19TH STREET CORRIDOR
PUBLIC ART SCAVENGER HUNT
Amy and Eric are one of Erie Arts & Culture’s 2021 Creating with Community artist teams. The team is creating a small mural series which will be located on 19th street.
Collaborating partners included McKinley Elementary School, Edinboro College of Education, Iroquois Elementary. Earlier this summer, Amy and Eric sought community feedback from the community members who visited the Blasco Library during the Pride Month Art show. Amy and Eric also gathered the opinions of the children as to what makes a neighborhood safe for them. Using art and ideas from their engagements, they sketched a small series of personified houses with the intent to paste them all around the 19th street corridor in a scavenger hunt-like fashion.
Amy and Eric’s hope is to capture a community that embraces the queer community more then just in June.
“For any traveler, pedestrian, or commuter, visibility, safety, and accessibility are all essential to the everyday wayfinding. In our own experience as two people that grew up here, left, came back and 'came out', we navigate Erie as familiar strangers. LGBTQIA+ visibility was hard to find. It wavers. Pride has become an explosion of so many queer symbols that make Erie flourish," stated Eric.
“Like a lighthouse in a storm, Queer Beckons are community institutions, people and resources that is embracing LGBTQIA+ attitudes towards inclusion and accessibility. Individuals don’t have to be queer to engage with our practice. We hope as familiar strangers we can start there to open up dialog, resource sharing and storytelling to meet our goals of safety, visibility and Accessibility,” explained Eric.
Get involved: dedicate a wall!
The next stage of the process is to identify and finalize walls or surfaces to host the murals. Amy and Eric are asking the community to reach out to them if they know of a wall they would like to dedicate to this initiative. Those interested may contact Eric at [email protected].
Eric Anthony Berdis
Eric Anthony Berdis (Erie, PA) navigates this new normal as an elementary school teacher with a "studio practice" from 5-11pm. His work looks at ghost in queer history, DIY culture, and mythology to create performances, installations, and quilts for the wall and in space. He holds an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has had solo exhibitions at Bunker Project- Pittsburgh, Practice Gallery- Philadelphia, Random Access Gallery-Syracuse, and Illinois State University Galleries, Normal- Bloomington. His work has been published in Hiss Magazine, Emergency Index, and New American Paintings.
Amy Adams
Amy Adams (she/her) is an artist and animator born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania. She graduated from the Film & Animation program at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2019, specializing in character animation and digital sculpting. She also greatly enjoys painting both traditionally and digitally, and is always working to improve her skills. Amy has produced three 3D animated short films during her career at RIT, both individually and as part of a team. Her films have received awards such as the High Falls Women's Film Festival Official Selection for her short, "Consumer", and RIT Honors Show Honorable Mention for her short, "Lelou".
During her time at RIT, Amy swam for the Varsity team. She still holds three records board and is a two-time National Qualifier for the 100 Breaststroke. Amy was a member of the Animation Club, a weekly volunteer at Rochester's Out Alliance, and a SIGGRAPH 2018 Student Volunteer. After graduating Amy held various positions in the art field, such as an animator and 3D artist, as well as a painting instructor. She now works with Expivia Interaction Marketing in Erie, Pennsylvania as their Chief Content Creator & Marketing Specialist.
