Exhibitions

March 1 – May 28, 2019
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Touchstone Center for Crafts hosted an exhibition at the Pittsburgh International Airport showcasing the wide range of diversity and talent that Touchstone brings to campus each year. The exhibition occupied six cases at the entrance to the landside terminal of the airport. Exhibiting artists included Carol Milne, Rae Gold, Stephen Yusko, Bryan Hopkins, Tim Lazure, Ron Donoughe, Jo Campbell-Amsler, Lanny Bergner, Travis Winters, Daniel Tomcik, Glen Gardner, Aaron DeShields, & Troy Bungart.

2019 Bea Campbell Gallery Exhibitions @Touchstone

Touchstone’s 2019 Instructor Exhibition

June 2- July 27, 2019
Touchstone invites professional artists from around the country to teach workshops each year. This exhibition showcases a sampling of work by our 2019 workshop instructors. 

Exhibiting artists: Jo Campbell-Amsler, Lanny Bergner, Erika Broas, Meghan Burke, Aaron DeShields, Ron Donoughe, Glen Gardner, Lorraine Glessner, Rae Gold, Janna Gregonis, Martha Grover, Bryan Hopkins, Glenn Horr, Roger Hyndman, Joy Knepp, Anna Koplik, Dan Kuhn, Stacy Larson, Tim Lazure, Maia Leppo, Michael Mangiafico, Carol Milne, William Pfahl, Aaron Pickens, Hanna Pierce, Carolyn Pierotti, Nash Quinn, Elizabeth Tokoly, Daniel Tomcik, Julia Claire Weber, Nathanael Weiss, Travis Winters, Stephen Yusko.

Image pictured: “HUH?” Travis Winters, 29″x12″x12″ – earthenware, glaze
Image courtesy of Beth A. Hollerich, Allegheny County Airport

Touchstone’s 2019 Staff Exhibition

August 4- September 30, 2019
Opening Reception August 4, 2019 | 2-5pm
Each season Touchstone brings in emerging artists to intern as studio assistants and technicians, help with daily operations and workshops while providing them the time and space to explore their own work. This exhibition highlights the work of these talented emerging artists exhibiting alongside Touchstone staff.

Exhibiting artists: Erika Broas, Meghan Burke, Grant Downing, Ed Eberhardt, Lindsay K. Gates, Makena Henriksen, Stacy Larson, Myah Merhaut, Kristen Muscaro, Dean Simpson, Daniel Tomcik, Nathanael Weiss, Travis Winters

2019 Iron Gate Gallery Exhibitions @Touchstone – New!

Touchstone is thrilled to be partnering with the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh for two art exhibitions in 2019. Hosted in the Iron Gate Gallery, the exhibitions will be juried by Touchstone’s Lindsay Ketterer Gates and Travis Winters and feature work by Associated Artists of Pittsburgh (AAP) members. AAP is an artist member organization featuring over 500-artist members from the greater Pittsburgh region. Founded in 1910, AAP organizes 5-10 exhibitions a year in various spaces throughout the region including the Carnegie Museum of Art, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, The Andy Warhol Museum, and now Touchstone!

‘Vessels in Five Dimensions’
featuring Kristen Letts Kovak and Silvija Singh

June 2- July 27, 2019

‘Vessels in Five Dimensions’ explores the fluidity between two-dimensional images and three-dimensional forms. Augmenting the static dimensions of height, width, and depth with time and individual perception, both Kovak and Singh create vessels that subvert function while alluding to meaning.  Both artists intentionally leave gaps in information. Using the fragments to construct new and more complex narratives, they reform instability into strength and surface into transparency.  Kovak’s paintings depict forms whose context has been removed or interrupted. Similarly, Singh’s ceramic forms are carefully pieced together, revealing cavities interrupting their function. The resulting physical and pictorial vessels are not empty bodies but bodies reformed by history, observation, and cognition.

Kristen Letts Kovak is an artist, professor, and curator based in Pittsburgh, PA. She earned her undergraduate art degrees from Mercyhurst University before completing her MFA in Studio Art from MICA. Since 2012, Kovak has taught drawing, painting, and applied aesthetics at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to her current appointment, she taught at Seton Hill University, Indiana University’s Creative Learning Center, and the School for Visual and Performing Arts. Her artworks investigate connections between visual, perceptual and cognitive patterning and have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries.

Silvija Singh is also based in Pittsburgh, PA. She earned a Ph. D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Clinical Psychology and an undergraduate degree from Harvard University.  Silvija started working in ceramics in the mid-1980’s with a series of ceramic sculpture classes at UNC – Chapel Hill. She studied under Xavier Toubes, now Professor Emeritus at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since then, she has taken many art classes and workshops. Between the mid-90’s and 2012, she took a hiatus from sculpting to raise her family, while working as a clinical psychologist. In 2012, she discovered a cooperative studio at the Union Project in Pittsburgh, which allowed her to return to sculpting.

Images pictured: (L) “Eyewitness” Kristen Letts Kovak, 30″x40″ – (R) “Hurricane Maria” Silvija Singh, 16″x14″x16″

‘Mutual Understanding’
featuring Adrienne Heinrich and Judith Musser

August 2 – September 30, 2019
Opening Reception August 4, 2019 | 2-5pm

Curator’s Statement: When I first met Judith Musser and Adrienne Heinrich I knew I would be impressed by their talents and experience. However, meeting them and seeing what they have done sheds light on the creative needs and desires we all crave to express. Some may find their outlet in various other forms but here it is expressed in painting, collage, and sculpture. Mutual feelings between artists can be found even though expression may be very personal.
Their artworks and chosen mediums, while unique to them as individuals, are relatable in that their own creative evolutions shine forth. One method may seem calculated while the other random. However, I get the sense that each object holds a tangible and metaphorical personal memory or attachment.
When visiting Judith’s studio, she shared with me that her life and experiences have allowed her to evolve both personally and in her art. Feeling and memories are attached in her work titled Duet. The couple reminds Judith of her and her late husband together. Conversely, when I asked Adrienne why she had chosen a particular object to float inside the rubber, she replied “I don’t know, I just like them.” As our conversation continued, memories and attachments to the other objects arose, such as the skull given to her by a good friend in the work titled Woman in Pain. Vicky Clark was on point when she wrote about Adrienne in her 2002 Artist of the Year Catalog, “The process of looking at her work replicates her process of making sense of the world.” I agree as I look at the work of Judith Musser as well.
Judith and Adrienne guide us through layers of feeling, memory, and personal attachments, gravitating us further in thought and appreciation with their ingenious way of utilizing both grace and power in their execution.
I remain in awe of their talent and uniqueness. It has been a great honor to get to know them at their studios and through their artwork.
– Jennifer Panza

Judith Musser, Artist’s Statement: I start work very intuitively, even though I am always aware of the formal elements that are integral to the finished work. I just make some marks and “jump in.” The fact that I work standing at an easel affects how the work progresses. I step back and forth a lot to view the work from a distance. This becomes a little dance I do with the canvas. As the composition develops, I discover some intellectual or emotional connection. This connection dictates the direction then work will move in toward completion. At this point, the formal elements (color, value, texture, etc.) are considered more analytically. The purely sensual pleasure of painting is restrained a bit by careful thought and observation. The hope, always, is that the viewer will relate to the final image on some level of shared experience. 

Adrienne Heinrich, Artist Statement: My sculpture, paintings and installations spring from my experience as a woman and mother. I create in various media: reed with paper or fabric, carved wood, and cast silicone. I gravitate towards those materials which imply a sense of vulnerability and are difficult to control physically. Light is an important aspect in these pieces. My work comes from my subconscious, revealing itself to me slowly. Part of the excitement of art making is being open to new encounters with the work.

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