Essential Pittsburgh: Tippi Comden

Her name was Priscilla Comden, but everyone knew her as Tippi. She lived a cool life. As a filmmaker, she adopted the mononym "Ostishenko." She and her husband Larry moved to Pittsburgh in 1967. Inspired by the expanded cinema of Expo '67, the philosophies of Marshall McLuhan, and by the cresting tide of the counterculture and second wave feminism, Tippi and a friend rented a barn in South Park and hosted their own one-night-only multi-projection happening. From then on, she was hooked on making movies. Soon she fell-in with a brand new arts organization that would become Pittsburgh Filmmakers (PFMI.) She served as PFMI's first receptionist, edited the early newsletters, and immersed herself in the work of filmmakers visiting Pittsburgh regularly as part of PFMI and Carnegie Museum of Art exhibition programs. She also documented workshops by major artists like Robert Breer and Carolee Schneemann (these finished films will be…