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Thursday, June 20, 2002

By Caroline Abels, Post-Gazette Cultural Arts Writer

There are political constituents in Pittsburgh who have developed sore fists from banging at the door of city government.

Pittsburgh City Councilman William Peduto, who is emerging as an avid supporter of the alternative arts scene, spent last Friday evening at "Pulse," a showcase of hip-hop, modern dance and spoken word at the Kelly-Strayhorn Community Performing Arts Center in East Liberty. While he spoke with Gloria Forouzan, a coordinator of the event, performance painter Kevin Wenner created an artwork. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

Then there are Pittsburgh's artists, who don't even show up at the front stoop, believing that City Council rarely takes significant steps to support the city's cultural life.

Over the past six months, however, City Councilman William Peduto has bucked the trend and shown up at the doors of artists himself, hoping to understand their concerns and leading them to wonder if he's the political supporter they've never had.

As the new Democratic councilman for Shadyside and North Oakland (plus parts of Bloomfield, Squirrel Hill, Friendship and Point Breeze), Peduto has reached out to the alternative arts scene as eagerly as other politicians reach out to new corporations.

Although other City Council members have expressed intermittent support for various cultural institutions and the arts in general, artists say Peduto, 37, is the only one to sit down and talk to them on a regular basis -- and in their own back yards.

"The arts impact the character of a community and provide an incentive for young people to stay here," Peduto says. "Culture at the top is essential, but culture from the bottom builds everything else. It's critical."

Peduto repeatedly attends events that showcase the city's cutting-edge artists -- the young, struggling creative people who are the very ones this region is fearful of losing -- and he has hired five young people to research issues related to the arts, transportation and the outdoors so that he can make informed policy decisions.

"I see him at concerts all the time," says Darcy Trunzo, a 25-year-old artist who is Peduto's arts consultant. "And I don't mean symphony concerts but gritty events that are critical to urban quality. He shows up no matter what the neighborhood."

Last Friday he showed up at "Pulse," a showcase of modern dance, hip-hop and spoken word that took place at the Kelly-Strayhorn theater in East Liberty. In fact, he was an emcee.

And in March, he came to the rescue of Flux, another arts showcase that had been scheduled to take place in an abandoned building in East Liberty. Peduto helped organizers navigate city government and find new performance sites after inspectors announced, a few days before the show, that organizers hadn't met safety requirements in the empty building.

Some observers say the fact that Peduto is single and without family obligations gives him the time to attend evening arts events. A resident of Point Breeze, he also spends long hours at Cappy's bar in Shadyside talking policy with people.

One of his first acts in office was to change the name of City Council's General Services and Telecommunications committee to General Services, Technology and the Arts, so that at least one Council committee would formally have the arts under its purview.

Peduto has also taken an interest in shoring up the city Art Commission, which for years has had little impact and been ignored by Council. When he met with the commission this spring -- the first councilman to do so in recent memory -- he floated the idea of funding public art projects using one percent of the money from the sale of old city property, like police cars and desks.

"I feel like now there's someone I can call on Council to have a conversation with, no matter what I want to talk about," says Art Commission chairman Lockwood Hoehl.

Peduto's interest in street-level culture isn't all that unusual for someone who has artwork by Howard Finster and Burton Morris in his home, and who has fiddled around on the guitar enough to have mastered about six chords ("plus a half-dozen Bob Dylan songs and a few by Woody Guthrie"). But for a politician, it's an interest that stands out.

Councilwoman Barbara Burns, who represents the North Side, says that although all Council members are supportive of the arts, none are as vocal about it as Peduto.

"I think Bill, as a new councilman, wants to identify himself as a champion of these causes," Burns says. "It's a really nice niche for his district."

That's District 8, a relatively well-off area that includes a significant number of artists and young people. (Nearly half of Shadyside's population is between age 22 and 39, according to 2000 Census data). All of them are potential voters for Peduto in future elections.

But Peduto knows that young people don't vote as consistently as older citizens. And that artists in Pittsburgh have yet to become an organized political force. And that even if they were, they might not be large enough to put Peduto over the top in a close race.

"If I'm doing this for political opportunism, then I should fire my political consultant," he says.

He knows he could spend more time addressing issues that would engage the voting elderly but says "there are enough people talking about those things." He wants to help bring artistic vitality to neighborhoods so that the city can retain talented and educated young workers who are in search of unique experiences.

It's not a coincidence that Peduto sounds a lot like Richard Florida, the Carnegie Mellon University professor who just released a book about the importance of creative people to urban economies. Peduto admires Florida's theories. In fact, Florida says Peduto is the only city councilman who has talked with him about his research and its potential to help Pittsburgh.

"He's a tried and true Italian-American Pittsburgher who's not doing this to be trendy and fashionable but because he believes in it," Florida says. "He's building a bridge between the past and the future."

But what of the possibility that some East End voters might be suspicious of the provocative art produced by the creative people Peduto supports? Ever since the mid-1990s, when Congress, spurred on by conservative politicians, slapped funding restraints on the National Endowment for the Arts after the agency supported controversial art, politicians have had even less incentive to embrace street-level culture.

Could Peduto be risking some political capital by supporting artists?

"I just came out against the Mon-Fayette Expressway," he says, "which is supported by every contractor, banker, attorney, bond issuer, union and every politician except me in this region. If there's a risk in supporting artists, I have no problem taking that risk."

Being new on the job -- he was elected in November after serving as District 8 Councilman Dan Cohen's chief of staff for seven years -- Peduto has yet to disappoint anybody. Nor has he had an opportunity yet to get into serious debates with his colleagues over arts issues. But they are aware of the foundations he's laying.

When he read, during a recent City Council meeting, a proclamation in honor of "Pulse," the arts showcase that took place last weekend, Burns turned to him and said, "You're taking this arts thing far, aren't you?"

Artists are hoping he'll take it even farther.

Caroline Abels can be reached at cabels@post-gazette.com.