I spent a great day in Pittsburgh today, highlighted by the amazing exhibition of drawings by Patricia Bellan-Gillen.
Like many of my trips to Pittsburgh, I started out at New Dimensions Comics in Ellwood City. I absolutely love this place, TONS of comics most of them for $1.00! They buy any comic that someone brings in, and they have these massive back issue racks, mostly unorganized. So this is like going to a huge comic thrift store…
Picked up a classic Iron Man title…
I then headed over to the Warhol Museum…Always a fun place to go.
The Ai Weiwei show was really strong! I haven’t had the chance to see much of his work in person before. The museum did an interesting job of weaving the histories and artwork of both Warhol and Weiei together. At first glance, the show seems a bit thin. But I wonder if it is because the work is dispersed throughout the entire museum, and not concentrated on one or two floors.
After the Warhol, I headed over to the Carnegie Mellon University campus to see the Patricia Bellan-Gillen exhibition at the Miller Gallery. This show was DYNAMITE!
The exhibition featured large scale drawings from 2010-2016 and took up all three floors of the Miller Gallery…
The work showcased Patricia Bellan-Gillen‘s amazing drawing ability in these wandering and surreal pieces.
Like much of her work, animals served as the focal point and main characters driving the surreal narratives…
At times, Patricia would use these bright colors to draw…emphasizing the other worldliness of the images…
Even the smaller and more sparse drawings were really intriguing…
I walked over the Conflict Kitchen for a quick bite to eat after…Its located near the CMU campus right next to the Carnegie Museum of Art….
The menu features food that relates to a current social or political conflict or idea…right now, the menu reflects the Juneteenth Celebration of the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas…this is such a smart idea, and a great way to weave current issues with food and education…and on top of all that, the food is really good too!
A nice surprise was finding the newer location of the Phantom of the Attic comic shop, again right next to the CMA…
They had a lot of independent comics, back issues, and other goodies…exactly what you want from a good comic shop…I definitely spent way too much on comics this trip.
Joseph Lupo 
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