About the Event:
This Sustainable Art Exhibition was curated by the EcoArtisans, a group of Environmental Studies/Science students in the GEOL 1333 “Sustainability” class. In this course, students are tasked with implementing a sustainability initiative to Pitt’s campus.
The goal of this project was to promote environmental awareness through art. The EcoArtisan’s believe art is an empowering way to spark interest for increased awareness in sustainability and the intersectionality between the arts and sciences. Art has the power to ignite passion, foster empathy, and mobilize individuals and communities toward positive action and transformation. Promoting art related to environmental issues, awareness, and sustainability, in general, is a fantastic way to get students interested in such issues.
The art displayed at the exhibition here has pieces from Pitt students, faculty, and local artists in the Greater Pittsburgh Area. The original exhibition was held on April 11th, 2024, in collaboration with the Pitt Farmer’s Market, and was held in the Gallagher Plaza and WPU patio. All of the art displayed conveys themes of sustainability, whether it has been sustainably produced or portrays themes of sustainability, environmental issues, and natural beauty. Make Art, Not Waste!
Meet the EcoArtisans:
- Evyn Dowd (she/her) is a sophomore majoring in Environmental Studies and Urban Studies.
- Taylor Falo (she/they) is a senior majoring in Environmental Science and Italian Studies.
- Rachel Garcia (she/her) is a sophomore majoring in Environmental Studies and Political Science.
- Gabby Martelli (she/her) is a junior majoring in Environmental Science.
Eco Gallery
Make sure to click the names under the photos to find out more about the artists and their art!
- Gia Abucejo
- Gabriel Agiira
- Olivia Baer
- Chloe Baieral
- Daniel D. Brown PhD
- Olivia Baer
- Greg Doll
- Mark Collins
- Lucy Buscaglia
- Greg Doll
- Greg Doll
- Greg Doll
- Karen Krieger
- Taylor Falo
- Vanessa Anne Legeza
- Susan McCellan
- Han Lempert
- Han Lempert
- Susan McCellan
- Susan McCellan
- Nora Smith
About the artists:
Lucy Buscaglia (she/her)
a sophomore at Pitt.
She chose to create a piece of functional artwork featuring trash from the street she lives on. Welsford street is one of the dirtier streets in Oakland. So she figured it could be cool to turn the waste into something eco-positive. A flower pot to house new life, rather than a destructive material for our earth.
Gabriel Agiira (He/him)
a Junior majoring in Environmental Studies. He’s always had a love for art and he’s so happy that he got to express both his love for art and drive to spread awareness over the environmental problems around the world with his art sculpture.
The name of the art project is “Plastic Woes,”and it involves a paper mache/cardboard hand buried in a pile of Plastic and Paper Coffee cups. This is to generate a sense of worry and cautious on the over reliance on disposable coffee cups and spread awareness of how important it is to rely on other environmentally friendly products like reusable water bottles.
The piece can be viewed in the Hillman Gallery
Olivia Baer
Olivia is a writing major with a position for all things kitsch. She uses a variety of media; including marker, pen, and her personal favorite, recycled national geographic! Her work will be featured in Forbes and Fifth’s 24th publication .
“This will be our new mural” and “What would Greta Do?” aim to call attention to the urgency of climate change, all while maintaining a positive attitude (and hopefully a laugh).
Chloe Baierl (she/they)
an interdisciplinary artist. She is a Pitt staff member and works as an assistant at the Center for Creativity. Their art practice blends reading, writing, and overthinking with textiles.
Chloe’s piece for EcoArtisans, titled “Affirmation”, is a combination knit-crochet tapestry made of plastic bag yarn and embroidered text with cotton yarn. As the text suggests, I’m grappling with plastic’s existence in my body. We usually think of pollution as something that happens outside of us– in the air, on the ground, in the oceans. It has only been uncovered in the past few years the extent of which small bits of plastic (microplastics) have made their home in our bodies: in our blood and, yes, in our brains. Making yarn out of plastic bags felt like a way of taking back control in this individually uncontrollable situation. I kept plastic out of a landfill where it would eventually break down and become microplastics, and they literally controlled the material with my hands and manipulated it into a new form. She added the text on this plane of knit plastic as a way to help myself and others laugh in the face of the horrors.
Art says: “Microplastics have crossed my blood brain barrier and I am absolutely definitely feeling okay!! :)”
This piece can be viewed in the Hillman Gallery
Mark Collins (he/him)
An Assistant Professor/Teaching in the Department of Geology and Environmental Science, and Coordinator of the Environmental Studies Program. He earned his MFA from Pitt’s English Department, and is the author of several books of essays and poetry. Collins is also co-editor of *Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Children, Television and Fred Rogers* (University of Pittsburgh Press).
Collins is a self-taught* visual artist, working exclusively in upcycled materials — mostly toboggans, clocks, organ pipes, gym floors, and found items. His furniture is in active use at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill and the Community Foundation of the Alleghenies offices in Johnstown, PA.
He lives, works, and is inspired by his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.
*”Self-taught” = trial and error, with equal emphasis on both.
Taylor Falo (She/They)
Pitt Student (Senior), Majors: Environmental Science, Italian Studies
Taylor made this piece with materials found from the Center for Creative Reuse here in Pittsburgh. The backing for the collage is made with an old book cover, and the collage itself was made with old photos, postcards, maps, book covers, and magazines. It represents the beauty and fun that can come from a bit of chaos!
Han Lempert (They/them)
They are seniors at Pitt. Han is a Multimedia artist that uses second hand and found materials.
These collage pieces represent the child-like joy nature represents in mine and many others lives. These pieces reject the notion that humanity is separate from nature. The art emphasizes the circularity of life and the integration of nature in our daily lives.
Greg Doll (He/him)
Greg is a staff member at the University of Pittsburgh – End User Support Manager- SOE.
His work is a Collage/Mixed media.
Two of his pieces can be viewed in the Hillman Gallery
Susan McCellan (She/her)
A staff administrator in the School of Education.
She enjoys art as a hobby and is a member of The Pittsburgh Collage Collective and North Hills Art Center.
Nora Smith (they/she)
An editor in Pitt’s Office of Communications and Marketing, creates and distributes handmade zines about humans, nature and human nature. Their poetry is also featured in publications like No Contact, Bullshit Lit and Door Is A Jar.
Their piece for the EcoArtisan’s gallery is a zine — “THE LAND/THE SKY” — made from recycled and foraged materials, including paper bags, fallen foliage, litter collected from around my North Side neighborhood and materials from the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse.
Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D. (He/Him)
Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Precision Medicine (a partnership of Pitt and UPMC). He is now in his 12th year as a scientist at Pitt, primarily developing human patient-derived models to study breast cancer.
Creating wildlife art using various media has been a hobby for most of his life. He’s been fully immersed in nature since childhood, having grown up in rural Texas and Arkansas forests. His love for living things and the desire to understand how they work continued into studies spanning the fields of biology from ecology and botany to developmental bio and molecular genetics, eventually resulting in a PhD in Biology.
His artwork over the past 8 years has primarily consisted of a woodworking style called “intarsia,” which utilizes the natural colors and grains of different wood species, hand-cut on a scrollsaw and hand-carved, to create semi-3D sculptures without paint or stains. The vast majority of my woods come from scavenged and reclaimed lumbers, including urban storm-felled trees destined to become firewood/mulch and waste from furniture makers that would otherwise end up burned or in a landfill. The more exotic species he uses are purchased in extremely low volume and with an eye to sustainably-harvested sources whenever possible. Many of his pieces focus on wildlife that can be found around us here in Pittsburgh, such as foxes, squirrels, and many species of birds. He has branched into more geeky pop-culture subjects as well. Being a renewal resource when collected sustainably, wood remains one of the best media for creating art that can last generations and yet return to the earth safely at the end of its life.
Gia Abucejo (she/her)
a Filipino-American interdisciplinary artist and student at the University of Pittsburgh working primarily across film & video, installation, photography, and text. Combining tangible and intangible material, her work meshes dreamscapes, technologies, and personal mythos as a means of decoding our bodily reality. She focuses heavily on developing unique, project-specific processes that implement her interests in research and collaboration. While balancing undergraduate life, Gia has produced work that has exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally, with past exhibitions in locations such as Paris, France and New York City. Recently, her video work “Shield Ambiance” was awarded “Best Imaginative Transformation: Exceptional Storytelling in Experimental Art Video” by the Feminist Border Arts Film Festival.
Title: veiled by my fairy-mother; medium: digital photography printAs a child, she knew fairies.
She wrote them letters at night, and they would always respond by next morning. She believed in them, more than I believed in Santa Claus, because who would go through all of that effort to keep up such a charade? “veiled by my fairy mother” is a series of photographs detailing the length a mother’s love reaches, and how her magic becomes a source of long-lasting influence and protection. She used items like Fantasy Film and glass-blown ornaments from creative reuse centers across Pittsburgh and Cleveland to create ethereal in-camera effects.
Karen Krieger (she/her)
a studio artist practicing at the intersection of skillful manipulation of materials, imagination and creativity, equal access, and social/environmental justice.
Wake Up and Vote speaks to the need for everyone to vote, regardless of political affiliation. It builds on other work She made to encourage greater turnout, and it reflects the importance she places on environmental awareness and healing through the use of recycled materials. She sees the past coronavirus time as the Earth gasping for breath from the burden humans have placed upon it. She hopes people will recognize that the basic act of voting is a way in which each of us can have influence over the decisions made by our government on our behalf. The importance of voting is critical to our future, and to our environment. Images of this piece were taken with families and community organizations in greater Pittsburgh from 2020 onward. (Materials: Recycled Nespresso pods, fiber connectors, thread. Each panel is approx. 3′ x 3′)
For more check out: https://karenkrieger.com/portfolio/
Vanessa Anne Legeza (she/her)
An alumna of Pitt and is currently a Clinical Research Coordinator in Pitt’s Department of Medicine in the Division of Geriatrics. She is a multi-media and fiber artist with an interest in creating pieces related to the natural world and human experience through the juxtaposition of natural and non-natural elements.
The title of this piece, ‘C6’ is typical chemistry notation of the 6-carbon ring. The piece is made of pipette tip racks, paraffin wax, and a saturated hydrocarbon-based wax derived from petroleum, that lies solidified in the plastic channels. The natural scent of honey is replaced by chemicals that mimic honey and vanilla aroma. Artificial flowers were crafted from reclaimed plastic, melted, burnt, and twisted into shape. Personally foraged and dried moss, naturally faded green and brown in tone, as well as preserved reindeer moss, dyed a vibrant spring green are wrapped around the faux-honeycomb structure to establish the hexagonal shape. Excerpts from a thrifted 1974 chemistry book form the body and wings of a stylized bee. The curated chemical structures and clipped passages highlight scientific discoveries that radically changed approaches to environmental management, specifically the dangers of the insecticide DDT.