Two imaginary worlds, one as suggestive as a dream, the other as blatant as a comedy sketch, are being exhibited at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. The artists who created these visions will give talks this month, an opportunity for visitors to ask questions about their ideas and techniques.

Fuyuko Matsubara's sublime woven and silk painted works, in "Seeds of Light," combine fanciful landscape and biological elements that are based on reality, with a symbolic visual language of her own making.

The exquisite woven 12-panel "In the Earth," vibrant in color and imagination, took almost 20 years to complete from a large-scale drawing made in 1984, after she graduated from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Matsubara, who teaches at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, also holds a master's degree in fine arts from Musashino Art University in Tokyo.

More recently, her subject is light, representing "an energy source from a spiritual view," omnipresent and ineffable. Raising these works to the extraordinary level is Matsubara's original and painstaking technique, which produces surfaces having tactility and depth.

She hand-plies fine linen, cotton, silk and rayon yarns from which she weaves four pieces of white cloth. Off the loom, she uses fiber-reactive dyes to paint those with differing but similar imagery. She then disassembles the cloths and, using the warp from two of them and the weft from the other two, reweaves a new cloth.

"Through the consecutive actions of painting, deconstruction and reconstruction, I observe the image disintegrate and transform," she writes.

The artist also exhibits paintings on silk inspired by the seeds she collects and sometimes sprouts. As with her woven panels, they are vivid, light-filled and celebratory, the subjects floating on complex surfaces, animated and mysterious.

Matsubara launches the PCA's 2010 Dialogue Discussion Series at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow, in conversation with Debra Meteney, Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh president and PCA weaving instructor, and Adam Welch, curator for Pittsburgh Filmmakers and PCA (free, cash bar).

James Thurman, who earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts at Carnegie Mellon University and master's at Cranbrook, speaks at 3 p.m. Jan. 24 (free). He teaches Metals and Jewelry in the University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design.

In contrast to the serene "Seeds," Thurman's "Ancient 21st Century Art-i-facts" is irreverent and packed with objects, an installation that includes discarded books recycled into a "Reading Chair" and plates stacked for a "Dining Table."

His "McMuseum of Anthropological Archaeology" spoofs academic attempts to decipher the remnants of past civilizations -- complete with a glossary of an "archaic language now obsolete" that includes words such as "books," "free" and "paper." Since the interpretations are carried out under the auspices of the all-controlling TransWorld Corp. -- Orwell's "1984" meets Madison Avenue -- Thurman delivers zingers to consumerism and material culture, too.

Tucked within the tongue-in-cheek sculpture are elegant objects, including bracelets, pins and plate-like forms that appear to be made of stone. Surprisingly, they're of layers of paper that Thurman laminates together, and then sands and polishes, a technique he demonstrates via video.

The "Paper" and "Tectonic" plates are cut from the centers of atlases, epoxied, and then laboriously turned on a lathe and polished. They reside within the depressions made in their original texts, artifacts that will certainly challenge future historians.

That both artists studied at prestigious Cranbrook is not coincidental to their underlying commitment to -- and more importantly internalization of -- the pursuit of quality that makes them both successful.

Also at the PCA "The Exchange," from the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, Philadelphia, is the second exhibition exchange between Pennsylvania's anchor cities and a great way to share energy and ideas.

Photography in particular stands out among the 39 artworks by 23 artists, from Peter Prusinowski's place-centered and atmospheric "Fishtown Series" to Daniel Traub's stately portraits. Brenna Murphy uses her own hair to stitch images of furniture -- a crib, a rocking chair -- onto photographs of empty rooms in the "Home Is Where the Hair Is" series to both nostalgic and eerie effect.

Sculpture to note includes Diane Savona's "Treasure Chest," filled with sewing tools covered with fine terra cotta- and ocher-colored cloth that makes them appear as artifacts encased in earth; and Scott Pellnat's allegorical "Slave Ship," which occupies a gallery of its own, with baroque gilding and power lines obscured by a thick black coating that brings to mind oil, tar and defilement.

All exhibitions, and the Pittsburgh Society of Artists' "When Night Falls," continue through Jan. 24 at 6300 Fifth Ave. at Shady Avenue, Shadyside. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission: $5 suggested donation. Information: 412-361-0873 or www.pittsburgharts.org.

The first American museum dedicated to traditional and contemporary examples of the art of papercutting will have its grand opening March 20 at the Philip Dressler Center for the Arts, 214 S. Harrison Ave., Somerset. The Guild of American Papercutters National Museum, established in partnership with Laurel Arts, will feature changing exhibitions and a permanent collection.

The inaugural exhibition of 26 works may be seen from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. Access to the second floor museum is currently by stair only; the Guild plans to install a chair lift. Information: 1-814-443-2433 or www.papercutters.org.

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