Due to inclement weather, and the declaration of an emergency by Allegheny County, the Mattress Factory will be CLOSED on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 and Wednesday, February 10, 2010.
Please check back here or follow our Twitter stream for the latest museum closing news.
Mattress Factory staff dig out after the storm.
The Winifred Lutz Garden under two feet of snow.
 | POSTED BY JEFFREY Read All Posts by Jeffrey |
Happy New Year everyone! It looks as though I have the pleasure of posting the first update on the MF blog for 2010. I'll keep it short and sweet, but all of us here at the museum wanted to extend a heartfelt thanks to all the individuals who donated to the 2009 Annual Fund, It's All About YOU, making it our most successful end-of-year campaign to date. Support from our friends and community makes everything we do possible, so we took some time yesterday to create the video below.
 | POSTED BY LINDSAY Read All Posts by Lindsay |
As 2009 draws to a close, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting the Mattress Factory. Your help during the past year (via Retweets, Facebook posts, attendance at events, or simply kind words) has assisted us greatly in providing residency opportunities for 45 working artists from all over the world. Additionally, your support helped spread the word of four cutting-edge, internationally-recognized exhibitions (1, 2, 3, 4); the permanent reinstallation of Greer Lankton’s It’s all about ME, Not You; well-attended educational lectures, workshops and outreach initiatives; and technological advancements (1, 2) that engage museum visitors in new exciting ways.
2009 also marked the completion of our 4-year parking lot project as well as the procurement of substantial support from The Heinz Endowments in order to considerably reduce our mortgage and stabilize the future of our organization.
Both artistically and programmatically, 2009 was a banner year for the Mattress Factory. And as we shift gears into 2010, we hope to continue with the momentum established by your vital support. A few things to look forward to next year:
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| Barbara Luderowski President & Co-Director | Michael Olijnyk Co-Director |
 | POSTED BY BARBARA Read All Posts by Barbara |
As 2009 comes to a close, many arts organizations take this time to reflect on the projects and programs of the past year as well as visualize organizational goals for the coming year. We here at the MF are no different, but I'd like to take this time to touch on a key performance and motivation metric pertaining to my department, which is loosely defined as Development, but more affectionately referred to simply as The 3rd Floor.
The 3rd Floor houses the Membership, Development, Grant Writing, Marketing, Public Relations, New Media and Graphic Design departments. Sounds huge, but it's essentially just me, Lindsay, Shannon, Emily, Claudia and our wonderfully overworked/underpaid interns. As you can imagine, there is an amazing amount of work to be done by all of us and therefore time management, the ability to multi-task and an überly fast-paced work environment are key to pushing projects out the door. Enter one of the greatest rock bands of all time, Guns 'N Roses (pictured to the right).
In 2009, The 3rd Floor played Appetite for Destruction by Guns 'N Roses in its entirety every Friday at 4:00 PM. You're probably asking yourself how this relates to producing world-class contemporary art, but bear with me for a moment, there are several reasons for our weekly ritual. First and foremost, the motivational nature of the songs on this particular record are extremely conducive to work output. The pace is perfect; the highs & lows and peaks & valleys are perfectly in their right places. It's also almost exactly 1 hour long and like an olympic long distance runner it consistently brought us rocking into 5:00 PM, a reliable and energetic close to each week in 2009. Some of our best ideas and execution came between the opening guitar lick of Welcome to the Jungle and the final breakdown in Rocket Queen.
So, having said all of this, we all feel we're due for a change in 2010. This is where you can help us. Much like we did with choosing the name for the MF softball team last Spring, we're going to leave it up to our blog readers, MF Twitter Posse and MF Facebook Mob to crowdsource our 2010 "Friday at 4:00 PM" listening ritual.
Here's the deal. Through this Friday, we'll take any and all album suggestions in the comments below, or via Twitter & Facebook. The 3rd Floor will then meet to select a cross-section of 5 potential albums, which we'll post here on the MF Blog next week as a reader poll. The album with the most votes by 12/31/2009 will be the winner and the person who submitted the winning record will receive their choice of three awesome MF prizes.
So have fun suggesting albums and be creative with your recommendations. We're looking forward to hearing your submissions.
| POSTED BY JEFFREY Read All Posts by Jeffrey |
As many of you know, the Mattress Factory is currently in the midst of our 2009 Annual Fund Campaign, "It's All About YOU!" End of year contributions from supporters like you have a direct impact on museum operations. These donations help us sprint through the finish line of this year, while simultaneously helping us focus on achieving the artistic and educational goals we've set for ourselves for next year. And for those of you curious about next year, we've got some great things on tap including the first exhibition from our curators-in-residence Mark Garry & Georgina Jackson, the 14th installment of the Gestures Exhibition Series, our first ever music residency, the 2010 Urban Garden Party, and the large-scale exhibition Queloides/Keloids, which takes a poignant look at the topic of race in Cuba.
So, today only, we're very excited to partner with our friends at Whirl Magazine on a special deal for online contributors to the "It's All About YOU" campaign.
Anyone who donates $25 to the campaign today (12/14/2009) will receive two complimentary passes to the Mattress Factory and a 1-year subscription to Whirl (a $50 value!).
The only catch is that you have to donate through the secret URL over on http://www.whirlmagazine.com/donate-local-charity.
So, if you'd like to help us continue to produce cutting-edge exhibitions and provide meaningful educational opportunities while getting a little something for yourself in return, follow these three easy steps:
1) Head over to http://www.whirlmagazine.com/donate-local-charity
2) Scroll down to the 12/14/2009 listing for the Mattress Factory
3) Follow the "CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO THE MATTRESS FACTORY" link.
BIG thanks to our friends over at Whirl, and also to you for your continued support.
| POSTED BY LINDSAY Read All Posts by Lindsay |
The following is a guest-post from Nicole Rosato, Visitor Services & Volunteer Coordinator for the Mattress Factory. When not greeting the public at the museum, Nicole can usually be found cutting out the lines of road maps and chillin' with her dog Tango. This is her first post on the MF Blog.Hello! I’m Nicole, the Visitor Services and Volunteer Coordinator here at the MF, and I wanted to share with you a curatorial project that I'm involved with featuring Mattress Factory staff. Working in Pittsburgh museums for over four years now, I’ve realized that there are many talented artists who work within these cultural institutions. These are artists who dedicate their days promoting the artwork of others and their nights & weekends creating artwork of their own.
My friend Laura Mustio and I decided to curate a group exhibition that would give some of these artists working "backstage" in Pittsburgh’s museums and galleries their own chance in the spotlight. The show is called Behind Our Scenes and will open at SPACE Gallery this Friday, December 11th from 6-9 PM.
There are 34 individuals in this show, all representing a united community of artists working throughout the city. Many members of the Mattress Factory staff are involved including: Shannon Knepper (Graphic Designer), Nathan Hall (Administrative Assistant), Lindsay O’Leary (Membership & Development Coordinator), Kelley Krapp (Weekend Supervisor), Ian Page (Installer), Alice Wynn (MF Volunteer Extraordinaire) and Katherine Young (a former MFer).
All the pertinent details are below and I invite you to attend the opening and support the MF artists as well as artists from: The Carnegie Museum of Art, The Andy Warhol Museum, FE Arts Gallery, Future Tenant, and Wood Street Galleries. I hope to see you there!
SPACE [map]
812 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Phone: 412.325.7723
Website: http://www.spacepittsburgh.org
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Thursday 11AM-6PM Friday-Saturday 11AM-8PM
| BARBARA Founding Director |
 | CATENA Director of Operations |
| JEFFREY PR + Social Media |
 | SHANNON Graphic Design |
 | ANNA Education |
 | LEAH Archivist |
| LINDSAY Membership |
 | ERIN MF Shop |
Artist Sarah Oppenheimer discusses the idea of institutional permission and how it relates to her process and work. Sarah's 610-3356 is currently on view at the museum.
