Pitt Chronicle

Entering Delanie Jenkins’ art studio is a bit like stepping through Alice’s Looking Glass. As enchanting as fairy dust … as curious as a Greenwich Village boutique … the tiny room is crammed with bizarre treasures and collections.

From pumpkin stems to radish roots … avocado skins to rose petals … this is the stuff of which Jenkins’ art is made.

“There may be a day three years from now where I’ll have an ‘Aha!’ moment about something I’ve been collecting for 15 years,” said Jenkins, surrounded by shelves of glass bins filled with everything from used tea bags to clam shells. “Even if there is no moment like that, there is still something intrinsically interesting about these things, enough so that I am still compelled to collect it.”

The Dallas native came to Pitt in 1996 when she accepted a post on the University’s Studio Arts faculty. She is now chair of the department.

And while Jenkins’ pace is generally frenetic, it became more so last year when the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts named her its 2007 Artist of the Year.

Elana Schlenker knows a side of Pittsburgh that she believes far too few people see. For this Pitt alumnus, the vision of the “Steel City” conjures up such names as August Wilson and Andy Warhol, as well as a host of less-well-known members of Pittsburgh’s vibrant artistic community. It is that less famous face that is showcased in The Original, a biannual magazine founded in 2006 by Schlenker when she was a student at the University.

The University of Pittsburgh and 22 partner institutions made a major advance this month in a nearly 14-year project to develop the world’s most powerful survey telescope and provide an unprecedented view of deep space.