Last Friday at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts' annual Summer Solstice event, Mosley was awarded yet again, this time with the center's Guild Council Service to the Arts Award.

It is fittingly bestowed, perhaps even belatedly so.

Now in its fifth year, the award honors an artist or member of the local art community for his or her inspiration, involvement, commitment and passion for the arts.

With a career in the arts that spans nearly half a century, Mosley, who will turn 76 this summer, has exemplified all of those qualities.

In 1963, he joined the Society of Sculptors, one of the founding guilds of the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, then known as the Arts and Crafts Center of Pittsburgh. He serves on the board of that organization, as well as having been its president from 1980 to '92.

He also is on the board of the Society for Contemporary Craft and the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. In the 1970s, he was exhibition chairman for the Associated Artists and worked along with Carnegie Museum of Art director Leon Arkus to produce the association's annual exhibitions. In the <#213>90s, he pitched in and rolled up his sleeves for the renovation of the Associated Artists building on Liberty Avenue, Downtown.

A constant contributor to charity auctions (he recently donated two pieces to the Sharry Evrett Scholarship Award auction and created a penguin for Sweetwater Center for the Arts' Penguins on Parade auction), he also is widely respected as an instructor, having given countless workshops on woodcarving at colleges and art centers locally and regionally. Most notable has been the Touchstone Center for Crafts in Farmington, Fayette County, where he has taught wood sculpture every summer for more than 20 years.

Although Mosley is a fixture at the opening receptions of nearly every local art happening, he hasn't had a major show of his own work since 1997, when he exhibited several large pieces in a solo show at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

Now, in conjunction with the Service to the Arts Award, nine new works of his are on display at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts through Aug. 18.

His work has changed a bit since he showed at the Carnegie. Most notably with the inclusion of found metal elements, some of which he has kept with him for more than 20 years, only to be utilized in recent works.

A tall piece, "Propelled Simulation," contains a large, mangled piece of steel discarded from a rail yard he found when he lived on the South Side. Likewise, "Divided Sphere" features two huge stainless-steel bowls he bought from a bakery on Cedar Avenue when it closed 25 years ago.

Additional pieces came from more recent finds, such as "Percussion Patterns 2," whose focal point is a large steel disc that he found in a junkyard.

Then there are signature pieces that are entirely made of carved wood, such as "Following Space," a graceful arabesque that tops 11 feet high, and "Rhythmic Extension," which, at roughly 7 feet tall, cranes to the sky like a giant heron.

Deftly carved and beautifully composed, all of the pieces reflect the skill of an amazing artist who not only taught himself his craft but also taught so many others about carving, sculpture and how to live a life full of art.