I landed in Pittsburgh after a 9 hour flight from Seattle last Wednesday.  At this point I’m hardly caught up on sleep despite the time change.  I tell myself that somewhere in the mix are three extra hours for eating.  Still the time goes by faster than usual and my head is spinning like a rocket around the possibilities of art and space and more than anything else, how familiar Pittsburgh feels to the streets of New Jersey.  Growing up I had one friend from Pittsburgh, Tricia, and I remember all too well placing her alone on the map.  Pittsburgh was unidentifiable and hardly worth the dot itself.  And here on Penn Avenue Ryan drives us alongside a stream of galleries where Pittsburgh is now being gentrified.  My stomach is full from the Primanti Brothers where I quickly redifine the intricacies of a rueben sandwich.  My parents instilled what I learned to be quality corn beef – the east coast pastrami – at a diner off the New Jersey Turnpike at such a young age that I joke with friends about the height of a pastrami sandwich.  “THIS big,” we say, holding hands half a foot apart.  Primanti Brothers has both the fast no-bullshit attitude that accompanies the grease soaked meat packed french fry cole slaw do it or don’t waste our time diner the east coast breeds on, day in, day out.

I close my eyes and take in the humidity of the Pittsburgh air.  It is strikingly familiar.  I never believed the smell of home would stick in my mind.  These are the small things that I leave behind.  Ryan pulls up outside a building recently abandoned in a neighborhood newly gentrified.  I think it must be occupied with a small light in the lower window.  His friend Eric suggests a local pizza joint.  We take a drive and find that the manager is pretty relaxed about loaning power for the show.  I check out the manager, who looks either high or overworked or both.  I brush it aside, nod to Ryan, and settle on the wall across the street.  Extension cords, check.  Power, check.  Parking, check.

Wagon Wheel outside Morgantown, WV

Back in Morgantown, about an hour away.  Ryan and I joke about politics, being a republican – but not – and jam out to Betty Davis.  Thursday morning, I wake up ready to get down with the grit and the next two days are spent doing just that.  Websites up.  Photos logged.  Scouting sites.  What questions can I ask these spaces, and how will they respond?