“You’re not very ‘CJ’ today,” Chelsea said as she served me my cider. I was sitting at the counter of the tasting room of my favorite cidery, nursing a “Dry” and a water. The noise was dying down as the attendants and presenters of the art event that I had come to see moved from the tasting room to the production space of the cidery, where the installation was being held. I’d had some sobering news earlier in the day; I gave Chelsea a brief summary of my concerns, and she gave me a measure of comfort with her understanding. I finished my cider and water and moved next door.
“Synthesis: Lauren Zoll, Victoria Manganiello and Julian Goldman” is an exhibit sponsored by Indianapolis Contemporary and presented in the production space of Ash & Elm Cider Company. I had missed the artists’ talk and opening reception (the noise that had left the tasting room as I brooded over my cider), but I was eager to try the two new ciders Joseph had prepared to celebrate the show. I greeted Alexis and got a half-pour of the first cider (my revenge on the mulberry tree) and wandered about the exhibit. I spoke with another artist, Jennifer Delgadillo about the exhibit, and thanked Joseph for my Synthesis Cider 2. I was on my second half-pour of Synthesis Cider 1 and still circling the installation when a young woman asked me, “Would you like to meet the artists?”
Dierdre Shea introduced herself as a companion to Julian Goldman and gave me a brief summary of his craft, telling me that Julian’s day job was as an industrial designer. The two had recently moved from Brooklyn New York, to Oakland California. When Dierdre said “California,” I told of my joy in the state and my rivalry with a friend when the Pittsburgh Steelers would play the Oakland Raiders. Dierdre jokingly cautioned me not to say anything against the Steelers because she was from Pittsburgh. I may have passed out for a second, and after speaking to Julian about his work, Dierdre and I ended up sitting on the floor, talking about our high school, Schenley, and our city, Pittsburgh.
I meet people who say that they are from Pittsburgh, but it is often an area or town near Pittsburgh, such as South Hills; this was not the case with Diedre. I laughed as she told me of “swimming in the basement,” and of having spent time “in the triangle.” Schenley had a swimming pool in the basement and the school was built in a triangular shape. She spoke of living in East Liberty and pronounced the name in the way a native would: “S’Liberty.” Diedre stunned me when she told me that she had attended Henry Clay Frick grade school: I had, too. My job at a hospital was up the street from Frick school. When I mentioned to Diedre that Jesse Andrews had written a book that had Schenley as its center stone, she told me that she knew Andrews. I died another little death when she told me that she knew Jake Oresick, who wrote “The Schenley Experiment.” I dragged my creaking bones from the floor, briefly disengaged myself from the conversation with Diedre, and went to speak again to her friend Julian about his craft, his art. I immersed myself in the show, plunging my hands into Lauren Zoll’s beans, marveling at Victoria Manganiello’s textiles, and Goldman and Manganiello’s collaboration on Computer 1.0, happy to have been able to set aside my worries for even a short time.
I will soon be travelling to the triangle formed by the meeting of the Allegheny and Susquehanna Rivers, the confluence of which forms the mighty Ohio. The city of Pittsburgh is in the middle of what has been called “The Golden Triangle,” and my high school was built in the shape of a triangle; the school newspaper I worked on was called “The Triangle.” I will tend to my ailing brother, and join a small gathering of Schenley 1964-1965 graduates, who will be meeting to exchange stories and reminiscences. I’ll be able to say that I met Diedre Shea, class of 2005, as the result of a collaboration between Indianapolis Contemporary and Ash & Elm Cider Company. From the meeting of those two flowed creativity and camaraderie, and I was pleased to have been present at the confluence of cider and art, from which flowed a reflection on the history and mystery of Pittsburgh.
