Credit Jeffrey Dorsey with the vision behind much of the activity and many of the projects under way in the Penn Avenue Corridor.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Jeffrey Dorsey, of the Penn Ave Arts Initiative, sits in front of mural by the late Judy Penzer, along Penn Avenue in Garfield. Dorsey is helping transform a portion of Penn Avenue into a neighborhood in which artists can live, create and display their work. Click photo for larger image.

The Baltimore native came to Pittsburgh to study at Carnegie Mellon University, graduated in 1994 and took part in a fifth-year scholar program that let him focus on the interaction between arts and the community.

After stints teaching in local public schools, where he used art and drawing to teach reading and storytelling, Dorsey eventually found himself working with the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, ultimately serving as its arts district manager.

"I got to know the players and the pieces, and how to coordinate the grass roots and do the community organizing piece of things," said Dorsey, who lives in Friendship with his wife in a house they bought.

His drive, Dorsey said, "comes from being a passionate person who believes in community.

"Part of it is because I'm an artist, and I made a conscious decision early on in my career to use art as a way of bringing people together," Dorsey said. "Even when I was at a school teaching kids, it was always about the art of building a community."