Maggie Negrete highlights remarkable Lawrenceville women with mural project

When Mary Jo Coll died of stomach cancer in 2021, the Pittsburgh music scene lost a mother of sorts.

“Mama Jo was a maternal figure,” says local artist, Maggie Negrete, of Coll, who booked artists for the now-shuttered Hambone's bar and event space. “She created a community of Pittsburgh musicians who will create more musicians, all on her back.”

Negrete decided to honor Coll and five other local women with “HEY BABES!,” a new mural located at the intersection of Plummer Street and Butler Street in Lawrenceville. With its smiling, airy line portraits, the outdoor gallery is a love letter to women who, like Coll, helped build the Lawrenceville cultural scene.

“Sometimes our contributions aren’t big and flashy,” she says, “but women keep everyone alive. We make sure our neighbors are okay. We make sure someone is taking care of the babies.”

The grit of women has made all the difference for Pittsburgh neighborhoods like Lawrenceville. After the collapse of the city’s steel industries, the once-booming manufacturing district ebbed into pockets of abandoned houses and empty storefronts. Around the early 2000s, the community began to change, with new trendy bars, ice cream parlors, and yoga studios moving in next to longtime venues and shops.

“These women lived through every change,” Negrete says. “They were strong.”

The title of her project comes from Loretta Millender, a civil rights champion known for her joyous greeting, “Hey, babes!” Negrete also included a portrait of Millender, who passed away in December 2022.

“Ms. Loretta was a force for community organizing. She was tough. There was an immense fullness to her life,” says Negrete.

Other women featured include Mary Moses, Barb Kelly, Lena Hotujec, and June Coyne-Givens.
Negrete painted “HEY BABES!” on the site of the former Somewhere Inn as the building undergoes renovations. She recognizes the project’s complexity — her bright memorialization of Lawrenceville’s women activists, who fought to preserve their neighborhood, has been installed on a building that is itself being changed under the ownership of Strip District entrepreneur Jimmy Coen.

Negrete believes that stabilizing a community in constant transition means addressing these sticky spots and that collaborative art true to the spirit of a place can create healing for everyone.

“HEY BABES!” is a collaboration with AARP and Lawrenceville United, a resident-driven nonprofit that Millender helped build and from whose logo Negrete pulled the mural’s particular shade of orange. In working with these two organizations, Negrete wanted to make something that anchored Lawrenceville residents to a sense of place.

Negrete also printed “HEY BABES!” in a companion zine that includes the portraits of seven additional women. She distributed the zine to each of the women’s families and filed it in Lawrenceville’s public library.

Giving the community ownership of the project is, for Negrete, an essential part of her work. And in this Negrete has been successful. Because Coll died during the COVID-19 pandemic, her family was unable to host a celebration of life worthy of her towering figure. When Coll’s portrait went up as part of the mural, the neighborhood threw a block party to reconnect and remember not only Coll but the many lives lost during a period of isolation and pain.

“Many of our public spaces have ghosts,” says Negrete. “Ghosts linger in Pittsburgh landscapes. And in a way, ‘HEY BABES!’ is also about ghosts, and how they stay.”

Through a breezy pool of orange that flows from one portrait into the next — a nod to the power of stories as they connect women across time — Negrete’s art reminds us that cohabitating with ghosts isn’t a bad thing. It can be celebratory.