Edward D. Pinto, Sculptor, architectural restoration.

09/06/2026

09/06/2026

“Vivarium #1”
Subtitle:
Back when I used to actually make art.
I collaborate with my dear friend micheal Mangiafico of FIG Studios on various environments for his glass insects. I built this Wardian case to transport the viewer to the dusty halls of a Victorian natural sciences museum, and my memories of the cases at the Andrew Carnegie museum of natural history in Pittsburgh. It also draws inspiration from the works of Leopold Blacksha, a master of realistic glass anthropological models, creator of the glass flower collection at Harvard university.
The case contains (I think?) 57 glass insects, all made on a bench mounted torch by Michael. There are ants, spiders a praying mantis, a cicada, and a monarch butterfly chrysalis. It also contains some of our three dimensional glass honeycomb. This honeycomb was produced at great technical difficulty, but it was fascinating to figure out how to do it.
The case represents the flora and insect fauna of south western Pennsylvania, where we work, and contains growing native plants as well as the glass art.
The sculpture inside the case was eventually rehomed to a more elaborate case I built to qualify us to enter it into another art exhibition, this is the only video I have of it, and my dad currently grows mosses and odd plants in the case itself. It is extremely well suited for this, plants do exceptionally well in it, and I’d really like to build some more elaborate cases.
The cases
mangiafico

Swear to gawd I’m trying to tag Mike but facebook hates me

09/06/2026

Blast from the past!
So, I’m burning the midnight oil again, doing stupid boring work. I’m trying to get my 86 year old dad’s house ready to sell, and I ran across an artifact from my childhood.
One of the reasons I do the work I do is that I’ve been pounding nails and making sawdust since I was a child, the stories of the treehouses I’ve built are unreal, but this is my childhood home. My folks bought an old farmhouse near Pittsburgh around 1967 for 5,000$ on a handshake deal, the agreement was hand written on yellow legal paper, and I doubt they got it notarized. My dad worked the night shift in a sheet metal mill, and we worked on the house during the day. I’m the oldest, and so I was often his help. My dad was also an electrician, and we wired the house as we went. My dad and I would also wire houses around Pittsburgh, so I learned early on how to fish wires through walls. Today, I’ve got more electrical work tools than my dad ever dreamed of, he literally had the electricians tool belt that they trained him with in the army, a Stanley tube handle hammer, (both of which I still have) a couple screwdrivers and a pair of d***s. He didn’t have a metal fish tape like I have several of, or fancy glow in the dark fiberglass fish rods like I have three sets of, he had a rusty old piece of chain, or a string with a weight on it, both of which we used, and often they would get stuck in the wall. He’d be up on the second floor, and I’d be in the cellar, and he’d try to get that piece of s**t chain down to me, bouncing it around so it would go over weird framing or whatever, and I’d be in the cellar listening for it, with my head stuck up in the rafters with all the spiders, and he’s yelling, and I’ve got my arm up in the wall, and sometimes it worked, aaaaand sometimes the chain got stuck. Soooo, while I don’t remember this exact piece of history getting stuck, I’d not in the least be surprised if ten year old me has been here looking for this piece of chain to fall out of the wall fifty odd years ago. I think I’ll go home and give it to my dad, (who lives with me) and tell him I found his chain😆

08/30/2026

Don’t laugh, it took me two days to get to this point 🫣
I might actually get to do some mildly interesting work.

08/28/2026

Back in the day, I used to build and restore stained glass windows. This is a set of skylight windows I restored 35 years ago on the North side of Pittsburgh. They were originally on the third floor of my then chiropractors office, but the clear glass skylight that covered them leaked badly, and he had them removed, I restored them and we installed them in his waiting room, with lights behind them.
Welll, they look like the day I installed them, perfect, no sagging, wish I could say the same thing about my back, because I’m here for that and not the windows 😆. It is nice to see my work stand the test of time like this. Being a carpenter for 45 years has put a hurtin on me, hope they can fix me up.

08/28/2026

Burnin the midnight oil, still not doing any work anyone would care about, but then I walked outside to make a cut and realized the eclipse was going on right over my noggin, so maybe yinz missed it, here it is , and Woody Guthrie, the hero of my teenage years, prompting me to go out hitchhiking the U.S.
Back to work..

08/09/2026

Wellllll,
Still not doing any work that’s worth posting about, so I’ll put up some of my favorite subject matter, old steel mills.
Last night I attended Quantum theater company’s production of William Shakespeare’s Tempest, set on the site of the Carrie blast furnace in Pittsburgh.
If you don’t know, the Carrie furnace is a preserved blast furnace complex, run by a non profit organization, (Rivers of steel), dedicated to the preservation of Pittsburghs steel history. You can take tours of their various sites, and I recommend you do. This mill was still in operation when I graduated high school, along with many other in Pittsburgh, and it was a pretty big societal upheaval to see that industry crash as a young man.
I have a mild fascination with theater through exposure as a set builder, and having many friends involved in it, and an interest in Shakespeare through one friend, an interest I would never have thought I’d have, but then, there was a time that I didn’t like pizza soooo…
I’ve seen other of Quantums productions, including Hamlet which they did at Carrie as well, and it’s really an experience. When I saw that they were doing Tempest I was very excited. We went on an evening when Quantum’s founder and director Karla Boos was offering a Q and A beforehand, and that was delightful. As I know little of Shakespeare and less of Tempest, I was eager for any help and guidance in understanding both the play itself and the director’s intentions with the site. I recommend the Q and A highly. I was also greatly helped by having dinner with my companions who included my friend Lori, a long time Shakespearian, who explained the plot to us. Shakespeare is a lot, and being a little bind in one ear and deaf in the other, I sometimes loose the plot trying to follow the language. Just listening to it all is thrilling though, even if you’re just an old yinzer in a steel mill.
Tempest is Karla Boos last production, as she is retiring from the boards, and it is the last play Shakespeare wrote, I am extremely glad to have seen it, and if you are in Pittsburgh, I really recommend it.

08/02/2026

HOWS YER SUNDAY?!?
I’m just over here hacking on a stone wall into the night…
I swear someday I’ll be back to cool work worth posting about
Maybe even make some art… Eli Namay