{"id":244691,"date":"2026-07-16T09:46:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/244691\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T09:46:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:46:24","slug":"pittsburgh-art-magazine-petrichor-publishes-print-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/244691\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh art magazine ‘Petrichor’ publishes print edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art scene.\u00a0Sign up here to get it every Wednesday afternoon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cities, like nations, rely on newcomers for fresh perspectives.<\/p>\n

Emma Riva brought hers along when she moved to Pittsburgh from her hometown of New York City in 2021. Now Petrichor, the online art magazine she founded<\/a> soon after, is ready to bid for new audiences with its debut print issue.<\/p>\n

The glossy, 50-page full-color Petrichor is focused on but not limited to the local visual-arts scene. Issue No. 1 features Riva\u2019s studio visit with painter and recent Carnegie Mellon University graduate Angela Lin and \u201cWhere We Gather,\u201d contributor Victoria Sterling\u2019s essay about DIY venues in Pittsburgh. But there\u2019s also poetry and fiction. Another Riva essay playfully recalls the various charcuterie boards she\u2019s met at art openings.<\/p>\n

Riva first moved here with her boyfriend. They broke up, but Riva stayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really liked Pittsburgh,\u201d she says. \u201cI just felt like the art community was really interesting and really welcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riva, who studied fiction writing in college, first wrote about art for UP, a New York-based graffiti magazine. She found Pittsburgh, however agreeable, to be short on the kind of character-based, narrative writing and criticism she prefers.<\/p>\n

Petrichor \u2014 named for the earthy scent associated with rain striking dry earth or stone \u2014 debuted online in 2023. It\u2019s since featured one or two new features or reviews weekly by Riva and contributors like Zach Hunley, Tara Fay Coleman and Zara Yost, mostly about visual arts but with forays into music and theater.<\/p>\n

With the news media in turmoil, critical reviews have declined nationally<\/a>, and it\u2019s something Pittsburgh artists in disciplines from visual art to dance, theater and literature say they miss. Riva calls critical feedback crucial.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that criticism doesn’t have to be, \u2018Oh, this sucked,\u2019 you know?\u201d Riva says. \u201cI think there’s a misconception about criticism that it has to be someone kind of tearing somebody else down, but I see it as just engaging with the larger ideas around work around a gallery’s vision, around a larger kind of theme.\u201d<\/p>\n

At its best, she adds, criticism \u201chelps everybody grow and it lets artists know that you’re, like, listening to them, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Petrichor, Riva quickly made a name for herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an authenticity to how she wants to collaborate and interact with the artists here,\u201d says Geoffrey Callahan, co-owner of Skypomp Art Gallery.<\/p>\n

Riva\u2019s kindred spirits at Skypomp, an artist-run venue that opened Downtown<\/a> on Smithfield Street in January, helped her get the print Petrichor going. Callahan\u2019s partner Zach Miller is the magazine\u2019s creative director and designer. (She also received a state arts grant through the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council.)<\/p>\n

Riva intends Petrichor to come out quarterly, and the initial press run is 300 copies. She says people can subscribe or find the mag at Bottom Feeder Books. (Single issues are $20.)<\/p>\n

And she says the debut issue has a theme.<\/p>\n

\u201cArt shows in Pittsburgh \u2014 they don’t just pop out of nowhere,\u201d Riva says. \u201cThey’re curated spaces that people put a lot of time and care into, and I think part of the issue is celebrating that these things are human-created.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Petrichor release party<\/a> runs 6-10 p.m. Saturday, July 18, at Skypomp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-244691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}