Cat Burton, a 2017 Slippery Rock College graduate, is the artistic arts supervisor for the Kids’s Museum of Pittsburgh. She collaborates with many individuals within the Pittsburgh arts and trend neighborhood, together with stylist Bradley Hill who contributed to her search for this photograph shoot.
Jan. 30, 2023
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. — Many individuals consider their careers as a sequence of crossroads. For Cat Burton, there’s one explicit crossroad that she prefers.
“My ardour lies on the intersection of artwork and trend,” stated Burton, a 2017 Slippery Rock College graduate with a level in communication: built-in advertising and marketing. “Vogue is one thing everybody can see. It is an expression of your self: the type, the garments that you simply select to put on. There’s one thing actually particular about making a kind of artwork that you simply get to current to the world.”
Burton is in her second yr because the artistic arts supervisor for the Kids’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Though she is an artist and mannequin herself, Burton desires to supply extra entry and strengthen communities by means of the humanities, whether or not that is stoking youngsters’s creativity or offering alternatives for rising artists.
To Burton, artwork will not be created in isolation. The busier the intersection the higher.
“Arts are sometimes not a precedence within the public college techniques,” Burton stated. “Kids want a artistic outlet and a spot to specific themselves.”
Because the artistic arts supervisor on the Kids’s Museum, Burton creates exhibit areas for neighborhood artists and coordinates programming, together with a latest venture fashion-related venture titled “How You Put on It.
She has many aspect ventures as effectively. As founding father of a manufacturing firm, Create Artwork Collectively, Burton produces ideas, visuals, occasions and reveals for purchasers that embrace impartial artists, manufacturers and different organizations.
“The perfect artwork is created by means of collaboration,” Burton stated. “Every part I do as a venture supervisor is a collaborative course of, whether or not it is trend present or an artwork gallery exhibit. There are stylists, fashions, DJs and the behind-the-scenes crew. It is actually cool to see all the things come collectively.”
Burton’s expertise and keenness began coming collectively as a pupil at SRU. A local of Erie, Burton appreciated the environment at SRU and bought concerned with many campus organizations. She labored in what’s now the College’s Workplace for Inclusive Excellence, served as a mentor for the Soar Begin program, and helped lead a number of pupil golf equipment, together with Black Motion Society and the Scholar Group of Latinos/Hispanics and Allies.
“I actually loved getting to specific myself by means of these cultural organizations, and I discovered my grounding as an individual in the neighborhood,” Burton stated. “I did not notice I had that capability earlier than I got here to SRU. I realized find out how to work with others who’ve totally different communication types and views and create one thing helpful for everybody.”
Due to her involvement at SRU, she pursued a profession associated to arts and tradition. She lived in Washington, D.C., for just a few months after graduating in 2017 earlier than coming again to western Pennsylvania to work for 2 operations/amenities jobs in Pittsburgh. Burton was an operations coordinator on the David L. Lawrence Conference Heart for a yr and a half earlier than taking a job as a amenities supervisor for the August Wilson Heart for African American Tradition for 2 years.
“I realized so much about find out how to run occasions from behind the scenes,” Burton stated. “Though it wasn’t what I needed to do for the remainder of my life, I used to be grateful for all of the expertise I gained that helps me immediately.
“Now, I work with the displays division of the Kids’s Museum. As a result of the displays staff builds all their displays, I convey that amenities administration expertise with me into this job. Though I am extra front-facing now with programming, I nonetheless have all my behind-the-scenes data I’ve realized from earlier positions.”
Burton is most happy with her work with the “How You Put on It” exhibit, which was a part of the MuseumLab on the Kids’s Museum of Pittsburgh. It included submissions from 30 totally different artists, together with a “spider costume” from know-how designer Anouk Wipprecht with arms and sensors to take care of private boundaries — a trendy nod to bodily distancing within the pandemic period. The almost yearlong exhibit included a audio system’ sequence and a week-long stitching class for kids taught by knowledgeable stylist.
Style412 produced the video that accompanied the exhibit and served as one other instance of Burton’s continued collaborations. She has been a frequent mannequin and manufacturing assistant for Style412, a nonprofit devoted to Pittsburgh’s trend trade.
Burton’s portfolio additionally consists of curated exhibitions at Social Standing, Glitterbox Theater, and TRUSST Lingerie, together with varied artistic work with 1Hood Media, Luxurae Hair, Day Owl and Sabika Jewellery. In 2019, she directed her first trend present, “Styled By Instance,” celebrating Ladies’s Historical past Month. The occasion, hosted by her manufacturing firm at Spirit Corridor in Pittsburgh, showcased the work of a number of of town’s stylists and fashions with trend from every of the earlier many years courting again to the Twenties.
Burton can also be energetic with organizations and committees that unfold consciousness, appreciation and software of the humanities. She’s served on the humanities advisory committees for the Pittsburgh Worldwide Airport and Inventive Studying Community and was additionally a part of the Higher Pittsburgh Arts Council’s Pittsburgh Rising Artist Leaders.
She is dedicated to drawing consideration to different artists and their work, which enhances her personal sense of favor.
“My type is minimalist,” Burton stated. “It is loads of neutrals and black and white. I do not like to face out. There may be maximal artwork, which may also be lovely with vivid colours, however it’s not what I am drawn to. I like artwork that you must stand up near see.”
And whereas that could be Burton’s type, it isn’t for everybody.
“Good artwork is no matter makes the artists joyful,” Burton stated. “And generally the viewer may have a totally totally different thought than what the artist is making an attempt to convey.”
There shall be many extra intersections and inventive crossroads alongside Burton’s profession journey. She’s at the moment exploring collaborations for a movie pageant and creating scholarships for neighborhood artists.
“I positively wish to generate extra funding and bridge the hole for the artists so we are able to create extra alternatives for them,” Burton stated. “The extra folks I work with, the extra I can community and produce alternatives for others.”
MEDIA CONTACT: Justin Zackal | 724.738.4854 | justin.zackal@sru.edu