Artists help city's stars shine across Downtown

This story was corrected at 8:45 p.m. July 5, 2006.

Artist Tom Mosser of Friendship is well qualified to paint portraits of Pittsburgh's baseball icons. He was one.

The ambidextrous former Pirate Parrot is one of 40 Western Pennsylvania artists creating 75 wooden stars around Downtown that depict famous Pittsburghers -- among them, baseball great Honus Wagner, pop artist Andy Warhol, actors Gene Kelly and Michael Keaton, and even bridge builder George W. Ferris, who built the first Ferris Wheel in 1893.

Many of the stars, which range from 4 feet tall to one that's 16 feet high, are on display. They're part of work under way around the city in preparation for Major League Baseball's All-Star Game festivities, which begin Friday.

Organizers with the Citiparks Department, Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Greater Pittsburgh Art Council and other groups asked artists to submit designs in May. Those with the best designs received prefabricated five-pointed stars as their canvasses.

"Pittsburgh is going through a renaissance," said Mosser, a Pirate mascot from 1988 to 1995, who painted murals of Wagner and Roberto Clemente.

"It seems to be happening on the shell of the city and working its way to the core," he said. "Public art is very symbolic of the changes that are being made. It's a nice way of starting the process of fixing the Fifth & Forbes corridor."

With thousands of visitors expected this weekend, city officials wanted to disguise Downtown's dirty, abandoned storefronts.

The work is eye-catching, but Pittsburgh's problems remain evident. In between the stars of Jerome Bettis and Myron Cope are signs that warn pedestrians not to enter vacant 501 Market St., which is scheduled for demolition and is filled with "deadly rat poison," according to the posted notices.

Dick Skrinjar, spokesman for Mayor Bob O'Connor, said the All-Star artwork would remain "for a while" after the game, but he's not sure how long.

O'Connor dogged the city's public works crews to clean up Downtown and the North Shore in time for Tuesday's game.

"I think it's amazing," said Dana Kaufman, of Shadyside, as she hopped on a bus from a stop on Market Street. Kaufman works Downtown and saw artists doing some of the mural work.

"I do think it helps" to improve the look of vacant storefronts, she said. "I hope no one defaces these, because it took a lot of effort and a lot of paint."

Across from the stars along Market Street, artist Kyle Holbrook has latched onto the Pittsburgh theme with a vivid mural that depicts industrialist Andrew Carnegie, O'Connor and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater in Fayette County.

"I saw them on Sunday morning and thought the quality of the artwork is pretty good," said Michael Edwards, president of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership.

Al Kovacik, a city architect who helped plan the public art project, said people would be able to vote later this week for their favorite piece on the Art Institute's Web site, www.paspap.org . The winners receive prizes bought with donations.

"We wanted to make the Fifth-Forbes area a little more vital," Kovacik said. "These are the people, places and things that make Pittsburgh special."