Millvale Riverfront Park to host interactive sculpture festival – Tribune-Review

Updated 5 hours ago

The Society of Sculptors will bring about 40 sculptures to Millvale's Riverfront Park as part of the first SculptureFest.

The free festival, slated for 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. July 22, will feature sculptors demonstrating mold making, casting, metal manipulation and clay sculpting at the park's pavilion. Guests visiting Ton Pottery at 220 North Ave. may view owner Dan Kuhn using his pottery wheel and an exhibit of wall sculptures originally planned to hang at the nearby Millvale Studios, now closed because of a recent fire.

The Society of Sculptors, The Frick Art & Historical Center, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art and Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area will lead family-friendly, hands-on activities.

Families and individuals will be able to talk with the artists who are demonstrating and ask questions, touch materials and interact, said Duncan MacDiarmid, Society of Sculptors president. So it's very much about a festival that engages people, rather than perhaps a more traditional arts festival where you walk around and look at booths.

I do feel that as human beings we enjoy working with our hands and we enjoy creating; and with so much technology in our lives, we've moved away from that. And this festival is sort of about bringing that back into the spotlight.

These artists, among others, will provide demonstrations on the following topics: Susan Wagner, sculptor of PNC Park's Roberto Clemente statue, and Gadi Leshem, figure modeling; Donna Penoyer, jeweler, turning a clay-like substance into solid metal when heated at a high temperature; Pati Beachley and Ed Parrish, melting and casting aluminum; Anders Anderson of Red Tile Clay Works, mold-making, and James Shipman, wood carving.

MacDiarmid anticipates that most pieces will remain inside the pavilion because it will take a lot of effort to move them around the park.

My hope is that as the festival becomes better known that people will want to start to do that. And it will become Pittsburgh's very own Burning Man (after the annual Black Rock Desert, Nev., festival).

In addition to viewing the art, guests may listen to music from Jeremy Boyle of Joan of Arc, The Working Poor and a live broadcast from The River's Edge online radio station.

Sprezzatura, Grist House Craft Brewery, Frank's Pizza and Chicken, and First Course Cafe will serve refreshments.

Following SculptureFest 2017, Millvale Yoga Collective and Panza Gallery will present the Art and Afterparty from 6 p.m. to midnight at Panza Gallery, 115 Sedgwick St., Millvale.

The free event will feature art from the Pittsburgh Society of Artists' Choice Exhibition, complimentary refreshments and music from the Tim Vitullo Band, Bindley Hardware Co. and We Were Telepathic.

Millvale Yoga Collective owner Jenny Sines, whose studio was located inside the Millvale Studios building, is temporarily holding classes at Panza Gallery and the Boys & Girls Club of Western Pennsylvania. She and the other party organizers plan to raffle art and gift baskets donated from local businesses to raise funds for the artists affected by the fire.

She hopes the event strengthens the creative community in Millvale and continues its momentum, in all mediums: music, art and movement certainly to also help Millvale Studios, but also just to go get people inspired.

Erica Cebzanov is a Tribune-Review contributor.

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Millvale Riverfront Park to host interactive sculpture festival - Tribune-Review