Guinea West African Drum and Dance Ensemble – Going on now!

Mondays: African Dance Class Level 2 (7 – 8:00pm) African dance to live drumming
Suitable for people with some dance experience and who are ready for more. Suggested donation: $10.00 Drop in.

Thursdays: Community African Dance Class Level 1 & up (7 – 8:00pm) African dance to live drumming. All ages, all levels come together here to learn the basics, make friends, get some exercise and have fun. Suitable for families or folks who want to try something new. Suggested donation: $5.00 Drop in.

Sundays: African Drum Class Level 1 (10:45 – 11:45am) All ages come together here to learn the basics. Suggested donation: $10.00 Drop in.

African Drum Class Level 2 (12:00 noon – 1:00) This class will move more quickly through the rhythms and is suitable for drummers with some experience, intermediate level and up. Suggested donation: $10.00 Drop in
Drum Classes : (Bring a djembe, conga , doundoun, samban or kenkeni, or borrow one of our loaner.) For information: email: camara.oscar@yahoo.com or (412) 327-6446 or www.myspace.com/aboubacaroscar - This event is sponsored by the Union Project.

First Reception of the 09 Wedding Season

On May 9 Union Project got to host its first large Wedding Reception of the current wedding season. They were a wonderful group of caring individuals that were extremely creative in working with the Great Hall. They brought in a large of friends and family to help them with decorations and set up.

Their reception had a guest list of 165 and they decided to use a combination of rented 72" round tables and the 8ft banquet tables available with all space rentals here at the UP. They also decided to get very nice, and what turned out to be rather shiny, periwinkle table clothes. The color works very well in the space and with the color scheme in the stained glass windows.

My favorite part of this rental was their creative use of tissue paper to make many floating orbs, giving the great hall a striking impression of having a lower ceiling. They did all this with an elaborate rigging system of fishing line and tape.

They couple also decided to use the Atrium and Board Room as part of their rental. The Board Room was used as caterer prep space and the Atrium was used to do a bar and the buffet. Over all they used about 12 hours of rental time, including 3 for set up and about 1.5 for clean up.

Congratulations on such a lovely reception!

Now that the main arch is finished, we will get to work doing the two decorative sections that intersect it half way down. These two pieces are a different size than the main one. Despite being done in generally the same fashion as the main line, how to make them connect with the main line also has to be taken into consideration. Here we see Dan hauling up more plaster after laying the track for both of the new molds.

And here are the two intersecting pieces being touched up.








Once the two intersecting lines are finished, Dan and Frank get to work on the bottom piece of molding. They again have to rip out all the existing plaster that has sustained water-damaged and then build up a brand new frame with wire mesh. Here we see the beginnings of the work.

The last step in the ongoing battle against water damaged plaster is to go over everything that they have worked on with a wet sponge. This will help the new plaster to blend in, texture-wise, with the old plaster. Once we paint over it, you would never even be able to tell that there was once a huge massive gaping hole in the ceiling at all.

While we wait for the plaster to fully dry, which takes as long as three weeks, I am anxious to get up there and get the painting done. I will have to leave you a bit of a teaser for the final shot of the finished corner until then. But thanks for reading!

Renovation Project: Entry Three!!!

The next step in our restoration process is a pretty simple one. Take the massive hole that allows us to see into the rafters of the building and patch it up. During this, Dan and Frank use incredible sophisticated tools like long pieces of wood to maintain a curve and angles that are consistent with the rest of the ceiling. They make sure that it is nice and flat so that the more intricate molding work can take place on top of it later on.


Now that the patch work is done they can get down to what really makes their work worth it: the molding. They start by building into the ceiling a sort of track that will be a guide for the die that will form the molding. This die works sort of like the little kits that make Play-Dough so much fun. They build up a base on the ceiling itself, then drag the die along the track over the base of wet plaster, and pooof!! Out on the other side comes a nice, perfectly shaped piece of decorative molding. I'm sure it sounds ridiculously easy, but its not. It's a nice slow process that takes a long time to get right and especially so to make it look good.


Check out how they have built up the base of the molding slowly carefully have worked it into its final form. Once out of the dies it just needs a little bit of touch up work with a hand brush or spackling tool.

And with that, we have molding. A few final touches, to smooth out the areas where the die had to be extracted, or the new molding was connected to the old and we are well on our way to a fixed ceiling!!

Renovation Project: Entry Two!!

The first step, as work began early Monday morning, was to erect a giant fort, impenetrable and intimidating to behold.. No not really, but it does do a pretty good job keeping the dust contained. This would have been a dream-come-true for me as a child. Even now I have to hold myself back from climbing all over it.

Once this was done, the boys (Dan and Frank) got down to business, clearing away all the old plaster that had sustained water damage. Plaster in old churches, I came to learn, is actually quite thick. Ours is about 1.5 inches throughout most of it, and unlike what I thought of as mostly fluffy or light-weight filler, in fact, has a consistency similar to that of concrete. So anyways.. here we see Dan looking over his handy/destruction work.

One of the reasons that this job is a tough one, aside from the fact that it covers a large area and is done always at least 20 feet in the air is the decorative molding that comes down the main line. You can see above how they have had to cut it back significantly to make sure that what is left is completely solid... I wonder how in the world they will go about fixing that decorative molding?? Read on tomorrow to find out!

Renovation Project: Entry One!

Hello again all you wonderful people checking out the Union Project's blog. I am extremely pleased to be starting a multi-day story about the great stuff happening here. Starting on Monday, February 9th, we have begun work on the ceiling in the Great Hall. As you can see there was extensive damage to one of the four arches extending down from the center of the ceiling. This has been here since we first obtained the space in 2001. I don't think that I will have to tell you how excited the staff is to finally be getting this section taken care of. So Check back later on and see the progression of how our ceiling finally got fixed!!

"I Made It!" Market

Welcome to the "I Made it!" Market at the Union Project. These pictures are all from the Holiday Market that was held here in December. But don't fret because you missed it.. "I Made It!" will be back at the Union Project on April 4th!! Hooray!

Organized and run by Carrie Nardini, we here are very pleased to be able to be even a small part in them and especially pleased that it has become a recurring event here! We of course get a pretty sweet deal out of it as well, getting to put our own craft station, where we sell our ceramics and advertise for our outreach events, right in the middle of the stage.

This wonderful event normally has an attendance of around 450 people coming through the look at hand made wares of the 45 or so vendors. Vendors produce things as varied as fancy clocks to yarn beards. Often there are folks from Vanilla or Dozen bakeries selling cupcakes as well. We use all of our available space and put vendors in both the Great Hall and the Atrium. Here we have a nice shot looking down on the Atrium from the balcony that goes around the room.

You can see that it gets pretty busy here during the market, but there is also the Union Project's Eat UP Cafe in the front, where you can take a break from the crowds and get a delicious snack to hold you over. Whatever you do, just make sure to get here early and don't miss out on the best wares.. see you on April 4th!