Artist brings the stars to earth for memorial at Mellon Park Walled Garden
As a girl, Annie Seamans would lie on her back on the lawn in Shadyside's Mellon Park Walled Garden and gaze at the stars.
Beginning this fall, in time for the 10th anniversary of her sudden death at age 19, the lawn will twinkle with lights that reflect the precise arrangement of stars and planets over Pittsburgh when she was born at 7:11 a.m. on Nov. 20, 1979.
"We're thrilled," said Susan Rademacher, parks curator for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. "It's a concept that adds magic to the park."
Janet Zweig of Brooklyn was chosen from 80 artists nationwide who presented ideas for the Ann Katharine Seamans memorial art project. Zweig was selected by a panel organized by the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council's Office of Public Art that consisted of artists, the Seamans family and representatives from the City of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.
Zweig's idea came from a conversation with one of Seamans' friends.
"I asked her, 'What did you and Annie do in Mellon Park?' and she said, 'Sometimes we'd go there and just lie on our backs and look up at the stars,'" Zweig said. "And it just came to me. It's rare I'll get an idea so quickly, but this was the right idea. I wanted to bring the stars down from the sky from the day she was born and put them in the lawn."
Seamans, a budding sculptor and dancer from Point Breeze, died in a Strip District car crash in 1999 while she was home from college visiting family. Her parents planned the memorial, and Seamans' family and friends will pay for the $1 million project.
"Looking up at the stars is a very inspired kind of thing," said her father, Joe Seamans. "It's kind of a metaphor for hope and inspiration and that seemed very, very meaningful to us."
The 35-acre Mellon Park spans Fifth Avenue in Shadyside. The conservancy and city are restoring the park's Walled Garden, which is enclosed on three sides by brick and stone. It is anchored at one end with a flagstone terrace and fountain and features a central rectangular lawn surrounded by plantings.
Lighting designer Hal Hilbish is creating about 150 fiber-optic lights for the project. LaQuatra Bonci, the architectural firm doing the restoration, will embed them into the lawn.
"There's going to be lights for stars and planets and they'll have slight tints — some are pinker and some are bluer — and they'll also be brighter and dimmer, just like real stars," said Zweig, whose public art projects appear in New York City, St. Louis and Minneapolis. "We're going to make them look as much like stars as possible."
Additional Information:
Artist lecture and reception
Janet Zweig of Brooklyn will present her idea for the Ann Katharine Seamans memorial for the Mellon Park Walled Garden at 6 p.m. April 24 in The Ellis School auditorium at 6425 Fifth Ave. in Shadyside. The lecture is free, but reservations are required. Call 412-394-3353 or visit online.
