"Mural by Rooney cousin puts legends on new Steelers headquarters", By Margaret Smykla, Tri-State Sports & News Service

4/10/02, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

April 10, 2002, Kathy Rooney, a computer artist and cousin of Steelers president Dan Rooney, has created a mural for the team's headquarters at the UPMC Sports Complex on the South Side. She had to bid with other artists for the commission.

No, the sizes aren't disproportional: the statue of Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. rising to almost half the height of Heinz Field, or the image of Franco Harris' "Immaculate Reception" eclipsing a phantom-like Three Rivers Stadium.

After all, Pittsburgh's sports landscape is colored as much by our memory of, and affection for, yesterday's heroes as by the steel and concrete of today's arenas.

That sentiment is vividly illustrated in the colorful, panoramic mural designed by digital illustrator and graphic designer Kathy Rooney for the Pittsburgh Steelers headquarters at the UPMC Sports Complex, South Side.

The 13- by 62-foot mural, conceptualized by Steelers President Dan Rooney, was unveiled March 20 at a private viewing at the team's headquarters.

Kathy Rooney of Mt. Lebanon is a cousin of Dan Rooney, although she bid with other artists for the commission.

The drawing portrays the city skyline from Mount Washington, depicting the North Shore, Downtown and Oakland along with such present-day sites as PNC Park, Mellon Arena and the Cathedral of Learning, plus ghosts of Pittsburgh past like Forbes Field and Pitt Stadium and "spirits" Roberto Clemente and Dan Marino.

The detailing was such that Marino's face is reflective of his University of Pittsburgh years, per Dan Rooney's instruction. He chose all the mural's sports venues and figures except the statue of his father, which was Kathy Rooney's idea.

"I was very close to him," she said of her uncle. "I wanted him to be there."

Because Heinz Field was under construction when she began the project, she relied initially on architects' scale models and drawings. She redrew the structure three times.

It took nine months to complete the mural, which she illustrated on her computer using Photoshop software and a computer drawing pen. The digital-art mural was enlarged and printed onto high-quality adhesive-backed vinyl for installation in 40-inch panels.

Besides making revisions simple and allowing clients more control over the finished product, the methodology reproduces like new. "Digital art is first-generation every time you print it," said Rooney, who works out of her Mt. Lebanon home.

Before becoming a computer artist, she exhibited her drawings and paintings at venues such as the Three Rivers and Shadyside arts festivals, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

Born and raised on the North Side, she studied art at the main campus of Community College of Allegheny County. She worked in the print shop there for seven years as a graphic designer, then for 13 years as an in-house artist for a local high-tech manufacturer.

The free-lance artist's specialty is corporate commission work. Besides the Steelers, her clients include the Pirates, Eat 'N Park, Mellon Bank and the Sen. John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center.

She designed the Steelers' 2001 Christmas card, plate artwork for the 2001 United Way Award and the inside front cover illustration for "The Chief," a book about Art Rooney Sr.

A 20- by 23-inch version of the latter, and work by other members of the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators, will be exhibited at the World West Gallery in Washington, Pa., through April 29.

Kathy Rooney's artwork, including the mural, can be viewed at www.krooney.net

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