My memories are being dredged by someone who wants information. Snippets of color. Riffs of music. Phrases from a book. Sketches. Conversations. Random addresses. Facts. All surfacing from the black depths where I had finally assigned them a few years ago when it seemed that no one really cared about them.
The art school was described by Sweetpea in a Rolling Stone, or maybe it was in an Art in America, interview once a long time ago as being “an obscure little art school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania”. It was that. Obscure. And ever since reading that quote, that’s what I called it too. By the time that interview had come out, the school had been dead a good five years or more and didn’t even exist. Extinguished. Done. Gone. Poof.
Our time in Pittsburgh was spent more in community with each other and doing our own work than it was taking school seriously. For two people who wanted to be fine artists, the Ivy School of Professional Art was limiting, like living as a liberal in a conservative town. It was a technical, structured school in a blue collared city where working hard was respected. We learned to spec type by hand. We learned Color Theory. Advertising. Illustration. Commercial Photography. We learned to meet deadlines. Even our painting classes were technical and based in realism. It was a really good school for all of those subjects and many students benefited from the experience. Many of the students loved their time there and went on to work their entire careers in graphic design, advertising, or photography studios, or in print shops.
Haring was a hippy with a long, unbecoming plait, who frittered away his leisure time listening to the Grateful Dead and smoking dope. Flunking out of college, he took on a series of bum jobs and by the time he reached tolerant, gay-friendly New York in 1979, he was gagging to make up for lost time. — Dominique Lutyens, The Guardian Weekend, June 2001
Sweetpea lasted two quarters. Some writers said he flunked out, but if he did, he did it on purpose. I really don’t think it was really possible to flunk out of Ivy. I don’t remember anyone leaving because the school made them leave. I remember two foreign students that left because their parents were footing the bill and they didn’t feel the education was up to snuff.
I finished the program because I was made of that stout Western Pennsylvania stock that doesn’t quit, no matter what. It doesn’t matter so much about me, I went on to immerse my fine art self in another obscure art department in the California State University system and filled my days with an insane number of studio time units so I could catch up to myself – to the place where I thought I should be. Keith and I were both gagging to make up for lost time, on opposite sides of the country, now out of touch with each other, where life had flung us.
Many writers are dismissive of Haring’s time in Pittsburgh. I’ve had Art Historians wave me off when I told them that I had spent time with him during the Pittsburgh years. Was it because Keith himself was dismissive of that time period? Did he feel he made a mistake in going there? There are no mistakes in life, only lessons. It was no cosmic mistake that Keith spent those two years in a town that, in the end, only made him seethe inside. I think that if Keith’s life had not been cut short, he may have come to see that himself.
Keith arrived in Pittsburgh as a teenaged, pot smoking, Deadhead, hippy, Jesus Freak and left as a burning fire on the cusp of becoming a man. Pittsburgh was his incubator. As like all of us who were there with him, it was his transition time. It was a place to experiment, find the boundaries and break out of them. Almost all of us were teenagers. Full of ourselves while still being insecure with our first epoch out in the world, trying to make our way, and thinking that our time there mattered.
He was far from being a flunky. Nor did he fritter. The guy worked from the time he woke up until he went to bed. Constantly doodling in his sketchbook that he carried with him. If he wasn’t doodling, he was writing, and if he wasn’t writing he was thinking. When he couldn’t find the classes he wanted at Ivy, he found teachers in other places, like CMU, or at the art center. When his friends at Ivy couldn’t keep up or got too busy with school requirements, he sought out people and places like the early community at The Mattress Factory that was just developing on the lower Northside of town.
Keith seemed to attract women in a circle around him. In Pittsburgh though, at least in my case, it had nothing to do with erotic attraction. He came to us as a little brother. The women he attracted there were, in many different ways, his protectors, his muses. We circled the etheric wagons around him and allowed him the space to be himself. Something he hadn’t had in his younger days. His friends in Pittsburgh were his cocoon. Until he was ready to break out and fly. And then we were done, and we had to let him go.
In the end, it wasn’t really the obscure little art school in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania that mattered. It was the people. The friends. The support. The circle. The love. The frustration. The criticism. The back and the forth. The parties. The drugs. The drama. The music. The sharing. The exploration. The experience.
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As an aside, think what you will about the two short years he spent in Pittsburgh. Had he gone straight to New York instead, at the same time and in the same way and form he came to us, I think, and it’s only my opinion, his outcome would have been very different. He needed that incubation time to become the person and artist he became.
Chot Dougherty
21 Mar 2019Excellent and true. I also left Ivy in 78 but learned so much more than color theory and photography.
Donna Maria Glaser/Hanna
8 Sep 2020I graduated from Ivy in 1976. I loved this school! It was grounding in so many ways. I will always treasure the 2 years I spent there.
Keith
9 Sep 2020I consider Ivy one of the greatest experiences in my life! I met many amazing individuals and it help form a great foundation for my art skills.
Richard Burke
22 Mar 2019This is well written and touching. We were just at the Museum this week to see the Carnegie Exhibition and saw some of his work in the permanent collection next to Warhol. A school is nothing more than a collection of people. What made Ivy so interesting is that they were willing to take risks on untrained working professionals like me which attracted non conventional students. It was great honor to share my knowledge with such an eclectic group of talented people.
Thanks for sharing this.
kimba
23 Mar 2019Things that, to this day, I associate with Keith when I see them: yellow post-it notes, red Converse high top sneakers, and, weirdly enough, avocados/guacamole. And when I hear the Grateful Dead.
Things that immediately make me think of Ivy: the smell of kneaded erasers and drawing straight lines with my t-square.
kimba
25 Mar 2019Keith criticized Ivy heavily while he was there, but he also created friendships with other students, which maybe made up for still being in Pittsburgh at the time. I can remember sitting around with him and comparing criticisms of the school. I remember really wanting to leave too. Even though I loved being around creative people, I missed my language and art/history and English classes that I caught up on later at University.
I keep thinking that Keith may have started a third quarter and just sort of stopped going to school somewhere in the middle of it … I’m not sure of that, I suppose a check of his school transcripts would say for sure … but I vaguely remember walking down the hallway with him and he was talking about quitting, and I was trying to talk him out of it. I remember saying something like, “but you paid tuition already, you may as well go until the end of the quarter …”
I’m reading some of his journals online. He started the 1986 journals a few weeks after I stopped by his studio on Broadway (I think sometimes I slip and say Houston because I associate Houston (and Greene and Canal) more with that neighborhood in NYC ). The 1986 journals talk about destiny and being on the path – being in tune with the Universe – and how one thing leads to another. It makes me feel secure in thinking that if he had lived longer and had the chance to think it through, he would have appreciated his Pittsburgh years as part of that path.
Eric Mendlow
20 Sep 2019Thanks for this ! Very true in what you write .
Keith Stanger
27 Oct 2019Great article Kimba. I missed Keith Haring’s time at Ivy, but it’s great to read about his time at the school. Thanks for sharing your memories.
Susan Margaret
31 Mar 2023I went to the Ivy school of Art in 1967. It was a crazy time. It was more a party than a school but what I took away lasted me a lifetime. I have used what I learned throughout my years as an artist, a teacher, an entrepreneur. I wish you could post pictures. Memories of coffee houses, crazy toga parties, hanging out on the fire escape and painting the walls in psychedelics colors, smoking drinking and just enjoying life. I found a great one of two of my fellow students, Joey Nickerson and Al Muchler. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything.
Carmen Pacella
31 Mar 2023I attended Ivy School of Art (Market Square) Pittsburgh PA for a little over a year 67-68. My eduction there has been so instrumental in my life. Currently, I am a retired business man. I did not make a living as an artist, but I used every bit of that education everyday of my adult working life! The instructors at the time instilled the process of teaching HOW to create, not just process personal expression. T-squares, drawing boards, French curves, mechanical keys, registration boards, Rapidograph pens, India inks, kneaded erasers, calligraphy pens, acetate overlays, Yashica 6×6 still cameras, 16 mm Bolex motion picture cameras, Omega Enlargers, Schneider lenses, Marshall oils, Strathmore art papers, etc. All analog training helped with design and layout and production and transition to digital desktop publishing. I can’t stress how important this education was for me in my businesses. And, I use all of this training in my retirement. I design and make acoustic and electric guitars for my hobby! Ivy School of Art did not have a mascot or sports teams or anthems, but we did have a great basic art training!
Susan Margaret
14 May 2023I am not clear as to why you do not consider yourself an artist. You sound to me to be the purest form of artist. Simply because you worked in the corporate world does not erase the artist. in you. You have studied from the best you have learned from the best and you have implemented the tools they have taught you to be an artist. You are clearly an artist whether it be visual or verbal. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. You are an inspiration. To quote “ art for art sake”. Believe in your self The rest will fall in line.🪶
Carmen Pacella
18 May 2023Thank you for the kind words!
Judy Hess Boitz
29 Dec 2024I attended Ivy school for five quarters in 1976 – 1977. On my first day of class at Ivy, our instructor told us to look around at our classmates, because he was certain that one of us was bound to become famous. The instructor spoke from his own experience of attending art school with Andy Warhol, of all people. Well, guess who turned out to be the future famous artist from that first day of class at Ivy in the fall of 1976? Of course, it was Keith Haring. He was a shy, introverted guy who spent a fair amount of time getting high with some of the instructors. Sometimes Keith sold t-shirts screen printed with his early signature graphic designs in order to afford food. I wish I had a spare $15 to buy one of those t-shirts, but I was as broke as Keith was. We traveled in different social circles, but my friends had friends who hung with Keith, until we both left Ivy to pursue our art educations in different ways. The tenuous link between us was broken. But to this day, whenever I see a Keith Haring reference or graphic image, I’m transported back to August, 1976, and a sunny first day of our future careers at The Ivy School of Professional Art.
Carmen Pacella
30 Dec 2024Thank you for this message. I attended Ivy School of Art in 1967-68. I didn’t get the impression of becoming a famous artist. Mine was more focused on earning a living. I drifted towards the commercial arts. I landed a job as a commercial artist right out of school and used all of the training provided by the Ivy School of Art.
Found out I could make more money in selling photographic equipment and supplies. But the training at Ivy helped me in so many ways I can’t describe. I’m retired now, but to this day I still use design skills, and graphics arts training transcending analog to digital. Composition, videography, photography, layout, typesetting, film making, color management, etc.etc. All from a little art school near Market Square in downtown Pittsburgh. Very grateful for the experience!