South Side Slopes Steps Get Colorful Makeover
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The steps of Pittsburgh have served generations of residents on the South Side Slopes. Now, one popular set of steps is getting a colorful facelift.
The South Side is a mosaic of many cultures.
Artist Laura Jean McLaughlin and her friend, Christine Wells, are bringing color to the path above Josephine Street one step at a time.
The artistic steps grew out of a Kickstarter project, led by neighborhood residents.
"I painted out the entire design in my studio, and then put them on boards, had to cut them out into five and a half inch sections, put them on boards with mesh. Brought them to the workshops, and I taught people how to break tile and adhere them to the mesh," said McLaughlin.
Hundreds of neighbors chipped in on the painstaking process.
"It was really a collaborative, community endeavor," McLaughlin said.
There will be 77 colorful risers, hundreds of hours of work. It represents and industrial past, and a more idyllic future.
"There's a girl standing with smokestacks, but there are flowers coming out of the smokestacks, and she's also on a bed of flowers," says McLaughlin of the mosaic.
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It all begins with little bits of tile.
"The reaction we're getting from people driving by in the community, I'm really thrilled with it," McLaughlin said.