Join Pittsburgh Creative Corps artists for a series of bi-weekly workshops on Wednesdays from 12 – 2 p.m. at Shore Thing. Workshops are free and open to the public, but advanced registration is required.
Shiftworks at Shore Thing
Where we’re shifting expectations for public art this summer and fall.
Riverlife’s Shore Thing is a floating platform anchored just off Allegheny Landing on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, nestled between the iconic Sister Bridges.
Workshops
July 15
12:00–2:00 p.m.
La Vispera
Light Through Color
Join La Vispera for this workshop, designed to give participants a firsthand experience of the process La Vispera goes through when creating their work. It offers flexibility in the level of involvement, allowing participants to choose from designs with different difficulties. Participants will engage in key steps such as selecting the plastic colors, cutting them, and gluing them onto a surface in a single session.
This workshop offers the opportunity to make a piece of art by using discarded materials and the same process that La Vispera uses to create artwork like the shade structure on Shore Thing.
About La Vispera
La Vispera is an art collective between Kelly Jimenez and Alejandro Franco, both Colombian artists who specialize in creating highly crafted works of art using discarded materials. Our repertoire includes stop-motion animation, photography, sculptures, and, predominantly, stained glass windows made from single-use plastic.
As nature enthusiasts, we continually strive to bring environmental issues to the forefront of our art. Our stained glass pieces are a testament to our commitment to this cause. Through the use of the material’s translucency and color variations, we have transformed what is typically a transient and detrimental substance into something of great beauty that we consider worth preserving.
July 29
12:00–2:00 p.m.
Celeste Neuhaus
Pollinate Your Creative Flow
In this workshop, participants will engage with the river and local ecosystem to discover the interconnections between their creative process, the act of pollination, and the element of water.
Through writing prompts and guided watercolor explorations participants will be supported through making contact with their creative blocks, allowing for these blocks to release and metamorphosize into flow.
Each participant will leave with seeds and seedlings from a local micro-nursery to plant at home to contribute to pollinator pathways. They will also be gifted a watercolor set and sketchbook to paint their ongoing growth.
About Celeste Neuhaus
Celeste Neuhaus (she/they) is a multimodal artist and witch who constellates magic, ecology, and healing. Their sculptural objects, assemblages, paintings, and guided rituals vividly materialize the often subconscious interdependencies between the continuum of the somatic – psychological – political – ecological – cosmological.
She is the originator of Conjure Creativity: one-on-one sessions and group workshops where she guides participants into deeper embodied alignment with their unique creative process. This work is an offering of service and devotion to the wildness and mystery that ignite and nourish each individual’s inner spark. For more information visit: https://www.celesteneuhaus.com/conjure-creativity
August 12
12:00–2:00 p.m.
Makenzie O’Connor
Kinesthetic Instruments: Objects for Play and Noticing
Kinesthetic Instruments is a hands-on workshop inviting participants to reflect on stagnation and movement through the making of small kinetic sculptures. Using paper, pliable plant materials, and waxed linen thread, participants will tie, glue, stitch, and assemble materials to create objects that respond to wind, gesture, and interaction.
Inspired by windsocks used to measure wind, kites that have long symbolized liberation and connection, and the playfulness of pinwheels, these handmade objects become tools for noticing, connecting, and imagining. Part sculpture and part instrument, they invite us to tune into the relationship between body and environment.
Together, we’ll slow down, pay attention, and discover how movement can transform the unseen into something visible and shared.
About Makenzie O’Connor
Mak is an artist, designer, and researcher whose practice centers care-full space-making, understanding spaces as living systems of exchange between bodies, materials, memory, and meaning. They are drawn toward processes of possibility and approach design as a form of relationship-building, a way of tending to the invisible forces that shape how people feel, move, and orient themselves in the world.
Drawing from disability studies, phenomenology, and feminist design theory, Mak investigates how environments structure power through their affordances — how they invite, restrict, or reshape embodied experience. Their work examines how spatial and material systems can either constrain or expand possibility, and how design might contribute to more just and equitable ways of dwelling in and moving through the world.
Through publication design, spatial interventions, environmental graphics, and material fabrication, they develop projects that foreground lived experience, inviting attentiveness, sensory openness, presence, and belonging.
August 26
12:00–2:00 p.m.
Ayana Sade / Yayas Haus
Singing Circle: Sound + Scent + Reflection
Join Yayas Haus for a guided Singing Circle: Sound + Scent + Reflection, a creative wellness workshop designed to foster connection, relaxation, and self-expression. This immersive experience blends gentle vocal practices, live musical guidance, and hands-on creation as participants craft their own custom salt scrub using natural ingredients and essential oils.
No singing or artistic experience is required.
About Ayana Sade
Ayana Sade is a multidisciplinary artist, facilitator, and founder of Yayas Haus, Beauty and
Spiritual Wellness Studio, a Pittsburgh-based practice centering beauty, spiritual wellness,
and community care. Her work blends music, ritual, and art-making to create accessible,
culturally rooted experiences that foster connection and joy. She is known for producing
community-centered programming and collaborating with artists and wellness practitioners
across Pittsburgh.
September 9
12:00–2:00 p.m.
La Vispera
Light Through Color
Join La Vispera for this workshop, designed to give participants a firsthand experience of the process La Vispera goes through when creating their work. It offers flexibility in the level of involvement, allowing participants to choose from designs with different difficulties. Participants will engage in key steps such as selecting the plastic colors, cutting them, and gluing them onto a surface in a single session.
This workshop offers the opportunity to make a piece of art by using discarded materials and the same process that La Vispera uses to create artwork like the shade structure on Shore Thing.
About La Vispera
La Vispera is an art collective between Kelly Jimenez and Alejandro Franco, both Colombian artists who specialize in creating highly crafted works of art using discarded materials. Our repertoire includes stop-motion animation, photography, sculptures, and, predominantly, stained glass windows made from single-use plastic.
As nature enthusiasts, we continually strive to bring environmental issues to the forefront of our art. Our stained glass pieces are a testament to our commitment to this cause. Through the use of the material’s translucency and color variations, we have transformed what is typically a transient and detrimental substance into something of great beauty that we consider worth preserving.
September 23
12:00–2:00 p.m.
Ayana Sade / Yayas Haus
Singing Circle: Sound + Scent + Reflection
Join Yayas Haus for a guided Singing Circle: Sound + Scent + Reflection, a creative wellness workshop designed to foster connection, relaxation, and self-expression. This immersive experience blends gentle vocal practices, live musical guidance, and hands-on creation as participants craft their own custom salt scrub using natural ingredients and essential oils.
No singing or artistic experience is required.
About Ayana Sade
Ayana Sade is a multidisciplinary artist, facilitator, and founder of Yayas Haus, Beauty and
Spiritual Wellness Studio, a Pittsburgh-based practice centering beauty, spiritual wellness,
and community care. Her work blends music, ritual, and art-making to create accessible,
culturally rooted experiences that foster connection and joy. She is known for producing
community-centered programming and collaborating with artists and wellness practitioners
across Pittsburgh.
Shiftworks’ support of Pittsburgh Creative Corps artist programming was made possible by the City of Pittsburgh’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Arts Programming initiative. For more info, visit: pittsburghcreativecorps.org.