#cmoastoryboard . "I really love my neighborhood, and my neighborhood loves me, I think," says Wilkinsburg resident Dee Briggs. A sculptor and architect by trade, Briggs has centered her artistic practice in Wilkinsburg since 2009, when she purchased a former firehouse on Swissvale Avenue and converted it into a space to work and live. Since then she has expanded the scope of her work, taking on socially conscious projects like the House of Gold, which laid bare the architectural history of an abandoned house next to her studio, showing that blighted properties hold personal histories and neighborhood truths. Briggs has also become increasingly active as a citizen, founding a block watch with her neighbor Deborah Jackson, and she has been a member of the borough's planning commission since 2013. —newtonmatthew ... Photograph by watered_down_yoohoo