As part of the Hive Award-funded Avonworth Pittsburgh Galleries, the students and teachers involved in creating and curating the artwork are visiting galleries, museums and art spaces across Pittsburgh to learn more about the project they’ve taken on and are sharing their experiences through blogs and photos. We’ll be syndicating some of the full posts here on hivepgh.org as they are published, but in the meantime, here are a few snippets from the experiences the students have been having thus far.

After visiting the Carnegie Museum of Art, Tamara Arlof felt better prepared for the job of curating and displaying work.

“I learned that artwork is not just put on the wall, it is placed where curators think is the best spot. Some things they think about when placing artwork are lighting, spacing, the color of the wall, what is around it and whether other artwork will fit next to it.”

Classmate Beth Benner echoed her sentiment, writing:

“At the Carnegie Museum I had the opportunity to view all the beautiful art and had started planing for the future of how we will be making a gallery at our school. We talked with members of the museum who helped us set up what would be the next step in creating a gallery at our school.”

Other students like Billy Molinari and Nick Strosser had the chance to visit the Andy Warhol Museum and to see the inner-workings of the museum’s operations. Billy recounted:

“I was able to see the room where people built the special boxes to ship artwork around the world, which was very interesting. We also went to the floor that was being renovated for a new exhibit.”

The experience so far has been great for the students, giving them a valuable foundation for their own gallery project at Avonworth High School throughout the year. And we’ll be following them as they move ahead, so check back for more posts soon, or visit their collective blog yourself!