Stair climb: Harrison native to showcase images of steps at Oakmont Carnegie Library
Paola Corso is always looking to take the next step.
The Harrison native writes about and photographs staircases not only for their beauty, but for their functional use as a journey to get from one place to another.
“I am always looking for steps,” said Corso, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. “Any place I visit, I look for steps. My step journey continues. This is an ongoing thing for me.”
Often, the steps she takes bring her back to her beloved Pittsburgh.
She’s coming home in June.
The author of “Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps,” Corso will showcase her work at a monthlong gallery exhibit of her black-and-white photographs that celebrate city steps in Pittsburgh and beyond. The exhibition will be installed on June 5 and be available for view through June 30 at the Oakmont Carnegie Library, 700 Allegheny River Blvd.
Guests can meet Corso at “Vertical Bridges: Artist Reception and Poetry Reading,” a free event from 6 to 8 p.m. on June 8 at the library.
It will be Corso’s first solo photography exhibit.
She has exhibited with members of her artist’s collective in Brooklyn. Corso wanted to feature her work here because she has never forgotten her roots, she said.
The award-winning author has written seven books that tell some of the stories of her Italian immigrant family members.
Her books include “The Laundress Catches Her Breath,” winner of the Tillie Olsen Award in Creative Writing, and her latest, “Vertical Bridges.”
All her books are set in Pittsburgh and explore aspects of her working class upbringing.
Though she lives in New York she said “my emotional center is Pittsburgh.”
“My creative work is by a Pittsburgher, about Pittsburgh, for Pittsburghers,” she said.
In fact, her inspiration for researching steps began right here in the tight community where she grew up. The concrete stairway her father and grandfather, and others like them, walked to get to work at Allegheny Ludlum Steel along the riverbank in Brackenridge is showcased in her book.
There will be 28 black-and-white photos with inspirational quotes underneath to complement the images, some never seen before, from her trips to Mexico and Turkey.
There will also be collages of steps.
The photographs and prints as well as her book will be for sale.
Corso is co-founder of Steppin Stanzas, a grant-awarded poetry and performance project celebrating Pittsburgh public stairways; a video, “On the Way Up: City Steps, City Immigrants”; and “Stepping Through History,” a Western Pennsylvania history essay on city steps. Her work is included on Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s literary map.
She will also present “Vertical Bridges” on July 20 at the Senator John Heinz History Center in the Strip District. Corso wrote an essay on city steps for the Western Pennsylvania History Magazine. She will read poetry and Lee Ann Draud, whose photos accompany the essay, will talk about the history of this region’s city steps.
Steps are what inspired Corso to return to photography and to write about the onesshe’s found. She was a reporter and photojournalist in the San Francisco Bay area, employing traditional darkroom methods to develop film and make prints. Corso is also a former reporter for the Valley News Dispatch.
“I’m fascinated with creating images of steps and stairways that feature a compelling pattern of the horizontal meeting the vertical, a spiritual journey to elevate ourselves, and a struggle to ascend the hierarchy of a stratified society,” she said.
Her book includes close-ups that draw attention to the steps, themselves, and their architectural beauty, as well as color landscapes that celebrate what she sees as vertical bridges. She continues to search out steps through her travels.
“There are steps everywhere,” she said. “City steps are vertical bridges, and I want to cross them, as connections in the landscape, connections we make with each other. That middle ground where we meet.”
That next meeting place is the library. It’s an event she had planned to do in 2020, but the pandemic prevented that from happening.
“The library’s gallery is a perfect setting for this exhibit,” she said. “I am thrilled about it. A library is a community and cultural center.”
And it has that vertical bridge Corso references — a set of steps at the entrance.
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop is a TribLive reporter covering the region’s diverse culinary scene and unique homes. She writes features about interesting people and a weekly column about things to do in Pittsburgh. The Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist began her career as a sports reporter. She has been with the Trib for 26 years and is the author of “A Daughter’s Promise.” She can be reached at jharrop@triblive.com.
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