‘Dream’ residency targets emerging artists

By Carlo Wolff

Maxmillian Peralta ’21 was just the person to create the residency program feverdream, a new Cleveland-based organization dedicated to nurturing the careers of emerging artists. As a feverdream co-founder and the organization’s program director, Peralta gets to help develop artists like himself who are establishing their practices and finding their way in the business of art.

Peralta performed the research that led to the establishment of feverdream in summer 2022. He also designed its website and participated in the selection of Nolan Meyer ’20 for its inaugural residency. Both Peralta and Meyer are Painting graduates. The second residency went to painter Elizabeth Lax, who completed it in March.

Feverdream is founded on the principles that quality is the one true credential and that the people who run the program should be on the same playing field as the residents. Its target age is 18 to 30.

“I’m an emerging artist, just like how all the residents are emerging artists,” Peralta says.

Peralta has known Meyer since their CIA Pre-College program days together. Although he had never met Lax before she applied to feverdream, “there was still that peer-to-peer (connection). There was no power dynamic or hierarchy.

“I think that with a lot of charities and nonprofit organizations, there’s a separation between who they’re serving and who does the serving,” says Peralta. As a younger artist, he says, he understands “what artists want and what’s easiest for them.”

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President of Enrollment Management + Marketing, for helping restart the conversation.

“We needed that push, because for a long time, we didn’t have that support,” says Hall, recalling instances over the years in which, in conversations with her, some at CIA disparaged engagement and participation among Black students.

A single exhibition can’t right all wrongs or heal all wounds, but Hall believes In Our Skin helped. “I think it probably saved us a student from withdrawing—or a couple of students—because not feeling a sense of community is discouraging,” she says.”

She also believes the community support shown during the opening reception was a step in the right direction. “Kathryn coming down and making her way through the crowd to talk to them, I think that was a very important moment for us—a pivotal moment,” Hall says.

“Getting to know many of the students and their families, seeing their work, learning about their processes and inspirations, and hearing their testimonies—and courageous vulnerabilities— was profound for me,” Heidemann says. “I’m fully committed to listening mindfully and intentionally, to caring, and to contributing to their success and belonging. I don’t want our students to just feel ‘included.’ More than anything, I want them to feel and know that they belong here.”

Impact statement

Paintings, drawings, prints, digital art and video work made up the majority of the work in In Our Skin. Students from across CIA’s academic environments participated. Painting senior Derek

Feverdream’s $4,500 residencies last three months, offer a $600 supplies stipend, and provide studio space in a building in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood. That retrofit is the headquarters of J Roc Development, a company that creates luxury and mixed-use projects like Electric Gardens, the high-end live-work space next door. For now, J Roc is bankrolling feverdream, although feverdream is in the process of seeking nonprofit, tax-exempt status.

Meyer, a line cook at Cleveland Vegan in Lakewood, Ohio, enjoyed his time at feverdream.

“It’s a larger space to work that they give you,” he says. “It’s a bunch of money I wouldn’t have otherwise that let me take time off from my job and just make work. And, it sort of felt like CIA again.”

The fruits of his residency are visible on an exterior wall of The Shoreway Apartments, a historic building on West 76th Street in Cleveland that J Roc repurposed as luxury apartments. Based on an original Meyer painting of 14 by 38 inches, Meyer’s 14-by-38foot “Lighthouse” mural features a lighthouse, a moonlit sea and a large squid. Creation of a mural is part of the feverdream commitment. Lax’s will replace Meyer’s soon.

As a CIA Painting major—he says the department is “awesome”—Meyer was grounded in professional practices. The feverdream residency offered him a place to explore freely.

“I think it’s really important to communicate your ideas properly, and that’s what [professors] like to prep you for,” Meyer says. “But it was kind of cool to not think about that at all and just make work.”

“While CIA helped me hone many skills that are required of me for this job,” Peralta says, “what CIA really did was cement my obsession with the arts and wanting to see myself, my peers and other artists succeed in supporting ourselves with our passion.”

Walker believes the show was significant because of the “number of experiences and narratives students explored in their work.”

“Some students chose to do works that are more fantasy-based, other students chose to do works that were depictive or observational. So you get a big variety in terms of artwork that’s in the show,” Walker says. “All of them kind of come together in this idea of the Black experience, and it shows the ways in which people can approach that idea.”

Walker, who gained experience with exhibitions through CIA’s Creativity Works internship program, took a lead role in organizing In Our Skin. Doing so had an impact.

“It felt good to leave our mark and a type of history for BSA, and to curate an exhibition for all the students there,” he says. “They all got their first chance at having an exhibition placed on their CVs, so it was nice to be able to assist with that.”

The impact—of both In Our Skin and BSA—on Rozier was a renewed sense of belonging at CIA.

“I already liked being here and having the space to be free as an artist, but it didn’t feel as freeing when I didn’t see a lot of students who looked like me, couldn’t really relate to a lot of the students, and it felt a little bit hopeless,” she says.” But, once BSA came about, I started to see more and more, and how other Black students felt the same way as me, and our unity has created such a comfortable harmony in a way we can be ourselves, freely, and actually enjoy being artists here.”

Rozier hopes that BSA’s second Black History Month exhibition is bigger and involves more student artists. Odom and Hall do, too. Until then, a sense of satisfaction around In Our Skin prevails.

“I enjoyed seeing (the students) happy,” says Hall of the opening reception. “That night, I was really proud of CIA. I can truly say that CIA showed up for those kids. Could I have said that two or three years ago? No. Would I have said that? No. But CIA made me proud.”

Anthony Eterovich ’38* had a painting, “The Visitors,” accepted into the Cleveland Clinic Art Collection.

Bette Drake ’64 had a ceramic piece in Western Reserve Patterns at the 2023 NCECA Conference in March in Cincinnati.

Ron Testa ’65 had work in the Annual Member Showcase at Praxis Photo Arts Center in Minneapolis.

James Juszczyk ’66 had work in On Balance at Art Cake Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

Gary Bukovnik ’71 had a solo show, GARY BUKOVNIK — Forever Spring at Andra Norris Gallery in Burlingame, California.

Candace Knapp ’71 had a solo exhibition, Rites of Spring, at Arts on Douglas in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

Thomas Roese ’71 had three drawings added to the permanent collection of the Wright Museum of Art in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Barbara Cooper ’74 had an artist residency in April at Marble House Project in Dorset, Vermont.

Bill Fleming ’74 has a solo exhibition at the Watson-Ewell-Currin Art Gallery through June at the Hudson Library in Hudson, Ohio.

Nancy Prudic ’75 recently retired after a long career at Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio. Prudic was named Professor Emerita and honored with a retrospective gallery show of work dating from 1973 to the present at the college’s B. K. Smith Gallery.

Babs Reingold ’78 had work in Beauty in Climax at the Department of Contemporary Art Tampa in Tampa, Florida.

Mary Urbas ’80 curated WOMAN XVI… Created by women, of women & about women at the Gallery at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, Ohio. The show included work from Diana Bjel ’73, Judy Takács ’86, Jaymi Zents ’97, Delinda Mariani ’99, Leigh Brooklyn ’11, Kimberly Chapman ’17 and Deborah Silver ’21

Andy Yoder ’82 had work in INTERLUDE, a group show at the Kreeger Museum in Washington, D.C. A solo show, Overboard, will travel from the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art in Auburn, Alabama to Tysons Corner Center in northern Virginia.

Anne Kmieck ’83 had a solo show, In Confidenza: Secrets and Transcendence, at the Trinity Commons Gallery in Cleveland.

Paul Dacey ’84 had a painting added to the permanent collection of the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio. The work appears in Seeing Stars, Divining Futures at the museum through June 20.

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William Moore ’84 had work in the Annual Juried Exhibition at BAYarts in Bay Village, Ohio. The show also included work from Daniel Forst ’58, Milan Kecman ’69, Patrick Baran ’83, Judy Takács ’86 and Micki Ansberry ’91 Erjon Hajnaj ’23 received the first-place award.

Karen Beckwith ’87 had a solo exhibition, Trace Evidence: Observations of Place, at BAYarts in Bay Village, Ohio.

Diane Pribojan ’88 had work in the 19th Annual FRESH Juried Exhibition at Summit Artspace in Akron, Ohio; Foot Squared at YARDS Project in Cleveland; Meet the Artists of the Juve Family Behavioral Health Pavilion at the main campus gallery at Summa Health in Akron; and in Strike a Pose: Portraiture and Figurative Work at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts. Work is included in the corporate collections of Acme Fresh Market and Summa Health.

Melinda Placko ’00 was named associate director of music and visual arts at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood, Ohio.

Bill Nottingham ’01 wrote a column, “Lessons from design school that can be applied to business,” that appeared in Fast Company magazine.

Alison O’Daniel ’03 showed her film, The Tuba Thieves, at the Cleveland International Film Festival in March. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Obituaries

Kimberly Chapman ’17 had a solo show, GHOST NARRATIVES: Shedding Light on Dark Topics

Through the Female Lens, at Article Gallery in Cleveland.

Noah Cutwright ’18 was one of three emerging animators in the premiere episode of the Comedy Central series The Drawing Board, produced in conjunction with Yes, And ... Laughter Lab.

Rowan Leek ’20 is the new Campus Manager at Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residencies in Saugatuck, Michigan.

Nolan Meyer ’20 was the first artist resident of feverdream, a new residency program established in 2022 in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood. Meyer’s painting, “Lighthouse,” was transformed into a 38-foot mural, part of feverdream’s rotating mural system on The Shoreway Building in Cleveland’s DetroitShoreway neighborhood. Maxmillian Peralta ’21 is a feverdream co-founder and program director.

Chi Wong ’20 was part of a three-person show, Finding Identity: Heritage as Inspiration, at the Massillon Museum in Massillon, Ohio.

Liam Darby ’21 has selected works from The Consumerist Forest in a group show at La Gente Art Gallery in Milwaukee.

Renaissance Bernard ’21 will have a solo show, A Contemporary Renaissance, at ArtSeen Gallery in Rockville, Maryland from May 21 to June 30.

Molly Fitzpatrick ’05 was featured in an article in Fast Company magazine.

Laura Marsh ’06 has an installation of drawings and textile works, Unsolicited Advice, on view through July 16 at Penn State University’s HUB-Robeson Galleries in University Park, Pennsylvania.

Barbarita Polster ’10 was accepted into competitive PhD in Comparative Literary Studies program for Fall 2023 at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she will continue studies in written and visual culture and avant-garde practices in Latin America and the Caribbean. A solo show will open in Fall 2023 at the Lima, Ohio campus of The Ohio State University.

Adrienne Di Salvo ’10 will do a coldworking glass demonstration, “It’s what’s inside that counts,” at the 2023 Glass Art Society Conference June 7–10 in Detroit.

Leigh Brooklyn ’11 had a solo show, Battlescars, The New Protagonist, at Mansfield Art Center in Mansfield, Ohio and Her Story at Virgil Catherine Gallery in Chicago. Work is also featured in a special edition of the book Artelibre through Mod Portrait at the MEAM in Barcelona, Spain.

Katy Richards ’11 had a solo show, Katy Richards: Pocket Full of Posies, at HEDGE Gallery in Cleveland.

Eric Hernandez ’12 was featured in Forbes

Nolan Beck-Rivera ’15 was a guest on Ideastream Public Media’s The Sound of Ideas

Jill Cefalo-Sanders ’21 and Dustin Wisch ’21 were animator and assistant animator for Egghead & Twinkie, which debuted at the Cleveland International Film Festival as part of the Local Heroes Competition.

Zharia Rahn ’21 just wrapped up the Season 3 finale of the popular Disney series The Owl House Betty Rozakis ’21 had work exhibited at Artexpo New York with Philip Josef Glass Art Gallery.