Arts & Culture

Art from the Ground Up

Shuttered factories, abandoned warehouses and boarded up store fronts are being re-purposed as galleries and performance spaces by people with passion and vision. Art From the Ground Up was created to provide a showcase for some of the most innovative members of Pittsburgh’s emerging arts community.00000176-e6f7-dce8-adff-f6f7706f0000Art From the Ground Up is hosted by Bob Studebaker and is a monthly series highlighting small grass roots arts organizations and individual artists that take non-traditional approaches to the creation, presentation, and even the definition of art.Know an organization Bob should check out? Email him with your suggestions.

Garfield Artist Hopes 'Gentle Gentrification' Invites Neighborhood Reinvestment

90.5 WESA | By Bob Studebaker

Published October 30, 2015 at 3:27 PM EDT

1 of 11

Laura Jean McLaughlin has welcomed guests to her studio and gallery in Garfield for 14 years. She said she hopes local revitalization efforts reclaim the neighborhood as one welcoming to both mom and pop businesses and residents who might patronize them.

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

2 of 11

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

3 of 11

Sculptures, prints, paintings and mosaics abound at the Clay Penn studio and gallery in Garfield.

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

4 of 11

Sculptures, prints, paintings and mosaics abound at the Clay Penn studio and gallery in Garfield.

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

5 of 11

Sculptures, prints, paintings and mosaics abound at the Clay Penn studio and gallery in Garfield.

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

6 of 11

Molly the cat lazes at the Clay Penn art studio and gallery in Garfield.

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

7 of 11

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

8 of 11

Art supplies and creations abound at the Clay Penn studio and gallery in Garfield.

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

9 of 11

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

10 of 11

Sculptures, prints and mosaics abound at the Clay Penn studio and gallery in Garfield.

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

11 of 11

Sculptures, mosaics and prints like "Princess," pictured here, clutter colorful walls at the Clay Penn Gallery in Garfield.

Rebecca Devereaux / 90.5 WESA

Ceramic sculptor, printmaker and mosaic artist Laura Jean McLaughlin has welcomed patrons to her Penn Avenue studio for 14 years.

She was an early investor in Garfield, a newly re-imagined Pittsburgh neighborhood. But that wasn’t always the plan.

At the genesis of her career, McLaughlin was approached by the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, which since the 1970s, has worked to revitalize the community and improve its economy. They first showed McLaughlin the property she eventually bought.

For years, she passed abandoned buildings on her way to work. It was a tough neighborhood, she said, but “gentle gentrification” is changing all that.