Bit of a rush this morning, to have a bite and get out to pick up our rental car for our jaunt through the Pennsylvania countryside from here to Philadelphia. Awoke, yesterday, to steady rain, which cleared off a bit while we had a pleasant breakfast in our B&B dining room. Then off to visit the Mattress Factory, which we had missed yesterday.

Glad we didn't miss it today. The Mattress Factory is one of those wonderful spaces--two entire buildings in fact--where artists are invited to indulge their fantasy in site-specific works. To our surprise, on the top floor of the first building, we found the distinguished--and somewhat eccentric--Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama--using her trademark polka dots to extraordinary effect in two entirely mirrored rooms. Here's Ellie in the first...

... and me, taking a picture of the two of us in the ceiling.

This is the second room, with three naked, red polka-dotted mannequins and a red polka-dotted floor...

... another couple of ceiling pictures...

Here's one small room whose space is filled almost entirely by an imposing concrete structure built there by one of my favorite artists, Jene Highstein--a kind of minimalist scuplpture, hard to capture in a single picture...

... and a whimsical kinetic piece with a chattering stapler by Drew Pavelchak. Again, hard to capture the humor of the thing in a single still picture.

And finally, a room installed by a dual artist team, Victoria Hruska and Latoya Ruby Frazier...

... and odd mixture of European and African-American sensibilities. Here's one of the outdoor installations, in the garden...

From there, we went on to the Carnegie Museum of Art (no pictures!) where we had an excellent lunch in the cafeteria and spent several hours touring the galleries of the museum that our friend now (impressively!) directs. The collections seem especially strong in the modern and contemporary area, and we found some real treasures on the walls. Sorry not to have more on this experience, but I was too absorbed to take the kind of notes I would have needed to say more than these brief words.

From the Carnegie, we walked out into sunshine! It lasted about five minutes, then got cloudy and cold again, but we had a good walk through the university area of Pittsburgh. Here's what they call the "Cathedral of Learning."

On the fine campus of the Carnegie-Mellon University

... we wandered around an incredible, recently-opened Bill and Melinda Gates media building, a magnificent sports arena, and came upon a still-in-progress installation by the LA artist Jonathan Borofsky. A student, ascending...

... under the watchful gaze of a handful of figures, below...

Back to our B&B and out for a final dinner in Pittsburgh.