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Photo shows at Hoyt

Three photography exhibitions will be on display through March 12 at Arts & Education at the Hoyt.

"My Abandoned Heart" features the work of photographer Diane Beatty, who lives in Campbell, and documents the remains left behind by the once thriving Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. With no electricity in the ruins to assist her, Beatty used natural light to capture the forgotten stories within the mansions, churches, theaters, factories and labor housing left behind. Some sites in the exhibit are being restored. Others no longer exist.

Beatty studied painting and printmaking at Youngstown State University (1984-88) and worked for decades for the U.S. Postal Service. She rediscovered photography, and she started the Youngstown Photography Facebook group in 2014.

Her work has been shown at the Butler Institute of American Art and the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown, and she's won awards in juried shows at the Butler, Hoyt, Random Acts of Artists and other local competitions.

Youngstown native Dina Liguore is drawn to the "haunting beauty" of peeling paint, dusty windows and the resilience of nature reclaiming forgotten places in her exhibition, "Walkway: Portals to the Soul."

Liguore received her first camera, a Kodak 110, as a child, and her volunteer work with a local naturalist program influenced her desire to photograph nature while traipsing through the woods with friends. Those adventures led to a fascination with light.

"Felicific Calculus" features the work of Bethlehem, Pa., native Eric Kunsman, now based in Rochester, N.Y.

The title refers to an algorithm proposed by 18th century reformer Jeremy Bentham that tries to determine the moral rightness of an action by balancing the probable pleasures and pains that it would produce.

Kunsman photographs the payphones in the neighborhood where his studio is located. According to the artist, these payphones were not instruments of crime as assumed but lifelines for the poor. This puts the unconscious bias of policymaking into question as those making the decisions often have no lived experience or personal connection to the issue at hand. The choice by Frontier Communications to continue operating payphones in these Rochester neighborhoods was an unusually altruistic calculation on behalf of serving the people, not their own profits.

Three payphones are included in the exhibit that, when dialed with an image's "telephone number" will give you the location and story behind it.

A public meet and greet with all three photographers is scheduled from noon to 2 p.m. Feb. 21 at Hoyt, 124 E. Leasure Ave., New Castle, Pa. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For more information go to hoytartcenter.org or call 724-652-2882.