All's Fair in Love and Warhol

On a whim (and I mean complete whim) Samantha and I joined my brother, Adam, and his wife, Kendra, on their trip to Pittsburgh this weekend.

I never thought of Pittsburgh as being awesome, which it is. I didn't know anything about the place before this weekend, so it seemed strange that Sam wanted to go. I was thinking "what's in Pittsburgh"?

The answer to that question is kind of complicated. It's a city full of the things I like. We hit The Strip and browsed a ton of street vendors and storefronts, and we headed over to South Side to check out that shopping district. There's a lot going on and the city was lovely. Or at least lovely as much as a city can be. My only real experience with a city is Cincinnati. Pittsburgh seemed to be much cleaner than Cinci and our hotel was smack in the middle of everything we wanted to do, so walking the streets gave you a real feel of liveliness that I've never gotten a glimpse of in Cincinnati.

We took a quick walk to the Andy Warhol museum and got in for $4 with a student ID, which was sweet. That place was pretty cool, with tons of Warhol hanging around and a fair amount of other artists. I'll fully admit that I never "got" Andy Warhol. I thought he was kind of a hack. And he is. He's a total hack. But after seeing what he was doing up close, and learning that he didn't really do much of the art himself, I started to get the point. It helps that I'm a screen printer. If you've ever learned to play an instrument, you have a new appreciation for music. It's the same here; when I saw his screen prints, knowing what it takes, I had much more respect for the art. Warhol's story is pretty great too, and the museum did a fantastic job of incorporating information about not only the art but its inspiration and method.

This cow is probably one of my favorite of Warhol's pieces. At the museum they have all of his source images laid out for this piece. You can see where the idea began. One of these prints is hanging in the poster store in Uptown, Oxford. Some day I'll get one and hang it in my house. Or maybe I'll just make it for myself.