Times the NEA/NEH Showed Pittsburgh some Love (and We Loved Them Back!)

Note: After writing for Pittsburgh Articulate, art writer, historian, and critic Alexandra Oliver wrote two fantastic, critical, and thorough pieces for The Glassblock, a site that I ran with Adam Shuck from April 2016 to July 2017. Below is a third piece that Alex wrote for us that was lost in the shuffle of closing down the website. It is published here in a lightly edited form.
On a personal level, I met Alex at Casey Droege’s first SIX X ATE event. I gave a short presentation and Alex asked me about my art practice — questions that were informed, critical, and deep. It was the most I had to think about my process in while. About a year or so later, we became friends. We talked a good bit about Keith Jarrett. Criticism. The lack of criticism in Pittsburgh. Art and authenticity. We worked on a few projects together — a video for Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon, a Q&A and review for my New Hazlett CSA performance, and her articles for The Glassblock. Working with Alex was always smooth, enlightening, and super fun!
Alex will be missed. She was a light for many — a strong believer in the power of art and the power of critically discussing and investigating art.
— David Bernabo
Times the NEA/NEH Showed Pittsburgh some Love (and We Loved Them Back!)
By Alex Oliver // (Written: March 19, 2017, unpublished until now)
Last week our Cheeto-in-Chief dropped a bomb of a budget that was everything we’d feared. In case you were living in a case with your eyes closed and your hands over your ears (perfectly understandable behavior), you probably know that the proposed budget cuts 19 federal departments, including the NEA. Last Thursday, WESA published a treatment for forecast on what the cuts would mean for Pittsburgh, which would impact pretty much everything, including affordable housing, job training, manufacturing, and more. But the forecast left out the arts. So, to fill in the gap, here are a few examples of how NEA dollars landed in our own back yard and the awesome things our creative neighbors have managed to build with them.
In no particular order:
Contemporary Craft: Mindful: Exploring Mental Health Through Art
Grant value: $15,000
Year received: 2015
Why it’s awesome: Contemporary Craft has been on the leading edge of socially relevant programming, which is a fancy way of saying, presenting art on issues the community actually cares about. For this grant, SCC presented an exhibition on mental illness, and the community response was huge. Attendance at the exhibition was 55% over the same period the previous year, including many first-time visitors, over 600 students, and it inspired other organizations and artists to pick up the theme. The story got picked up by HuffPost and traveled to six cities — amplifying the message way beyond Pittsburgh. “We dropped the stone in the water and the ripples reached far,” said Janet McCall, SCC’s Executive Director. “It was a powerful way for the community to come together, a crucial platform, for an open, positive conversation.” And the NEA grant? It made up only 12% of the final budget, but it was crucial. McCall said, “We got the grant early on in our planning process, so that was important; it allowed us to continue to move forward, develop the show, and helped us make the case with other funders.”
Teenie Harris Archivist Endowment
Grant value: $300,000 challenge grant
Year received: 2012
Why it’s awesome: Of course, Teenie Harris is awesome all by himself, but as he’s no longer actually around any more (RIP, Teenie), we need a conduit to connect his awesomeness to the community. Just having your work in a museum isn’t enough. In Harris’ case, that conduit is one Dominique Luster, who is an archivist of the Carnegie Museum of Art, where Harris’ archive is held. Now, today Luster’s position is endowed, but the NEA grant was crucial to creating the endowment to begin with. This matters for two reasons: first, endowments provide long-term sustainability, which grants rarely do, and second, because the archivist role supports the museum’s outreach efforts. That means, providing Teenie Harris pictures and information for community use, from churches to after-school programs and community celebrations.
CMOA Silver to Steel: The Modern Designs of Peter Muller-Munk
Grant value: $60,000
Year received: 2015
Why it’s awesome: This exhibition covered the career of the silversmith and influential industrial designer Peter Muller-Munk (1907–1967). It was a fun, stylish show, which was accessible to the general public and vividly brought to life the power of modern commodity design. Notably, it told the story of an immigrant who made it in Pittsburgh. Most importantly, in my view, it did a tremendous service to the history of modern design generally, by motivating a ton of deep, original research, and compiling the discoveries for future generations of scholars, designers, artists, teachers, and their students.
CMOA Helio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium
Grant value: $30,000
Year received: 2016
Why it’s awesome: OK, so I know the CMOA is disproportionately represented on this list, but I couldn’t leave off this recent exhibition about the influential Brazilian artist (1937–1980) Helio Oiticica. It exemplified what the CMOA does best for the city: bringing us a little of the outside world, in the form of internationally and historically significant art. ICYMI, Oiticica was one of the originators of performance and interactive art; his work balanced political messages with rigorous formal beauty. Despite his stature, Oiticica isn’t as well known as he should be, in part, because ephemeral, performative work is hard to study and teach (for obvious reasons), which makes this show ever more significant. (Literally, some of the objects that had been lost or destroyed were recreated for this show.)
PF/PCA Flight School
Grant value: $20,000
Year received: 2014
Why it’s awesome: To get a sense of the importance of Flight School, just read through a list of its alumni (in no particular order): Seth Clark, Aaron Henderson, Sean Derry, Julie Mallis, Derek Reese, Alisha Wormsley, Blaine Siegel, Meghan Olson (who founded Pittsburgh Articulate), Matthew Conboy (who launched Start with Art), Danny Bracken, April Friges, Jennifer Myers, Vanessa German, Darrell Kinsel, Casey Droege, Lenka Clayton.
I could go on.
From 2011–2015, Flight School graduated 80 of this city’s most remarkable artists, giving the program a legendary afterglow. (After missing 2016, Flight School is for 2017.) Although the NEA didn’t fund the entire program, we as a city should be maximally thankful for the presence of every single dollar. Federico Garcia, a Pittsburgh composer, attended Flight School in 2014. In a testimonial that would make a grant-writer swoon, he said, Flight School was a “game changer, for sure, mainly in terms of self-confidence and the realization that what you’re missing is not necessarily the quality and artistic reach of your work, or even the context. Many of us think, we just don’t know anyone.”
Flight School didn’t just connect artists, it connected disparate networks, which is sorely needed in this city. He added, poetically, “Rather than waiting for someone to ‘discover’ us, it was important to realize that we have to discover ourselves.” And, plus, “It’s also a good CV item.”
Pittsburgh Glass Center
Grant value: $15,000
Year received: 2015
Why it’s awesome: The NEA supported the Glass Center’s artists-in-residence program Idea Furnace, which allows an artist whose chosen media don’t include glass to work with a glass expert and make new work. Let me pause here: a grant that helps artists make new work is a precious thing, because few other similarly direct financial supports exist. This past year the honor was given to Seth Clark, who collaborated with Jason Forck on a weird and wonderful show. Clark is a young but accomplished artist, presently caught between a well-defined (commercially successful) style and technical moxie. So it was wonderful to see him outside his comfort zone, exploring thematic and formal ideas in a new way. Plus, Glass Center has a great exhibition space in a city with too few of those, and seeing the gallery dedicated to a solo show is always a treat.
Granted, $15,000 might seem like a small line in a budget totally $1.4 million — which is the size of the Glass Center. But Heather McElwee, Executive Director, made crystal clear that every dollar counts. “We’re lucky to have the foundations we have here in Pittsburgh, but there are more demands on their resources, so there will be some breaking point where things get harder for everyone,” she told me, when we spoke by phone. “It’s scary. Plus, what would a country look like without a national arts council — the idea that the arts and humanities are not valued is a scary proposition.”
The Glass Center has applied for the same $15,000 and has received it for the past several years. “As dollars get tighter, not just our organization, but all organizations will be looking to fill those gaps in their budgets. The slice of the pie gets smaller across all organizations. And we don’t’ really know how getting rid of NEA might impact state arts agencies.” Indeed, many states set up arts agencies incentivized by the promise of federal dollars. In a way, it’s the best of both words: states receive the funds but still enjoy discretion about how to spend them.
Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council (GPAC) accessibility work
Grant value: $30,000
Year received: 2014
Why it’s awesome: I shouldn’t have to explain this. GPAC describes this program, “Increasing Accessibility in Pittsburgh’s Arts and Culture,” as a “technical assistance initiative to help arts and culture organizations welcome people with disabilities to their facilities, programs, and events.” It’s grounded in the radical notion that people with disability are people, thus, and, just as some people enjoy the arts, some people with disabilities do too — and should be able to just like the rest of us.
Carnegie Museum of Natural History/University of Pittsburgh: Egypt on the Nile
Grant value: $29,962
Year received: 2016
Why it’s awesome: This grant was made by the NEA’s sister organization, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). This is an NEH Digital Projects for the Public Discovery Grant, which means it supports first-stage research and planning, in this case, for the upcoming exhibition “Egypt on the Nile” (projected for 2020). The centerpiece of the show is a super-cool-sounding “virtual experience” which simulates a journey on the Nile in the royal funerary boat of Pharaoh Senwosret III (c. 1887–1848 BCE), which was excavated at Dahshur and is currently in the museum’s Egyptian collection. As I noted in discussing Teenie Harris’ legacy, without archivists, archives aren’t worth much, and without historians, art historians, archaeologists, and the like — culture would be pretty much a tree falling in an empty forest.
This grant supports a ton of work: Erin Peters an assistant curator of science and research at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, cross appointed at the University of Pittsburgh, the project lead, plus six Egyptologists, four creative technologists, and two digital humanists from institutions across the country!
This matters because, facts. As CMNH Director Eric Dorfman stated: “the grant ensures that we will have the proper scholarship and expertise we need on the front end of the project.” If the NEA/NEH were eliminated, Peters told me, the project would be in peril. “For this specific project, the key element is that our grant is first phase in a three-staged grant program, which we hope to be successful in future applications. If the NEH were eliminated, it is likely the project would not continue.” But beyond the project, her job would be changed forever. “Generally, the NEA and NEH are two primary organizations that fund projects in my fields of study, my work would be forever limited if they were eliminated.”
And many more
Don’t see your favorite organization on the list? Sorry, there were just too many to name! Other recent NEA grant recipients you may recognize include Quantum Theater, Chamber Music Pittsburgh, CMU, City of Asylum, Manchester Craftsman’s Guild, the Mattress Factory, and more. Curious to learn more? Look up your local favorite using the handy dandy grants search tool here.
So, what to do now?
We know the NEA’s programs aren’t just for urban coastal elites; they have positive effects on diverse beneficiaries, from kids to veterans, and 40% of NEA-funded activities occur in high-poverty areas. NEA grants reach every electoral district in our country, and in some communities, NEA funding may be the only source of arts support there is. Citizens for the Arts in PA’s Arts Advocacy Day is April 25 at the State Capitol. We need your participation now more than ever — including for the reasons represented here.
Please check GPAC’s website at www.citizensfortheartsinpa.org for more information; for questions contact David Pankratz, Research and Policy Director: dpankratz@pittsburghartscouncil.org.

