’s vision doesn’t have to remain a theoretical possibility—it can start becoming a reality.

“We believe in Jason,” Dan Kamin says. “And we support the work of people who we believe in and who are inspired to bring about positive change.” 

The post Pursuing Relevant Science appeared first on Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

A wall display of functional art—20 chairs that are part of the Extraordinary Ordinary Things exhibition—served as a backdrop and inspiration for the theme of that morning’s lesson, “Design Thinking.”

It was in this context that these teachers would develop new ideas for their classroom, and maybe find a bit of a battery recharge for themselves, as part of the museum’s summer Educator Residency. The three-week program, designed for educators across all disciplines, consists largely of Pittsburgh Public Schools teachers.

Divided into pairs, the educators were given a pouch of materials that included tissue paper, paper clips, rubber bands, pipe cleaners, and other supplies. Their assignment, typed on a piece of paper they’d plucked from a pile, asked them to build something new: a game, a “feminine hygiene product,” a “cordless hair-styling device.”

After a brief brainstorming session, the educators’ busy hands began to build simple innovations—from a set of “curlers” and friction-creating tongue depressors to a waist trainer for menstruating women, complete with built-in aluminum foil “heating pads.”

Maisha Johnson, senior manager of youth and family teaching and learning at Carnegie Museum of Art, sat on the perimeter of the action, watching the educators collaborate. She views this time of creative recuperation as a way of sustaining a community of learners. Though she’s been at the museum for less than two years, she’s been in education as a teacher and school administrator for more than two decades. 

“[This role has] made me think about how many opportunities I had to play in the workspace,” she says. “Having fun, being happy—that’s important to well-being.”

“We thought to ourselves—how can our museum not only support the professional development of our regional educators, but also support their overall well-being? This led to educators being connected to art, ideas, and one another.”

-Maisha Johnson, senior manager of youth and family teaching and learning at Carnegie Museum of Art

Yet “having fun” is just one aim of the summer Residency, which the museum launched in 2021 in response to educators feeling depleted from lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and cuts to public education funding. The Residency has three goals: Establish a community of learners, explore the museum as a learning resource, and experience creative recuperation.

“We thought to ourselves—how can our museum not only support the professional development of our regional educators, but also support their overall well-being?” explains Johnson. “This led to educators being connected to art, ideas, and one another.”

A ‘Battery Recharge’

The Residency immerses educators, who apply each spring, in a creative environment in which to develop their teaching practice in relationship to art. The museum offers an outside-the-classroom space that helps residents remember their “why” for teaching and reconnect to the practice.

Through experiential learning, each resident designs a lesson plan by the end of the third week that connects an artwork of their choosing to their curricular goals. These lesson plans, which include social emotional learning, creativity, observation, and critical thinking, are then made available to other educators, free of charge, on the museum’s website. Throughout the process, educators learn to be sensitive to contextuality, making sure that all students feel a part of the learning, too.

Jacqueline Clarke, who teaches African American history and psychology at Barack Obama Academy of International Studies, completed the program in the summer of 2023. She learned about it through Johnson, who had been her assistant principal prior to stepping into her current role. Clarke immediately was intrigued, relishing the chance to collaborate again with Johnson, invest in her own creativity, and think outside the box about how to incorporate the arts into her curriculum.

The experience showed Clarke how professional development can be authentic and stress-free with the ability to create, discover, and think about art in new and educational ways.

“The creative recharge definitely allowed me to be open to thinking uniquely about the impact of art in history,” she reflects, “and allowed me to appreciate the storytelling, activism, and design aspects of art that are also core elements of history.”

In creating her own invention out of a bag of supplies during her Residency last year, Clarke says she was reminded of how art can be innovative and transformative when thinking about solving problems for society.

An example of weaving history and social activism into art played out during a show-and-tell session in June, when Johnson distributed to Residency educators a list of Black inventors who had inspired that morning’s invention prompts. Among the names: Mary Kenner, who invented the sanitary belt in 1957, and Marjorie S. Joyner, who created the permanent hair-wave machine in 1928. Kenner and Joyner may not be household names, but their inventions went on to have significant impacts on American society.

Johnson used this as a chance to highlight the power of amplifying voices that have been marginalized, something crucial to the education department and the Museum of Art as a whole.

“In turn, we lift up and facilitate experiences for the problem solvers in our classrooms,” she says.

Making New Connections  

Past program participants say it reinvigorated their notions of how to connect material with their students’ experiences.

Andrea Sisk, a math teacher at Woodland Hills High School for 19 years, applied to the program in the spring of 2021. Many of her students are from underserved communities and get bombarded with messages about not being good in math and not needing these skills to be successful. Sisk has sought to boost their interest in math by connecting it with other subjects and highlighting its relevance to students’ everyday lives.

“In order for my students to find relevance in my content,” she explains, “it is essential for me to make connections with other disciplines. I am adept in making connections with science, English, sports, foreign languages, theater arts, geography, and technology, but had no real understanding of visual arts. I felt as though I owed it to my students to help them make every connection possible to engage them.”

Sisk most loved learning about pieces in the museum, and how these discoveries might lead to fresh lesson ideas that could pique her students’ interest. For example, after a visit to the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems in Carnegie Museum of Natural History, educators were tasked with using oil pastels to create a color wheel based on gems and minerals of their choosing.

Photo: John Schisler

Clarke appreciated getting behind-the-scenes exposure to different layers of the art world, too, specifically in interacting with individuals who design and execute new exhibitions. “It allowed me to see a whole new level of careers and opportunities I could potentially expose my students to within the art field,” she says.

Sisk learned so much about infusing art into her classroom that now, when she teaches a math remediation class, she incorporates pieces of art at the museum. Students write equations of lines by superimposing a grid over a print of Untitled (Red Butterfly Over Green) by Mark Grotjahn or explore proportionality by examining Equivalent  by Joan Witek and then measuring and computing which of their body parts (wingspan, height, length of middle finger, etc.) are proportional. They write about what “negative” means in terms of negative space in sculptures like Georgia Gate by Thaddeus G. Mosley.

At the culmination of Sisk’s unit, her students took a field trip to the museum to see the artworks they’d been studying in class. After a guided tour, they spent the day exploring both the Museum of Art and Museum of Natural History.

“I cannot tell you how much it means to my students to go on this field trip,” she says.

Lasting Impressions

Clarke says she left the program with strategies to help students engage with art and valuable resources for her classroom. She also has a relationship with Carnegie Museum of Art’s education program. She’s been able to take students to the museum as a partnership with Winchester Thurston School to explore Charles “Teenie” Harris through photography.

“I have also begun to design lesson plans I can implement into our coursework that allow students to question history through the artist’s work,” she says.

Sisk compares the ending of the Residency in the summer of 2021 to saying goodbye at sleepaway camp. “The museum staff created a truly unique experience of both professional growth and personal nurturing,” she says. “I learned so much about art and infusing it into my classroom, while making connections, both with Museum of Art employees and other educators.” She deems the Educator Residency as the single greatest professional development she’s ever experienced.

The support educators receive extends well beyond their three-week residency. All residents are invited to gather at the museum approximately eight Thursday evenings a year to connect, explore a piece in the gallery, and make art, Sisk explains. “We share how we use art in our classes, and trade resources,” she says. “I truly treasure my nights at the museum as a few hours of calm in the midst of chaotic weeks.”

Sisk stayed in touch with a university teacher she met during the Residency and speaks to their class each spring. Through the Residency, she also learned about the Empowered Educator series, which is offered by the museum’s education department and engages educators to examine race and experiences through art. She’s referred colleagues in Spanish, history, and performing arts departments to the field trips offered by the Museum of Art, too. “The connections I make and the professional and personal growth it has afforded me makes me a better teacher, and a better resource for my students,” she says.

Clarke has attended artist meetups to connect with other residents, and she’s stayed in contact with Johnson to set up curated field trips. She deems the Residency “the most creative and refreshing professional development program I have been a part of thus far in my career.”

Current participants agree. At the culmination of one June 2024 lesson-planning session, Katie LaCava of New Kensington-Arnold School District made a point to praise Residency leaders. “This program is unique because of these individuals who are with us every day,” she says. “They’re very open, and they work really hard.”

On that June Monday, after viewing the educators’ creations, Johnson praised the teachers in her midst. “We appreciate your courage in not giving up,” she told them.

While sitting among the exhibition’s many decorative arts pieces—largely created as solutions to problems—she returned to the exercise’s theme of being an inventor and the importance of having a “what if” mentality, particularly in their own classrooms.

“How do we encourage that within our students?” she asks the group. “It’s in them already.”

The Educator Residency is generously supported by The Grable Foundation.

The post Educators at Play appeared first on Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

Who:
Seth Vargo and TJ Watson 

What They support: 
Carnegie Science Center   

Why it matters:
“To me, it’s about the spark. It’s about having someone look at something and wonder, how does that work? To enable curiosity is the most important part.”  –TJ Watson

A s a curious, science-oriented fifth grader, Seth Vargo took a transformative school  field trip in which he moved between worlds.

He’d never been to a large city, and the 2 1/2-hour bus journey from Vargo’s home in Windber, Pennsylvania—an economically challenged community where 14 percent of children live in poverty—introduced him to the glittering spectacle of downtown Pittsburgh. Then, once the bus reached the North Shore, he and his classmates filed into Carnegie Science Center where they discovered outer space.

“It was a really great interactive experience at the Science Center,” Vargo recalls. “To get hands-on with science, technology, and innovation that you would normally only see at a very expensive high-end school where you could afford your own planetarium or IMAX theater.”

Vargo remembers the trip fondly, and said it was one of the inspirations that led him to a technology career, currently as a principal software engineer at Google. And now, he’s returning the favor by becoming a donor to the Science Center.

Vargo and his husband, TJ Watson, have financially supported renovations at the Buhl Planetarium and the development of MARS: The Next Giant Leap®, unveiled in 2022, as well as donated robotics equipment. Watson, who is a staff engineer at Aurora, an autonomous-vehicle tech company in the Strip District, says he enjoys supporting exhibitions that awaken people’s curiosity about space and technology.

“To me, it’s about the spark,” says Watson. “It’s about having someone look at something and wonder, how does that work? To enable curiosity is the most important part.”

For Vargo, that spark came via the Buhl Planetarium. Outer space has always been an interest of his, but as a child he was also just as fascinated by the projection technology that produced the spectacular shows of the night sky. He watched the projectionist operate “what looked like a spaceship or futuristic object,” Vargo recalls, wondering how it was managing to recreate the stars and galaxies on the domed screen surrounding them. It was an immersive experience unlike anything he’d ever seen.

Making opportunities like this accessible for everyone, especially marginalized communities, is essential to their philanthropy, Vargo says. Growing up so far away from Pittsburgh and without the financial means to take regular trips into the city, Vargo’s visits to the Science Center were few, but they were precious and impactful.

“I didn’t come from a privileged economic household, and the opportunities and the education provided by the Science Center got me into a position where I am successful and I have the means and opportunity to give back,” Vargo says. “It seems really important.”

The couple’s love of the Science Center was evident the day of their October 2023 wedding: The ceremony took place in the Buhl Planetarium. Guests were treated to a theatrical recreation of the sky from the night they first met, projected on the massive Buhl dome using the upgraded technology they helped fund, followed by a rapid slideshow of every night sky since the day they’d met and ending with the one that very night in Pittsburgh. Their officiant donned a space suit, and a robot served as their ring bearer. Afterward, the guests adjourned to the Mars exhibition outside, providing a sensation of blasting off to another planet.

“We got married on Earth and now we’re off to our honeymoon on Mars,” Vargo notes.

Like their wedding, the Science Center’s regular daily programming also pushes boundaries, providing new experiences for kids and adults to discover with each visit.

“The Science Center has done a lot of innovation,” Vargo adds. “I think the director and the staff there aren’t afraid to push the bounds of what is possible.” 

To support the Science Center, visit our donation page!

The post Sparking a Love of Science  appeared first on Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

As the museum worked to preserve and digitize the photos and identify the people portrayed in them, it organized temporary exhibitions of the collection in which viewers were treated to several dozen images at a time—of dance halls and baseball games, intimate family moments and Civil Rights protests. Often, in a single frame and unfiltered, Harris presented the seldom-seen complexity and joy of African American life and identity.

 Each exhibition provided snippets of what is considered one of the country’s most detailed and comprehensive photographic records of the Black urban experience. But there has never been a space that showcased all the facets of the archive at once, as Harris had always hoped.

“Harris wanted you to see it all, but he also wanted you to listen to the stories he was presenting in his art,” says Charlene Foggie-Barnett, Charles “Teenie” Harris community archivist. With every image, she adds, “He is leaving clues. He is revealing story lines and truths. He’s making a statement.”

Later this year, museumgoers for the first time will be able to explore this vast archive with a reinstallation of Harris’ work in the Scaife Galleries. The new Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive Gallery will feature never-before-seen components of the archive, including reels of film in canisters, and prints, some in color. Visitors will even be able to view Harris’ photographic negatives, which make up the bulk of the collection.

“We’re taking a more comprehensive, intentional, and creative approach to sharing and honoring the Teenie Harris Archive and how the photographer’s art has illuminated the city’s history,” says Dana Bishop-Root, the museum’s director of education and public programs, who worked with Foggie-Barnett and Curator of Photography Dan Leers, as well as a team of creatives, on the project. Throughout their work, which is ongoing, they considered how the museum invites, welcomes, and engages with the community—including those who knew Harris, his subjects and their families, schoolchildren, teachers, scholars, and other visitors from near and far.

“Thinking about the ways that people can experience the archive has been at the forefront of our approach to sharing it,” says Bishop-Root. “We’ve long said that people need the museum, but the museum needs people to keep it alive, inclusive, vibrant, and contemporary.”

Viewing ‘Teenie’ as Never Before

When the exhibition opens, Harris’ films, works in color, self-portraits, negatives, and more will be available for visitors to work with, listen to, read about, see—and yes, touch—Leers says.

For the first time, visitors will view Harris’ videos and still images side by side, projected on a wall using a multichannel projector. Visitors can also interact with Harris’ negatives, the thin strips of transparent plastic film that gave the photographer his first look at the subjects, using a light table stationed in the gallery. This opportunity to touch and explore the negatives is possible only because of the decades of intensive work that has gone into preserving the archive.

Many of Harris’ negatives were stored in his basement studio before the museum received them. “There were a group of negatives that were seriously curled up on each other and without protective sleeves,” adds Leers. The work of restoring and digitizing them, which is nearly complete, has been intensive and daily over the past two decades.

Pittsburghers first saw Harris’ photos in black and white in the pages of The Pittsburgh Courier, the city’s influential Black newspaper. For the first time, the museum will print some of those images on newsprint, giving visitors a look and feel for how Harris’ photographs appeared when they rolled off the press.

Experiencing the Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive Gallery will also include seeing the photographer as never before.

Harris was a month shy of his 90th birthday when he died on June 12, 1998. But in exhibitions of his work, the artist is typically portrayed as a much younger man in his 30s—bright-eyed, with finger waves in his black hair, and sporting his signature suit and tie. For the first time, the museum will present self-portraits, some in color, of Harris as an older man.

“Deciding to present portraits of the older Harris offered an opportunity for us to broaden the personal image of Harris, and who he was as a community member, family man, and artist,” says Leers. Those new portraits of the photographer will be interspersed in a mosaic display that features Harris’ life and career, layered with the major moments in Black history, American history, and international history he chronicled.

The museum also wants to broaden and focus on the visitors who will be engaging with the work Harris created.

“Deciding to present portraits of the older Harris offered an opportunity for us to broaden the personal image of Harris, and who he was as a community member, family man, and artist.” 

–Dan Leers, Curator of Photography, Carnegie Museum of Art

Visitors to the gallery will step into an expansive space that is accessible to people of different abilities, and designed for sitting, listening, viewing, touching, reading, learning, talking, and lingering as “they experience the depth of Teenie Harris’ work and how he was looking at the world,” explains Bishop-Root.

For example, the museum is outfitting the gallery space with modular seating that can easily move and be rearranged when groups and individuals come to watch a film, hear a lecture, or just talk to each other about Harris’ art. When Foggie-Barnett considers this intentional gathering space, she sees opportunities for critical conversations to also happen there: “about race, reconciling, identity, and the unknown of Black life in America,” issues she says Harris confronted in his images without saying a word.

Seeing Themselves in the Images

As a community archivist and longtime Hill District resident, Foggie-Barnett understands the importance of forging and cultivating relationships with surrounding communities, especially with those who call the Hill District home. Much of her work has focused on identifying individuals in Harris’ images and, whenever possible, meeting with those who are still living to collect their oral histories.

It’s necessary, rewarding, and ongoing work that has been “fundamental to expose the archives in ways that are personal,” says Foggie-Barnett, and that engender trust from those who share their memories and stories with the museum. One such relationship, she recalls, was with Daisy Curry Simmons, who was a young wife and mother of six when Harris photographed her on August 17, 1963. On that day, in her small, tidy bedroom, she stood in silent protest, wearing a hastily written cardboard sign on a string around her neck. It read: “Do your children live like this in Squirrel Hill? We are still human not animals.” Inside the museum, 58 years later, Curry Simmons stared for the first time at that photo of her younger self hanging in the Harris gallery.

In March 2024, Curry Simmons’ daughter called to inform Foggie-Barnett, who had collected Curry Simmons’ oral history, that her mother had passed away. That phone call, says Foggie-Barnett, represents the kind of cyclical relationship the museum wants to have with people whose lives have been touched by Harris’ work. 

“They embrace us if we embrace them,” Foggie-Barnett says.

Carnegie Museum of Art plans to engage a lay volunteer corps over the next two years to help gather oral histories and memories from people who can speak about Harris and the lives reflected in his work. Those histories will help shape how the Harris Archive is maintained, Bishop-Root says.

“Having citizen archivists who will get to experience the Harris Archive in this way is what excites me,” says Bishop-Root, who is eager to incorporate these volunteer efforts into the museum’s programming. She also sees it as a “formalized way we can ask those in the community to contribute to the knowledge and context we are building around the Teenie Harris photographs.

Photo: Joshua Franzos

“I hope that they will see themselves as adding value, in their own way.”

Foggie-Barnett shares that vision of citizens as vital to helping keep the Harris Archive alive and relevant. “We are creating an opportunity for everyday citizens to become archivists who can inform the museum and then share what they are finding and learning with the world, and with family and friends.”

Indeed, Foggie-Barnett is part of the community that Harris captured.

On the walls of her Pittsburgh home, and included in some Harris exhibitions, are photos of her as a young girl. She had her first photo shoot with Harris when she turned 1 year old. Harris photographed the smiling Foggie-Barnett sitting on a table next to her big birthday cake. It’s one of more than 300 images Harris took of her family. She is now a well-respected “steward” of the Teenie Harris Archive, involved in preserving, curating, and broadening the collection’s reach and community relevance.

Those deep roots and her memories of Harris have proven invaluable to preserving and interpreting this archive, says Leers.

“Our collaboration has been incredible; especially given Charlene’s relationship to Harris and the stories she’s collected. She has shaped how I look at the different kinds of experiences and views that everyone brings, and that are unique to this reinstallation process.

“I used to look at the [Harris] Archive as a record of the past,” he adds. “But now I see that it is living.”

Leadership support is provided by the Drue and H. J. Heinz II Charitable Trust. Major support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Support the Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive!  

Find more information at www.carnegieart.org

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