THE ARTISTS’ MARKET After a year of planning, jurying, organizing and publicizing, the Mt. Lebanon Partnership presents the Mt. Lebanon Artists’ Market Saturday, September 26, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, September 27, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Academy Avenue lot.

An evolution of the Rotary’s Art in the Park, the event left the small parking lot at the edge of Mt. Lebanon Park for Uptown two years ago when the high school renovation began.  It initially was part of Plein Air Mt. Lebanon, but it has been upsized and upscaled and now occupies its own weekend.

Admission to the market is free, and organizers Steve and Wendy Denenberg of Create A Frame/Handworks Gallery have planned events for all ages.

The Warhol Museum will have a project tent from noon to 4 both days, including a kids’ screen printing activity. Participation is free, although donations may be made to the Fresh Artists charity, a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization that helps get children in underprivileged areas involved in art. (Fresh Artists also enlarges children’s art projects for installation in corporate environments. How cool!)

The Touchstone Center for Crafts will demonstrate art in various media both days from noon to 4. The Luke Williams Band will perform Saturday from 1 to 4 and Sunday from noon to 3.

The jurors, Adam Kenney, Mark Bender and Melissa Fabian, will present awards to the Best of the Market Sunday at noon.

The market is accepting donations both days for the Wallace Memorial Food pantry. With money donated last year, the pantry bought 2,000 pounds of frozen meat  and 1,200 pounds of fresh fruits and veggies.

Some artwork will be raffled off with proceeds from ticket sales going to Fresh Artists. Signature event T-shirts with a logo designed by Mt. Lebanon illustrator Dave Klug will be on sale for $15.

The Artists’ Market will have plenty of food offerings from Arancini House, PGH crepes, Pitaland and Family Farm Creameries.

The market has some prominent local artists among the 80 booths. Mt. Lebanon High School student Evan Tillie Pettler, who makes jewelry from polymer clay, was selected as “emerging artist.” Other jewelry artists are Karen Krieger, who shows in galleries around the country; Aileen Lampman, a perennial “best in show” winner; Olga Mihalova, known for her intricate beadwork, and Paula Nettleship. Other Mt. Lebanon artists are ceramic artist Laura Kukkee, A Craftsmen’s Club member who has exhibited at Three Rivers Arts Festival and A Fair in the Park, fabric specialist Jude Ernest, glass artist Sam Foreman and painter Brett Mason.

The artists

FLUHME BEAUTY “Get in, get out, get gorgeous!” is the motto of Fluhme Glam Bar, a new beauty experience set to open this fall at 607 Washington Road. Fluhme Glam Bar will offer beauty services and a wide variety of hard-to-find cosmetics, including the namesake Fluhme makeup line.  The salon will offer manicures and pedicures, eyebrow waxing, eyelash extensions, hair blowouts, express chemical peels, spray tans and makeup applications for everyday and special occasions. Founder Tiffany Fluhme is a physician’s assistant who worked in dermatologist and plastic and reconstructive surgery offices prior to starting Fluhme Beauty Products direct sales several years ago She says the new shop/salon will be luxurious and trendy and will accept both walk-in clients and appointments.

COMMONWEALTH COMES TO TOWN It was pretty much a dream scenario for Dan and Shannon Rugh. After Dan started a screen print facility in the basement of his South Side home in 2002 and built it into a successful retail shop at 1931 East Carson Street, he and his wife, Shannon, moved to Sunset Hills with their two daughters and thought about opening a second location, on Washington Road.

“It’s such a cool little street,” he says. So at the end of this summer the Rughs’ Commonwealth Press opened its second location at 691 Washington Road in the former Koolkat Designs spot. Shoppers can browse the shop’s line of cool printed items or put in a custom order. Additionally, Dan Rugh says the addition of some skate shop items and some juicy vinyl selections from Polish Hill’s Mind Cure records add more fun to the shopping mix. Toss in a printing press in the window and some classes to help you learn how screen printing works, and you get a hands-on business.

“The store is a little bit of everything that I love,” says Rugh, who will be the Mt. Lebanon store’s main employee (he’ll have one other person working with him). The company has 13 full-timers. The East Carson store will continue to operate and house more of Commonwealth Press’s equipment.

Rugh is excited about becoming involved in Mt. Lebanon events, such as First Fridays and plans to teach screen printing at the Artsmiths of Pittsburgh on McFarland Road to help spread the love. “I’m really excited about all the things going on up here,” he says of Mt. Lebanon. At press time, hours and a website were under development, but you can see his original site: www.cwpress.com/

LOSERS WEEPERS Congratulations to Finders Keepers’ Susan Wulff, who is celebrating 15 years in business on Cochran Road recycling people’s cast-off treasures into other people’s exciting discoveries.

You probably see her wares—some of the furniture at least—as you wait in line for the light at Cochran and Bower Hill; she sets out a sampling every day to tease customers to stop in. Warning: don’t stop, if you don’t want to shop, because you probably will find something you don’t need and can’t live without.

As you negotiate (walk would not be the right word) your way through her shop, which is filled with towers of junque, collectibles and the occasional antique, you realize that it is much bigger than it looks on the outside. Recently Wulff has expanded her love for beautiful, funky, cool and unusual things into a new venture, “Design by Wulff.”

She is collaborating with local artists, creating one-of-a-kind pieces for the home—a desk made of a vintage wood top and a Singer sewing machine base or an end table made from an early typewriter shipping crate, for example. Check out Finders Keepers at facebook.com/finderskeeperspittsburgh.

SAVE THE DATE! Sad that ULTRAparty’s getting the heave-ho this year? Well, just wait til Saturday, October 17, when the Mt. Lebanon Partnership will present… Well, you tell us.

We mean it. We have a couple of bands, Donora and Beauty Slap, we have games, and probably food, and all kinds of reasons to get out to Clearview Common and party. What we don’t have is a name for the gathering/happening/oncairy.

If you have an idea about what we should call it, you could win a $50 gift card from a Mt. Lebanon establishment, four shindig wristbands, four soiree T-shirts, and the glow of satisfaction that comes from coining the name of this epic wang dang doodle. Send your suggestions to www.mtlebopartnership.org/new-page/.

Check out next month’s mtl for more details, including, of course, the name.