Photo: Pittsburgh Glass Center

Nineteen local glass artists got more than they bargained for when they visited Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s eye-popping collection of glass objects—some of them thousands of years old. The artists came at the invitation of Pittsburgh Glass Center Director Heather McElwee and Deborah Harding, the museum’s anthropology collection manager, who began talking about a collaboration after the Glass Center borrowed several objects from the museum for a 2013 exhibition. “The first time I visited, Deb gave me a sneak peek at the rest of the collection, and I knew other glass artists would just die to see all of this,” McElwee recounts. She also knew they’d be inspired. The artists spent hours poring over the collection, eventually choosing one or two works to study and research, then reproduce and reinterpret for an exhibition titled Out of the Archives and Into the Gallery, opening at the Glass Center June 19. “As soon as Deb opened the drawer to the first cabinet, their eyes just became giant saucers,” says McElwee. “It will be interesting to see how closely they can reproduce these objects,” Harding says. “I expect to see some wonderful works.”

who can pick up their Member Summer Adventure maps at any admission desk. With each museum visit and at any of the events featured on the map, members collect stamps on their maps that they can redeem for chances to win great prizes at the Summer Adventure finale on August 20 at Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History.

Andrey Avinoff, Marshallia (Marshallia grandiflora), 1942, Wild Flowers of Western Pennsylvania and the Upper Ohio Basin

Powdermill Nature Reserve, Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s 2,200-acre environmental research center in the Laurel Highlands, is giving visitors more to explore this summer with the addition of two new trails. The Porcupine Ridge Trail, which will adjoin the existing Sugar Camp Trail and take hikers deeper into Powdermill’s forest, will culminate at a scenic Laurel Highlands lookout point. And the Forest Wildflower Trail, a 300-foot trail lined with 30 species of plants and wildflowers, will be accessible to visitors with mobility disabilities.

Photo: Constance Mensch, Courtesy of Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania

"Crafting the next Carnegie International is a chance to shape one of the momentous cultural forces that helped form me. I grew up going to the Carnegie Museums and Library, and I have been making pilgrimages back to Pittsburgh to see the International since 1995. For me, embarking on this project is a venture into the unknown— a massive research enterprise that will be informed over the next three years by looking, by thinking and talking with artists, colleagues, and collectors, and by traveling to look some more. What better way to see where contemporary art will lead us in 2018?"

- Ingrid Schaffner, curator, art critic, writer, educator, and the recently named curator of the 2018 Carnegie International. Since 2000, Schaffner has served as chief curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania.

Photo: Gene Pittman

The Andy Warhol Museum has welcomed its new Milton Fine Curator of Art, Irishborn Bartholomew Ryan, described by Warhol Director Eric Shiner as “one of the most dynamic young curators in America today.” Most recently assistant curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ryan arrived in Pittsburgh on the heels of co-curating the muchacclaimed exhibition International Pop, which opened at the Walker in April and features the work of international Pop artists from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. Among his other curatorial works, Ryan co-curated Painter Painter, a 2013 exhibition that put a spotlight on contemporary abstract painting. Excited to be joining the team at The Warhol, Ryan says he’s also “delighted to have the opportunity to live in Pittsburgh and get to know its artistic community.” Among his plans, he adds, “I look forward to working with contemporary artists whose approaches I believe will resonate in fascinating ways at The Warhol.”

The number of children and youth reached each year by Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Museum on the Move program, which received a PA Museums Special Achievement Award for programming excellence at the group’s April 2015 statewide conference. Out and about in the community since 1982, Museum on the Move today takes the museum’s programs and collections to thousands of kids in hospitals, special-needs classrooms, and homeless shelters who otherwise might never experience the wonders of natural history.