The Strip

It's the weekend, so no CMU quirks today. Instead, I caught the bus to the Strip District. Didn't really take pictures of the Strip itself as it wasn't the kind of thing I could capture with a camera. Lots of food-type shops and stalls. Bought some Pad-Thai noodles for lunch for $2.50 (about £1.75 at the exchange rate I got) and a marshmallow pop (a stick of white chocolate covered marshmallows) as a treat for $2 :) What I didn't do was buy any vegetables or meat or fish or anything else useful which I really should have. On my way back I dropped into Giant Eagle but the veggies there were twice the price of those on the Strip - gah!

Anyway, no photos of shopping at the Strip, but some from the Society for Contemporary Craft which I visited whilst I was there. The Society is just off from 21st and Penn and is free! Hurrah for free things to do!

A fairly smallish exhibition space but I actually quite enjoyed my visit. The current exhibition is 'Beyond Shared Language: Contemporary Art and the Latin American Experience' which features work from a number of Latin American artists. My favourite set of pieces were the ones by Courtney Smith, who does magical things with old furniture. I really like this Cabinet Chandelier (although my picture of it is pretty awful):


Looking at the collection online, the Polly Blue Pell Mell looks even better in pieces :) Other things I quite liked were the pieces by Alejandro Aguilera - I think I like things that are really tangible (although I don't suppose they'd appreciate it if I started picking up these exhibits) and clever.


Slightly less 'likeable' but rather clever were the pieces by Elia Alba (whose work I could never have got a good photo of but check out the ones on her Exhibition page) and Tamara Kostianovsky. Elia's work made me feel uncomfortable, which is a good thing for an artist to do (as long as it's only the occasional one) and I likes the 'rawness' (hehe - but really all those pinks and reds) and the texture of what Tamara had done, very clever.


So there you go, I'm no art expert but I did enjoy the exhibits in the Society for Contemporary Craft - and the staff were friendly too :)

Oh, and I also discovered the first (for me, not historically or anything clever like that) of Pittsburgh's many bridges: 16th Street Bridge.