John Heller, Post-Gazette
	Chicago artist Chris Garofalo stands beneath two multi-unit ceramic works, "Spora Voltaic Caeruleus," left, and "Corallium."Behind her is a banner with images of other works created for her exhibition that were digitally enlarged and printed.

Chris Garofalo receives inspiration for her ceramic sculpture from animals and plants that exist in the natural world, but the fanciful, intriguing forms that she constructs are as much products of her imagination.

She's brought approximately 100 of them together in the installation "Suppositious Bionomics: Reshuffling Evolution," a Three Rivers Arts Festival exhibition at 707 Penn Ave.

Within the pieces are aspects of coral, mushroom, fish, pine cone, sea slug, succulent plant, jellyfish, leaf and much more, but none are species one would find in a field guide. "Familiar but not recognizable" a gallery handout says.

"I'm a sucker for natural history museums and books," the Chicago artist affirmed while installing the pieces.

As her title suggests, Garofalo is proposing that had evolution taken another path, a very different crop of creatures would populate Earth, perhaps even blending characteristics that now distinguish animals from plants. And though her creations are quite beautiful, if curious, they also harbor a caution that the price of ignoring environmental concerns could be an ecology gone haywire.

This mix of creative and actual, playful and earnest continues in the titles she assigns the unique works, which reflect an interest in language as well as nature: "Green Abalone Bloom," "Octistarfish," "Emerald Eyestalks" or "Wiwaxiefish," for example.

"Basidiomycete Hoveren" is a mushroom-like form (hence the first word of the title) that hangs from the ceiling far above the viewer. "Polyfloral Astrophytum" is a burst somewhere between floral inflorescence and firework display.

Although the artist sells, and sometimes displays, the works individually, here they are meant to be experienced as a unit. Mounted across the walls and hanging from the ceiling, they appear to have broken free of gallery constraints and to be capable of motion.

Garofalo prefers exhibiting them as such, and an installation last year, "Reciprocally Prickly," in Chicago's Garfield Park Conservatory Desert House, had broad appeal. (Some of the works are from that exhibition, although most of them were created specifically for the Pittsburgh installation.)

She likes it less when they're displayed on pedestals, saying they appear "too precious as individual objects. I like the feeling of a group, hanging out and existing more like life forms than art forms."

A flock of small white spiked pieces, "Calcareous Ophiuroid" -- part constellation, part urchin, part Garofalo -- occupy a wall. A dozen flattened orbs, "Spora Voltaic Caeruleus," hang individually near one another, their luminous blue and green surfaces suggesting distorted mini-earths. An adjacent group of 21 vari-colored small spheres, "Corallium," have the patterning of a coral colony but also become planetary through juxtaposition with the former grouping.

Three Plexiglas-sided boxes holding numerous small works -- "Aggregate Cousinry" numbers 1-3; respectively "Fancy Banksia Fruit," "Colonial Marine Polyps" and "Dehiscent Leafy Poriferan" -- are reminiscent of both art museum vitrines and natural history museum dioramas. "I think of them as natural history displays," Garofalo said. Peering closely and deeply into these small worlds the viewer becomes aware of being a part of the constructed small world within which he is standing, inspiring thoughts about mankind's place in the universe that blend philosophy and science fiction.

But it's in the unique pieces, such as perky "Corallus Desertus," that Garofalo makes her strongest artistic statement. Painstakingly constructed, generally of porcelain, and impeccably glazed, these complex and increasingly fragile works reflect the interconnectedness and vulnerability of members of the global ecosystem that they parallel.

Scale is an important ingredient in these works. That they are generally larger than one would expect the actual organism to be contributes to the slightly confused, somewhat unsettled perception they achieve in the viewer.

A large translucent screen with digital printouts of some of the recently completed sculptures exhibited hangs in the gallery window, allowing the visitor to scrutinize detail -- which holds up quite well -- as well as to experience Garofalo's accomplished sense of design.

A native of Springfield, Ill., she worked for a decade as a graphic designer after earning her BFA at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind., where she developed printmaking skills. In 1991, she enrolled in a ceramics class at a local art center and has worked in the medium since.

Garofalo doesn't specifically think of herself as an activist but is pleased that her work inspires thinking about the environment. "Anything you can do to make people think of life forms and preserving them and the fragility of life on the planet" is important, she said. "We can all do little things like that."

The exhibition continues through Sunday. The gallery is at 707 Penn Ave., near the Benedum. Hours are noon to 8 p.m. Admission is free. For information, call 412-281-8723 or visit www.artsfestival.net.