Sheryl
Alloy Pittsburgh at Carrie Blast Furnaces was a three month residency program in partnership with the Three Rivers Village School as a to create temporary site-specific work at the National Historic Landmark. Sheryl was the work made in response to my time spent at Carrie and with the members of TRVS.
In this piece, knitting illustrates a dichotomy: a media used in domestic craft backdropped by the industrial space accentuates women’s presence and role in the steel industry. Color plays an important role by referencing welding jackets and safety clothing worn by laborers on site. The softness of the knitted “women's work” is contrasted by the scale and ruggedness of Carrie Furnace and the tenacity of women’s roles held in steel work.
Women with positions in the steel industry, often excluded from the region’s general historic knowledge and popular representation, are emphasized in the context of the work. The piece highlights women’s experience through the timeline of defense production during WWII, discriminatory practices and unequal opportunity, early women's caucuses and unions, to the eventual economic downturn and steel crisis of the 1970s and 80s.