Craig McPherson found warmth on a wintry night in 1982 when he visited the Steel City for the first time.
As he emerged from the Fort Pitt Tunnel, Jones and Laughlin Steel Co.'s mill in Hazelwood greeted him by lighting up the low-hanging clouds with odd grays and a curry orange, odd colors that caught his artistic eye.
His first visit here to the home of his future wife, May Miculis, left a lasting impression that led him to create lasting artistic impressions of the region's industry over the last 20 years.
The same year McPherson, 60, first glimpsed Pittsburgh's mills was the year Ron Gault, 52, of Whitehall, was laid off from his job at U.S. Steel's Carrie Furnaces in Rankin.
The six-week layoff, which Gault was told was for a furnace reline, turned into a six-month period of unemployment -- a foreshadowing of what steelworkers throughout the Pittsburgh area would experience just a few years down the road in the mid-1980s.
The mill lights that once danced along the Monongahela River and illuminated the skies of the Mon Valley as motorists traveled Route 837 from the South Side to Elizabeth are gone now, except for U.S. Steel's Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock and U.S. Steel's Clairton coke works.
Those two mills provide the inspiration for most of McPherson's works that are on exhibit at The Frick Art Museum in Point Breeze through June 8 as part of the celebration of Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary.
On a recent visit to The Frick Art Museum, Gault had a chance to view McPherson's works and reflect upon Pittsburgh's steel heritage through the eyes of someone who lived it day-to-day.
Gault, who grew up on the South Side, remembers seeing the flaming stacks of Jones and Laughlin's Hazelwood mill from Becks Run Road as a child.
"The flaming night sky -- that's what Pittsburgh looked like to me," says the third-generation steelworker.
Jones and Laughlin is where his maternal grandfather, the German-born Albert Bornemann Sr., was general foreman for 40 years. When Bornemann retired, his son, Ralph Bornemann, took the job for another 40 years.
Gault didn't want to follow in their footsteps, but ended up working in the mill anyhow -- at the Carrie blast furnaces.
"I never felt I was a steelworker," says Gault, whose job was in the iron-making end of the industry. "I was an ironworker."
The lighting in several of McPherson's oil, graphite and pastel paintings and drawings catches Gault's eye. The artist's preference for urban subject matter and shadowy night scenes without people reflects the realistic daily-life style of the Ashcan School of the early 20th century and the cinematography of mid-20th century film noir.
Gault says the blast furnace had dismal lighting until the furnace was drilled to release the molten iron.
"Lighting was always very primitive, and it was difficult to see," he says.
But once the housing was opened, the bright orange molten iron lit up the structure and the sky. Gault says McPherson has captured "the colors of Pittsburgh" in his works.
Looking at some of McPherson's scenes of the Edgar Thompson works, Gault recalls that at one time, there were 52 blast furnaces in Pennsylvania. The only two that remain are at Edgar Thomson.
"That's an amazing statistic," he says.
Beyond the art on the walls of the Frick museum, the techniques McPherson used to create them drew Gault's interest.
What makes McPherson unusual is that he invents techniques, such as using dental tools to sculpt paint onto the canvas, says Greg Langel, Frick's media and marketing manager. It took McPherson more than a year to prepare the copper surface for the mezzotint technique he used on several works, according to Laura Beattie, education programs coordinator for The Frick.
Mezzotint is a physically demanding medium in which a copper plate is "rocked" with a curved, notched blade until the surface is pitted. By flattening the raised parts -- more for white, less for grays -- McPherson patiently created the largest mezzotint plate in existence, which was used for his Strip Mine and Coal Piles works in the exhibit.
Gault started at Carrie Furnaces as a laborer. After a stint in the Air Force, he returned to his old job in 1979. A year later, he was accepted as an apprentice electrician -- the first one the mill had taken on in 13 years.
He attended apprentice classes at the Clairton coke works. But at that point, Gault had made a plan not to spend 40 years in the mill as his grandfather and uncle had before him.
After he was laid off, he finished his training at a technical school and moved on to work at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Jefferson Hills.
Gault is now supervisor of mechanical/electrical maintenance at Duquesne University.
Yet 25 years later, the molten iron still runs through his veins.
Although he admits to "hating" his mill job, Gault "loves" his volunteer work as an interpretive tour guide for Rivers of Steel Heritage Area, which works to preserve the area's steel heritage. The Frick has done some collaborative programs with Rivers of Steel because of industrialist Henry Clay Frick's prominence in the steel saga.
The generations that had fathers and grandfathers who worked in the mills are aging.
Those 25 years old or younger don't remember the smoke, smells and glows from U.S. Steel's Dorothy Six blast furnace at the Duquesne Works, National Tube Works in McKeesport or the Eliza Furnace at Jones and Laughlin's Hazelwood mill.
The generation that knows The Waterfront, but not the great U.S. Steel Homestead Works that once occupied the site, will view McPherson's images differently than those who grew up in the steel era, Gault says.
"It does capture something," he says of the exhibit. "But if you weren't there...
"The content is important. It's beautiful in its own way."
Exhibition programs planned
"Steel: Pittsburgh Drawings by Craig McPherson" will be on exhibit through June 8 at The Frick Art Museum, 7227 Reynolds St., in Point Breeze.
Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday; closed Monday and major holidays.
There are several programs being offered in conjunction with the exhibit, including:
• Gallery Talk -- "Conversation and Cocktails: Ask the Artist" from 7 to 9 p.m. May 6 at The Frick Art Museum. Registration is required along with pre-payment of $15 for members and teachers, $20 for non-members and guests.
Participants will tour the galleries with artist Craig McPherson as he explores through art the night along Pittsburgh's rivers and industrial landscapes. The evening includes a reception with light hors d'oeuvres and a "Steel City" cocktail.
• Film at Noon: "The Valley of Decision" at noon on May 14 in the museum auditorium. The movie is free and open to the public. Gregory Peck, Greer Garson and Lionel Barrymore star in the romantic 1945 MGM drama filmed on location in Pittsburgh.
The movie, directed by Tay Garnett, tells the story of a young house maid from a family of union workers who falls in love with the wealthy son of a Pittsburgh industrialist.
• Studio Workshop: "The Urban Landscape in Pastel" from 1:30 to 4 p.m. June 1 at Frick Art Museum and Lexington Education Center. Cost is $15 for members, teachers and students; $20 for non-members and guests.
Pre-payment and advance registration required. Using Craig McPherson's exhibit as inspiration, participants will create an urban or natural landscape.
For more information or registration, call 412-371-0600 or visit www.TheFrickPittsburgh.org [1].