Fox Chapel woman to showcase creations at annual Sewickley 'Holiday mART'

Pat Falbo of Fox Chapel always has loved teaching. But it wasn't until she put down the books and picked up the tools of a metalsmith that she was able to follow her true passion.

“Now, I was teaching something I love, instead of something I wasn't crazy about. I was teaching a skill to people who really want to know it,” said Falbo, who has been teaching about creating art with metals in Sewickley's Sweetwater Center for the Arts for a decade and a half.

The award-winning metalsmith will be one of the artists featured in this year's Holiday mART, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 7 in the arts center at Broad and Bank streets in Sewickley.

Marking its 20th annual sale, the center will offer jewelry, ceramics, glass, fiber arts, two-dimensional art and sculptures, all in time for holiday gifting. Proceeds go toward Sweetwater's art programs for children and adults and support participating artists.

“I love the center. The people are so nice, in that they are very supportive of their instructors and of the students,” Falbo said.

Falbo taught English literature for many years in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, substituted at Shady Side Academy and taught at The Ellis School. She took time off from teaching only when she had her children.

“But I always liked art better than anything else. You could teach eight classes a day on ‘David Copperfield' and by the fourth or fifth, you wonder if you're repeating yourself,” Falbo said.

A surprise encounter changed her course. Always a lover of jewelry and its components, she was browsing in a store that sold stones, metals and beads in the late 1990s when Sweetwater board member Ann Morine approached her.

“We were complete strangers to each other, and I happened to be wearing a piece of jewelry I made. She said, ‘That's quite beautiful. Where did you get it?' And when she found out I made it, she asked if I'd be interested in teaching metal fabrication. She brought me there, and since I'd never taught metalsmithing, the opportunity intrigued me.”

Cathy Susko, a Sweetwater volunteer and an organizer of Holiday mART, said Falbo's teaching talent equals her artistic abilities.

“Pat is a terrific, very talented artist, but she's also an amazing teacher. For most people, their talent as an artist is not commensurate with their ability to teach, but Pat is an excellent teacher,” Susko, of Glen Osborne, said.

“Whatever skill I may have as a metal artist is totally credited to her. She has maintained her patient and ladylike demeanor.”

Susko, who is manager of Yarns Unlimited, has studied with Falbo for 10 years. She will exhibit and sell handmade jewelry during Holiday mART, along with some of her fiber-arts creations.

Falbo did wood sculptures at first, but that was hard on her hands and actually forced her to have several surgeries.

“So I moved to something that was gentler and friendlier,” she said.

She switched to metals and found that because “people never have enough jewelry,” designing and creating pieces was a good fit.

Metal is forgiving, she said. “I mean, if I'm sculpting the head of George Washington in another medium and my chisel slips, I can cut his nose off, but if I'm working with metal and mess up, there's always a way to fix it because metal has a memory,” she said.

Falbo works mostly in silver. She teaches metalsmithing to all ages at Sweetwater, as well as at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and privately in a studio beneath her home.

During Holiday mART, Falbo will show and sell bracelets, rings, pendants and earrings. Her creations cost anywhere from $40 for bracelets and earrings to two to three hundred for intricate neckwear.

“There is tremendous support in this town for Sweetwater center and this event. This is a great community,” she said.

Susko said Falbo “has been a great friend to Sweetwater. We appreciate her generosity, time and talent.”

Mya Koch is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.