Memorial Park Church is hooked on rugs.

Down the hall from the sanctuary in the McCandless church is the Huston Room Art Gallery, which serves the community and local artists by providing a place to display works of art --including hooked rugs.

This is the second year the gallery invited the Pittsburgh Rug Hooking Guild to display its work after the positive reception it received last year.

"For a number of years we had quilts, and they were popular because they were (made by) family members, but hooked rugs, that's something people can relate to ... people enjoy seeing something like that," says Bob Pascoe, of McCandless, who volunteers at the gallery.

For more than seven years, the gallery has encouraged local artists specializing in a wide variety of media, including oil paint, watercolors, pastels, photography, sculpture and quilting, to display their work for the public to enjoy.

"It's an outreach to the community, to get people to come in and communicate with us," says Pascoe.

"This is not a little, quiet church that sits off in the corner somewhere," he says. "We try to be involved in the community."

Every six to eight weeks the exhibit changes. The work of the Pittsburgh Rug Hooking Guild is currently hanging in the gallery through Feb. 22.

The Rug Hooking Guild meets at Memorial Park Church on the second and fourth Mondays of the month for rug hooking programs and sessions. Every two years the guild has a large show at the Shaler North Hills Public Library, but the members are excited to have additional opportunities to show their work.

"It's a lovely room the church has to display the work. There are large windows that let in lots of light," says Rug Hooking Guild member Della Griffiths, of Shaler. "We're very happy we've been invited back again after last year."

Griffiths says not many people are familiar with rug hooking, and she encourages everyone to visit the gallery and pick up an informational brochure about the craft.

There are more than 20 rugs on display at the Huston Room Art Gallery, and Griffiths explains that each one has a different look and character because each artist can vary the color and material used to make the rugs.

"Different people can take the same design, and when it's done you can hardly tell it's the same design," Griffiths says. "You can't make it look like anyone else's. It's very far from paint-by-number."

The gallery is open daily during church office hours and on Sunday mornings.

The exhibit is free and open to the public.

For more information about the Pittsburgh Rug Hooking Guild, visit the Memorial Park Church Huston Room Art Gallery, or contact Fritz Mitnick at 412-767-5698 or fritzmitnick@comcast.net.