My Cemetery Valentines... Allegheny style

A busy weekend
for the Forge

We had a great turnout this past Valentines weekend as a number of artisans showed their love for the trees of our urban forest by coming out for this endeavor. We spent the day in Allegheny Cemetery seeking and finding some amazing opportunities. Jonathan Shapiro came out this weekend looking for some fresh material for a new sculpture he wants to work on,Jason Boone and Julie came out to lend a hand and look for his next creative outburst.
Jen Bechak came in search of some interesting tree rings for another cache of Citywood for her series of metal infused furniture.

And Nate Lucas came out to help us with slabbing some beautiful maple slabs for a furniture project a client in another city requested, wanting us to utilize material from back home in Pittsburgh for their new home away from home.
The city trees showed up as well, providing us once again with the the characteristic beauty that are the trees of our beautiful urban forest of Pittsburgh. Thank you so much to the folks of Allegheny Cemetery for giving us the permission for recovering these wonderful pieces that are the legacy of our fair city.

Childrens Museum of Pittsburgh

I had the wonderful opportunity to demonstrate at the Childrens Museum of Pittsburgh this past Monday in conjunction with the touring exhibition "Exploring Trees Inside and Out". What a great day of playing with all the families, talking about our urban trees, and exploring the possibilities for considering new ideas. The kids just drank up the information and creative possibilities. Artists Randie Snow and Karen Evanchko also have their sculpture "Double helix"

which they created in the Urban Tree Forge Studio, on display in the entrance lobby of the museum. Thank you so much Randie Snow, senior designer with Giant Ideas for working so hard to get us the playfully creative display boards together for this event. Everybody loved the color and enthusiasm of these inviting pieces! Certainly anybody needing branding, illustration and graphic design done should contact Randie with the utmost of confidence for creative branding and original marketing campaigns...
We look forward with great anticipation to our opportunity to work with the Childrens Museum again this April 9th and 10th! Be sure to stop in and check us out. Thanks to Angela Seals with the Children's Museum for providing us this great opportunity to share our endeavor with the families of our wonderful city!!

Citywood and Tree Forge Happenings

Starting the new year off with a BANG!!!
We went looking for some beautiful wood in our fair city of Pittsburgh in January.. and did we hit it big! We harvested some beautiful maple slabs... and cubes!! in Lawrenceville and on the north side Lumberjack Tree service brothers Ben and Joe have helped us out by providing access to some wonderful oak logs for a local library project... Thanks again guys for supporting your local communities! We delivered some Citywood picture frames to Highmark... Hey, Thanks to Highmark too for supporting local sustainable business!!
Resident artist Jennifer Bechak had a great opening at the Brew House for an installation sculpture made with Citywood, and resident artist Olof Berner has pieces in a gallery in New Castle at the Bottlebrush Gallery and Shop. Check out Olof's blog for more on what he has been doing with Bernerworks, his own company. Great work Olof!!
More coming soon, as we have just been doing so much in the last couple weeks... stay tuned!