$456,000 Awarded to Advance Black Arts

Six years ago, Shikeith Cathey, a Phil­a­del­phia-born art­ist, wanted to make a film and do his first solo ex­hi­bi­tion of pho­to­graphs.

A $9,000 grant from two Pitts­burgh foun­da­tions al­lowed him to buy a dig­i­tal cam­era that took mov­ies and stills. His 45-minute film, “#Black Men Dream­ing,” shows men with their backs to the cam­era as they dis­cuss com­ing of age and man­hood. The art­ist also framed his pho­to­graphic por­traits of Phil­a­del­phia and Pitts­burgh men, ex­hib­it­ing them dur­ing his res­i­dency at Bunker Proj­ects, a Bloom­field gal­lery.

Ed­u­cated at Yale, the Friend­ship res­i­dent said that was his “Cin­dere­lla mo­ment” be­cause the grant, the first he ever got in Pitts­burgh, funded work that prompted mu­se­ums and uni­ver­sity art gal­ler­ies to buy his pho­to­graphs.

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