Twice a week, the young Braddock Art Makers tramp up the stairs to the children’s room of their neighborhood library, ready to draw, paint or sculpt. This Saturday, they and their peers will sketch with children’s book illustrator Stacy Innerst, part of an event sponsored by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that brings drawing, photography and news to a Mon Valley landmark.
The event, called Making Pictures: A Day of Family Portraits and Playful Art, features Mr. Innerst’s artistry, live, in the Braddock Carnegie Library’s children’s room. Post-Gazette photographers will be in the gym, taking portraits for some 40 area families. And starting at 1 p.m., a reporter will be available to converse about news coverage of the community. (The event is free, but the family portraits are by registration only, and all time slots have been filled.)
Mr. Innerst’s presentation is open to all children, regardless of whether they’re part of Braddock Art Makers. Nonetheless, the so-called “BAM kids” are prepared and “pretty excited about it,” said Mandee Williams, the children’s librarian, earlier this week.
“We have some of his books here, and a lot of our regulars really enjoy drawing, and some of them are really good at it,” said Ms. Williams. “Drawing isn’t just doodling. You can make a career out of it.”
There are few better examples of that than Mr. Innerst, whose drawings have appeared in dozens of publications, including the Post-Gazette, where he worked from 1999 to 2011.
Since 2003, when he illustrated the Kathleen Krull book “M is for Music,” Mr. Innerst has gotten more and more work from children’s book publishers. His eighth and most recent book was “Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of RBG vs Inequality,” written by Jonah Winter.
Mr. Innerst said his presentations at libraries start with slide shows of characters he has developed, followed by a call for ideas from the audience. "I’ll draw their suggested characters [and a] scene on a large pad so they can see how picture books are developed from the author’s idea to the illustrator’s interpretation of the idea," he said. "It’s like a focus group!"
The scene for the event is America’s original Carnegie Library, a castle-like, 130-year-old National Historic Landmark with a basketball court, a ceramics studio and a print shop.
If the overall vibe is grandeur, the children’s room is “fun. It’s whimsical. It’s bright. It’s cheery,” said Ms. Williams. Thank the BAM kids.
For several years, those kids have been working with community artists from the Carnegie Museum of Art. Their current liaison with the museum is Taylor Leeper, an art therapist who leads BAM in the children’s room on Thursday afternoons, and in the ceramics studio most Saturdays.
The librarians and Ms. Leeper do much more than check out books and pass out art supplies. They’ve become confidants to many of the neighborhood kids, taking on roles that are somewhere between friend and teacher, according to Ms. Williams.
“You can do anything you want!” Ms. Williams tells the kids. “You can be anything you want. The sky’s the limit.”
Mr. Innerst will be in the children’s room of the Braddock Carnegie Library from 11 a.m. until approximately 1 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 8. A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter will be on hand for conversations about news coverage of Braddock, North Braddock, Rankin and neighboring communities from 1 to 3 p.m.
Rich Lord: rlord@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1542
First Published: December 6, 2018, 3:06 p.m.
