Canvas, Spring 2021

Periodical Supplement to Cleveland Jewish News, April 30, 2021

NORTHEAST OHIO | arts | music | performance

Spring 2021

Now on View at the Maltz Museum through Aug. 29, 2021

presented locally by

2929 RICHMOND ROAD, BEACHWOOD 216.593.0575 | MALTZMUSEUM.ORG

Northeast Ohio’s STEM HQ Great Lakes Science Center is ready to return to its normal summer hours!

Visit us Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or on Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. starting May 16!

Health and safety protocols remain in place, so get your tickets online in advance, pick your arrival time, pack your facemask, and plan for an interactive adventure!

Visit GreatScience.com or call 216.621.2400 for more information

SUMMER CAMPS 2021

•

28 all-new STEM themes

•

Choose from LEGOs, robotics, movie-making and so much more!

•

Designed with your child’s health and safety in mind Presented By

16

Art with no boundaries Multimedia artist Jacob Koestler avoids fitting within any clean boxes

6 Editor’s Note

Amanda Koehn looks ahead to a new season for the arts

8 On Deck

Noteworthy upcoming openings and events from around Northeast Ohio.

10 Remembering John W. Carlson

The late artist continues to nourish creative community

“Motion Sickness II” (2014) by Jacob Koestler. Archival pigment print, 20 x 16 inches. Photo from Koestler and Michael McDermit’s forthcoming book and exhibition, “Strange Devotion.”

14 Traveling through time

Laura Owens engages local youth in Cleveland Museum of Art exhibit

20 Good artistic cheer Silver linings in a plague year

INSIDE

24 The new New Deal

Government relief offers a lifeline to the performing arts community

30 Crafting Summer 2021

Arts festivals combine new, old for return season Periodical Supplement to Cleveland Jewish News, April 30, 2021

NORTHEAST OHIO | arts | music | performance

34 Events calendar and listings

Spring 2021

On the cover

“Tori” by Sarah Curry (2020).

Gouache and flocking on wood panel, 24 x 18 inches.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Spring and summer arts events and program listings

36 Curator Corner

“Man on Scaffolding, AIDS Project, NYC” by Ken Heyman at the Akron Art Museum

37 Listings

Local listings for museums, galleries, theaters and more

4 | Canvas | Spring 2021

CanvasCLE.com

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Editor’s Note P

reparing this issue of Canvas, I can’t help but think about what’s to come. After the challenges of the past year, this summer seems like something finally to get excited about.

Many of you are likely in the same phase as I am – somewhere in the vaccination process, but not out of pandemic mode yet. It feels slow, but I’m hopeful the coming months will offer us opportunities to re-explore our local arts community and finally attend galleries, museums and arts festivals in person.

At the albeit scaled down events this summer, I’m expecting a new, spirited energy. After all, we survived a pandemic. At the same time, we carry with us a lingering sense of loss as well as awareness of just how fragile “normalcy” is.

Altogether, things are going to feel different. This issue of Canvas explores that past, present and many hopes for the future.

Reflecting on the past year, writer Bob Abelman explores the government funding Cleveland arts organizations have received during the pandemic and its impact on the artists, institutions and society at large. In this issue, we also remember John W. Carlson, the artist who passed away Dec. 20, 2020, and whose work moved so many of us.

Thinking about the experience of right now, writer Carlo Wolff’s “Good Artistic Cheer” story examines the kinds of artistic inspiration and comfort many of us are seeking presently. And writer McKenna Corson profiles photographer, documentary filmmaker and multimedia artist Jacob Koestler and his art based in striking natural imagery and sociopolitical subject matter.

Looking ahead to the warmer months, writer Alex Krutchik shares how summer arts festivals are preparing for reinvigorated programming after either holding virtual events last summer or postponing their programs.

Accompanying that story is our summer arts festival calendar. Our hope and expectation is that many – if not all – of the events will go on as planned.

Design Manager Stephen Valentine

President, Publisher & CEO Kevin S. Adelstein Vice President of Sales Adam Mandell Managing Editor Bob Jacob Controller Tracy DiDomenico Digital Marketing Manager Cheryl Sadler Columbus Bureau Chief Stephen Langel Events Manager Gina Lloyd Editorial McKenna Corson Jane Kaufman Alex Krutchik Becky Raspe

Amanda Koehn doesn’t mind continuing to wear her mask if it means she can safely attend arts events this summer.

There’s a lot more to come and plenty still up in the air, so I encourage you to visit the entities’ websites for more information on what we can expect for neighborhood and community-wide festivals this year.

Also looking ahead, Canvas plans to return our weekly e-newsletter in the near future. Paused since the beginning of the pandemic, the newsletter is another way Canvas features local arts events, artists and stories on a more frequent basis. I encourage you to subscribe at canvascle.com/signup.

Wishing you many days ahead of safety, health and finally, some fun!

Amanda Koehn Editor

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, @CanvasCLE. Sign up for Canvas’ free e-newsletter at canvascle.com/signup.

6 | Canvas | Spring 2021

Editor Amanda Koehn editor@canvascle.com

Contributing Writers Bob Abelman Carlo Wolff Custom Publishing Manager Paul Bram Sales & Marketing Manager Andy Isaacs Advertising Marilyn Evans Ron Greenbaum Adam Jacob Nell V. Kirman Sherry Tilson Yocheved Wylen Designers Jessica Simon Ricki Urban Digital Content Producer Alyssa Schmitt Business & Circulation Tammie Crawford Abby Royer Display Advertising 216-342-5191 advertising@canvascle.com

Canvas is published by the Cleveland Jewish Publication Company, 23880 Commerce Park, Suite 1, Beachwood, OH 44122. For general questions, call 216-454-8300 or email info@cjn.org.

CanvasCLE.com

First Prize Winner 0f the Teatronetto Festival 2019 The Nisim Azikri Award for Best Actor 2019 Winner of the “Kipod Hazahav” Israeli Fringe Theater Awards for Best Show of 2020

OASIS

Inspired by a true story

Playwright & Actor: Amir Peter Director: Hen David July 22-24, 2021 “In war everyone loses something, sometimes it’s just life itself.”

The show tells the story of Noel, a young Frenchman in the 1950s sent for reserve military duty in the dunes of Algeria, very far from home. There he is faced with moral and ethical dilemmas which bring him to embark on a surreal and dangerous journey through the Sahara Desert.

Presented as an outdoor, socially-distanced performance at the 2021 BorderLight Festival.

Virtual streaming options are also available

Presented by

with

Sponsored with support from

a program of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland

Roe Green, Honorary Producer

Coming to Cleveland’s BorderLight Festival this July.

Visit borderlightcle.org

ON DECK

Upcoming openings and events from around Northeast Ohio.

Event details provided by the entities featured. Compiled by Becky Raspe.

VALLEY ART CENTER 50th anniversary programming | Through May 21 Valley Art Center in Chagrin Falls is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and with it will exhibit work by its alumni and begin a community art project in May. On view through May 12, the center is hosting an exhibition celebrating alumni who have gone on to successful artistic careers over its first half century. “Illustrious Alum” will feature the work of artists who got their start at VAC, such as Judith Brandon, a mixed-media landscape artist; H. Craig Hanna, a landscape and figurative painter; Jeremy Galante, an animation artist; Kate Kaman, a sculptor; and Judy Takacs, a figurative painter.

And for the community art installation, internationally known fiber artist Carol Hummel will wrap the trees in front of the VAC building in color.

“Fantastic at Fifty – Valley Art Center’s Anniversary Community Art Project” asks volunteers to create crocheted circles to encase the trees in vibrant spring colors. The display will be installed from May 15-21, and will be accessible to the public throughout this year.

Valley Art Center is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. The center is at 155 Bell St. For more information on upcoming programming, visit valleyartcenter.org.

HEDGE GALLERY Dale Goode – “Paintings and Printmaking” | Through June 18 Cleveland artist Dale Goode’s work will be on display as a satellite exhibition at HEDGE Gallery at the 78th Street Studios in Cleveland’s Edgewater neighborhood. The exhibition, which features some of Goode’s more recent paintings and prints, employs both figurative and abstract works on paper, as well as some of his older, never-before-seen paintings on canvas. Goode’s work is created with layers of bold color and expressive mark making, using varieties of paint including oils, enamel, acrylic and latex combined with other found materials. He also works on large-scale sculptures that influence his painting and printmaking.

Shown in the Suite 215 Gallery, hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays, or by appointment.

HEDGE Gallery is at 1300 W. 78th St. Visit it online at hedgeartgallery.com. For more information, contact Hilary Gent at hilary@hedgeartgallery.com or 216-650-4201.

Above: “Love Denied” by Dale Goode. Oil, latex and enamel on canvas, 96 x 1.5 x 62.75 inches. | Photo / Aireonna McCall

8 | Canvas | Spring 2021

Above: “still waters run deep / fall in your ways” (2021)

by Shikeith. Site-specific installation commissioned by moCa Cleveland as part of “Imagine Otherwise.” | Photo / Field Studio.

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CLEVELAND “Imagine Otherwise” | Through June 6 As part of a three-location installation, “Imagine Otherwise” is a group exhibition on display at moCa Cleveland that expresses the boundlessness and fierceness of Black imagination and love, despite ongoing anti-Black violence and demonstrations. Using Christina Sharpe’s book “In the Wake: On Blackness and Being,” the show features work by artists Shikeith, Imani Dennison, Amber N. Ford and Antwoine Washington. The multi-media exhibition, which also has work on display at ThirdSpace Action Lab in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood and Museum of Creative Human Art in Lakewood, spotlights Black pathways to self-determination and collective liberation through various artistic media. Organized by La Tanya S. Autry, founder of the Black Literation Center and Gund curator in residence, the moCa installment features work by Shikeith. Dennison and Ford’s work can be viewed at ThirdSpace and Washington’s will be at Museum of Creative Human Art. moCa’s hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays.

The museum is at 11400 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland’s Uptown District.

For more information about the show and its locations, visit mocacleveland.org/exhibitions/imagine-otherwise.

CanvasCLE.com

Editor’s note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, museums and galleries may change how exhibitions are able to be seen and might not allow in-person visitation. Visit their websites for updated information regarding exhibition visitation prior to visiting.

CLEVELAND PHOTO FEST “PHOTOTHON 2021” | May 1 – June 30 After debuting in 2019, Cleveland Photo Fest is returning with PHOTOTHON 2021. The show will feature seven photography exhibitions: three drawn from international submissions, three of local talent and Cleveland Photo Fest’s own “I Identify As: Portraits in Black and White,” a Cleveland portrait project of 60 white, Black and those who identify as “other” photographing portraits of each other. The other exhibitions are “Furtography: Another Show for the Dogs,” which features photos of man’s best friend – dogs; “Deja Nude: Not Another Nude Show!” featuring nude photos; and “Dear Diary: Show Us Your Secrets,” featuring photos by women looking to visually share their favorite secret.

Additionally, there will be a high school student exhibition, interpretive photography of poetry and an exchange show with photographers from Kerala, a state in southern India. The exchange will be from 6 to 9 p.m.

May 26 at BAYarts, 28795 Lake Road in Bay Village.

PHOTOTHON 2021 will be housed at Bostwick Design Art Initiative, 2729 Prospect Ave. in Cleveland. Gallery hours will be noon to 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Saturdays and Sundays. Visit it online at clevelandphotofest.org.

To read more about Cleveland Photo Fest’s inaugural year, visit canvascle.com/developing-landscape.

Above: “Sadie” by Karen Novak for “Furtography: Another Show for the Dogs.” | Image courtesy of Cleveland Photo Fest.

MALTZ MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” | Through Aug. 29 A traveling museum exhibition, “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage explores the life of the late Supreme Court justice, known simply and commonly by her three initials, who passed away at age 87 due to complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer on Sept. 18, 2020 after almost 30 years on the bench. The exhibition, created by the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles that opened in October 2018, is based off a book focused on Ginsburg’s personal and professional life by journalist Irin Carmon and attorney Shana Knizhnik. The exhibition is broken into seven parts of RBG’s life, each named after lyrics from the late hip-hop artist the Notorious B.I.G. The exhibition is included in regular museum admission and is open during regular museum hours, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Wednesdays through Sundays. Tickets are by advanced registration only.

The Maltz Museum is at 2929 Richmond Road in Beachwood.

Visit it online at maltzmuseum.org.

Above: The 2019 Alumni Exhibition at CIA’s Reinberger Gallery. | Image courtesy of The Cleveland Institute of Art. CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART “2021 Alumni Exhibition” | June 4 – Aug. 13 The Cleveland Institute of Art and the CIA Alumni Council will present the 2021 Alumni Exhibition this summer in Reinberger Gallery. This juried exhibition will showcase work by CIA alums from different graduating years and artistic practices, and it will offer viewers the opportunity to learn more about the college and its influence on art in the region.

Emily Carol Burns, a multi-disciplinary artist who has curated exhibitions across the U.S. that highlight visual art from emerging artists, will serve as juror for the Alumni Exhibition. She is also the founding editor of Maake Magazine – an independent, artist-run publication – and is an assistant professor at The Pennsylvania State University.

CIA’s Reinberger Gallery is at 11610 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland. Visit cia.edu/exhibitions for the most current visitor policy and check cia.edu/alumniexhibition for updates regarding public programming.

@CanvasCLE

Above: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband, Marty, with their daughter, Jane, in 1958. This photo is on view with “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage. | Photo / Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

Spring 2021 | Canvas | 9

remembering

JOHN W. CARLSON

“Dark Was The Night” (2019) by John W. Carlson. Oil, charcoal and fabric on canvas. | Photo / John W. Carlson Studio

By Amanda Koehn

T

he reflections on grief, emotional detail and introspection chronicled in the art of John W. Carlson are forever etched into the Northeast Ohio artistic community.

Standing out in the local creative scene, he stunned with his rare combination of skill, personal depth and his approachable, compassionate nature.

When Carlson, 66, died of an abdominal aneurysm on Dec. 20, 2020, he left behind a world inside his studio and beyond. Piles of sketchbooks, a fledgling art movement and new, vibrant paintings were among the aspects of his life and practice that continue to invoke powerful emotions.

Now, those close to him are ensuring his legacy of

10 | Canvas | Spring 2021

creating art that delved deep into feelings and selfdiscovery – and helped others develop more moving and personal work – will remain prominent both locally and beyond.

“I think John’s life is an example of how we can be together as artists in this community, in our friendships with each other, in how we engage with each other, and in how we invite and nurture and nourish each other’s work,” says M. Carmen Lane, a friend of Carlson’s and local artist, writer and director of ATNSC: Center for Healing & Creative Leadership. “I think that’s the potential for John’s legacy, if we invite that in.”

An Ashtabula native, Carlson became well-known in his hometown as a skilled painter and musician during his early life and career. Working a day job as a “trash man” – the term he preferred, Lane says – intimately

CanvasCLE.com

The late artist continues to nourish creative community

influenced his artistic lens.

“He said he got his MFA on a garbage truck,” Lane says. “... But his relationships were physical and kinesthetic, and connected by having a shared experience of picking up objects from people’s lives, tracking what people threw away, what people held onto, how people cared for things.”

After retiring in 2005, Carlson pursued art with his newly free time. He moved to Cleveland. And in 2013, he got a studio in the ArtCraft Building. Next door was the Cleveland Print Room and its executive director, Shari Wilkins, who became his friend and later his partner.

When he passed away – the same year he first showed some of his most striking, vivid work – they resided in Lakewood.

“I would say he was always really pleased with what he was doing at the time he was doing it,” Wilkins says of her partner. “He was working, he was happy and he was trying to pull everything together for the show or the series that he was doing. But I would say the most meaningful work that I think he has done has been in the last two to three years because I think it has a lot to do with his personal growth.”

IN FULL COLOR Carlson’s presence in the creative community in Cleveland, both showing interest in other artists’ work and welcoming critiques of his own, was part of the reason Hilary D. Gent wanted her HEDGE Gallery to represent him. And, she says her friend was “extremely productive as an artist.”

“I also noticed it was much more personal than some of the other artists I had shown in the past,” she says, adding his work is deeply psychological.

Gent points to Carlson’s artistic progression over the years she worked with him. Earlier on from around 2013 to

Photo / Chad Cochran

@CanvasCLE

Spring 2021 | Canvas | 11

While John W. Carlson’s earlier work often stuck with neutral colors, his more recent work expanded use of bright color. Above: “The Afternoon” (2015) by John W. Carlson.

Oil and charcoal on canvas, 30 × 40 inches. | Photo / John W. Carlson Studio. Right: “Griot” (2019) by John W. Carlson. Oil and charcoal on canvas. | Photo / John W. Carlson Studio 2016, his work took on a mostly black, white and gray neutral palette. “His body of work over those three years I thought was absolutely beautiful,” she says.

Then, she started seeing more color in his work, culminating with the “Blues” exhibition that first showed at HEDGE in the 78th Street Studios in Cleveland in early 2020.

“Blues” explores Carlson’s personal and spiritual connection to blues music, and reflects his decade-long journey grieving the death of his son, Ryan.

“The last show we had together, it almost makes me cry to say that, but it was extremely powerful because it was in full color,” Gent says. “I don’t know that it would have been as powerful a body of work had it not been. John was weeding through personal trauma on an emotional level, and his work was going through that process with him. I think when he was really able to come face-to-face with his own personal grief and also identify with others’ grief, the full color really came out.”

The path to the exhibit and Carlson’s self-discovery included a drive to Nebraska to see the house where Ryan passed away due to a drug overdose. He also visited the Mississippi Delta Region to experience the place where blues music was born. “I had to smell the river, I had to hear those insects and smell the dirt, and feel the humidity to really put myself in that place,” he said during a gallery talk March 5, 2020. “... And goddamn, it was hot.”

The series is bright, soulful and pained. Incorporating materials like Mississippi cotton and gingham on a woman’s dress, it transports viewers to a specific time and place, but a feeling all one’s own. The piece “Nebraska,” created in 2020, consists of three canvases on top of one another, connected to prairie grass at the top. It reflects on how visiting Nebraska changed him and signified the end of the blues journey.

“I went through 10 years of that blackness and I came out there,” he said during the artist talk, referring to the top canvas painted mostly white.

Lane, a confidant to Carlson during his creation of the exhibit, says blues music was a “container John used to mediate his grieving process.”

“The Blues series is particular, it’s distinctive in his practice.

12 | Canvas | Spring 2021

It really represents I think a place in his process where he integrated all of his kinds of experience and practice and love into that series,” Lane says.

Wilkins adds, “His Blues series is a favorite of mine. It is complete, beautiful and haunting.”

AMERICAN EMOTIONALISM In 2015, Wilkins and Carlson developed a joint show, “Destruction of Form,” which led to discussions about their shared value that their art have an emotional impact on both the creators and the viewers who interact with it.

“We were curious how it would be to make artwork that would elicit responses that kind of covered the whole span of the human emotional landscape,” says Wilkins, a photographer. “Then, not labeling the emotions positive or negative. A lot of it was based on kind of examining the intensity of the emotions.”

Slowly, the American Emotionalism movement founded by the pair took hold. Carlson detailed its tenets in a handwritten manifesto, which explains that art should be profound and passionate, eliciting emotions and feelings in the viewer – some of which they may never have experienced before. Also, work should aim to build a “better society instead of solely entertaining the viewer.”

“Most essential is the ‘depth of sensation’ that the artist delivers to the audience (viewers),” he wrote.

Although the movement started in 2016, Wilkins says its formation was organic and they didn’t necessarily recruit artists to it at the time. American Emotionalism has progressed over the years though, with five artists now loosely affiliated with it. Looking forward, Wilkins says the movement is an important part of Carlson’s legacy and she plans to further it.

CONTINUING CARLSON Two notes penned by Carlson sit on Gent’s desk – one encouraging and congratulating her on her business’ 10 years, and a handmade Christmas card he sent her just before he passed away.

A friend to many, his humor and compassion brought out the best in his friends and colleagues.

“John is probably one of the most open people that I’ve ever met in my life because he has a curiosity that is both

CanvasCLE.com

Right: “Nebraska” (2020) by John W. Carlson. Oil, sticks, prairie grass and newsprint on canvas. | Photo / John W. Carlson Studio poetic and filled with humor,” Lane says.

To help preserve and promote Carlson’s work, HEDGE, along with Wilkins, is fundraising to archive his art. Gent and the gallery have also begun the cataloging process, which entails photographing his many pieces – with the help of photographer Aireonna McCall – writing the corresponding title, year, measurements and materials used, and noting exhibits the pieces were shown in and any owners.

“These are all very important details, especially if John’s work ends up in any museum or other significant collections,” Gent says.

The cataloging process also serves a more immediate interest: a Carlson retrospective is to show at HEDGE and ARTneo, also within the 78th Street Studios building, in early 2022.

The Massillon Museum is also planning a retrospective in 2023, which Wilkins says will be in the main part of the museum and afford a large amount of space. The American Emotionalism movement will be a theme for that exhibit.

Carlson’s legacy also continues through the three organs he donated upon his death, Wilkins explains.

“I would say that’s John – completely,” she says, adding she received a letter from one of the recipients. “These three people now lived because he gave them his organs.”

Carlson will also be remembered through the music he played, which he passed along to family and friends. He also taught art, including at the Cleveland Print Room and BAYarts.

When he passed away, an outpouring of support came to Wilkins from former students, she says.

Wilkins also estimates Carlson may have been the most photographed artist in Cleveland. He was often surrounded by photographers at the Print Room – and his naturally cool look didn’t hurt in terms of others wanting to capture him via portrait. To that end, she hopes to display some of those photos in an upcoming exhibit, too.

ENLIVENING ARTISTIC PRACTICE The news of Carlson’s death locally also allowed people to share both what they loved about his work as well as reflect on his life story and commitment to his artistic practice, Lane says. Because Carlson was so present within his work, it in itself invites viewers to ask questions about what it means to be a feeling human and to be in relationship with others in the community. How can local artists truly see one another and foster each other’s work?

To that end, in honor of Carlson, Lane renamed ATNSC’s Carlson/Brantley Residency for socially engaged artists, writers and change agents. A la Carlson, the fellowship gives residents an opportunity to develop themselves with resources provided by ATNSC, an artist-run urban gathering space in the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood to facilitate healing and creative leadership.

“If you were to go to his studio today, right now, you would know how alive it feels inside of it,” Lane says. “…

Many artists have been denied the ability to have a practice, or have denied themselves the possibility and potentiality of having a practice. I wanted to name this residency in honor of someone who deliberately and intentionally created that for themselves, and to support that for myself and others.”

The themes of loss, spirituality, self-reflection and tension

@CanvasCLE

that mark Carlson’s style aren’t foreign to many, especially over this past year of isolation and tragedy amid the pandemic.

His meditations on the self and the world around him continue to impact onlookers when many are seeking a sense of peace, or looking to sit with one’s grief and painful experiences in the rare way that he found during his final stretch of life.

“John is reflective in a way that shows how much interwork he has not just become aware of, but was able to integrate and make peace with in his life,” Lane says. “I think that’s an important quality to understand about John is that he did the human work of being human – not just as an artist, but in the totality of what it means to be human. So although his death was unexpected and disrupted so many people’s lives who were connected to him, in reflection, I cannot say he didn’t complete himself.”

To learn more about the GoFundMe account to preserve Carlsonʼs work, visit bit.ly/JohnWCarlson To watch Carlson discuss his ”BLUES” exhibit, visit canvascle.com CLEVELAND | arts | music

To read Canvas’ 2016 profile and cover story on Carlson, visit canvascle.com/ a-different-kind-of-tension

| performance | entertainment

SPRING/SUMMER 2016

A dif fer kind of ent tensio n

John W. Carlson’s art unveils a uniquely gestural and gripping world

Spring/Summer 2016 | Canvas | 1

Spring 2021 | Canvas | 13

TRAVELING THROUGH TIME LAURA OWENS ENGAGES LOCAL YOUTH IN CMA EXHIBIT

By Jane Kaufman

W

hen Laura Owens was growing up in Norwalk, she spent a lot of time walking through the galleries of the Cleveland Museum of Art and studying pieces in the

collection.

It was time well spent for the young artist, who now has an exhibition on view with the museum at Transformer Station. She is also preparing to launch a show that opens in May titled “Laura Owens & Vincent Van Gogh” at Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles in France, a foundation to promote the legacy of van Gogh.

References to van Gogh figure large at “Laura Owens: Rerun,” the local exhibit on view through May 30. The theme of the tworoom exhibit at Transformer Station in Cleveland’s Hingetown neighborhood is time travel – particularly in regard to her own life.

For it, Owens collaborated with nine teenagers taking part in the CMA’s arts mastery program, Currently Under Curation.

The main room contains mixed media and works on canvas, a series of paintings that include working clocks Owens created and decorated, along with works from the CMA’s Education Art Collection including textiles, print blocks and Mexican tiles.

In the smaller Crane Gallery, Owens created wallpaper – or what curator Emily Liebert says, feels like “an immersive painting” – that includes patterns and repeated images as a backdrop. The room gives off a pastel cast overall. In a collage style, Owens employed trompe l’oeil to feature layered images.

Representations of Owens’ early works are part of the installation, along with reproductions of newspaper clippings, pages from Owens’ writing as a child and other ephemera, including a permission slip to go to the Toledo Museum of Art and Owens’ student ID card from Norwalk High School. One of the reproduced clippings shows Owens holding the charcoal drawing of a woman, as the winner of the Governor’s Art Show when Owens was a high school senior.

In fall 2019, Liebert, curator of contemporary art for CMA, says she reached out to Owens about launching an exhibit.

Liebert admired her work and knew Owens had spoken publicly about how important Cleveland’s culture, and specifically CMA’s collection, have been to her.

“She didn’t want to just plunk her work down in Cleveland,” Liebert says. “She wanted to engage with the community and, specifically she was interested in working with teenagers since that’s the age she was when Cleveland was especially meaningful to her.”

Liebert says the museum staff assembled a group of teens who were already taking part in the CMA’s Currently Under Curation program. Starting in the summer of 2019, the artist and students met monthly, viewing art in the galleries, mining the CMA’s Education Art Collection and looking through the CMA’s archive at Ingalls Library.

“Over the course of time, these particular ideas were coming to the fore,” Liebert says. “So time travel was something that was really coming up a lot in conversations between Laura and the students. So that became kind of a grounding theme for the show.”

In the course of the collaboration, Owens and the students decided to include some of her high school work, and the students

14 | Canvas | Spring 2021

Above: Teens participating in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s art mastery program review reproductions of Laura Owens’ work. They are Skylar Fleming, from left, Jamal Carter, Yomi Gonzalez and Agatha Mathoslah. | Photo / Steven Bivens / courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art helped select those pieces.

“Based on this year and a half of conversation and contact and collaborative thinking, Laura developed the wallpaper as well as one painting,” Liebert says.

The students created the title for the show. They also wrote the curatorial labels for each of the objects, and their names appear with the text they wrote.

“I think it was an incredible opportunity for them to work with a living artist,” Liebert says. “She was extremely generous with her time. I know that also for her, it was extremely inspiring to work with them.”

Liebert says Owens considers the teens to be her collaborators on this exhibit, adding that the collaboration between the curatorial and education departments of CMA allowed the museum to serve the community in a new way.

“I think the content of the show is very special,” Liebert says. “It’s Laura’s high school art, her mature art, works from the (CMA’s) Education Art Collection and the new wallpaper installation, which is a site-specific installation created for this exhibition.”

To view more of Laura Owensʼ artwork, visit canvascle.com

ON VIEW

“Laura Owens: Rerun” is on view through May 30 at CMA at Transformer Station, 1460 W. 29th St. in Cleveland. For gallery hours and more information, visit transformerstation.org.

CanvasCLE.com

Advertisement

‘Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’ On view now at the Maltz Museum in Beachwood

T

he Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage announces the highly anticipated Cleveland premiere of “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” presented locally

by PNC Bank. Based on The New York Times bestselling book of the same name and created in partnership with its authors, Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, the exhibition takes a deeply personal journey through historic change with an entertaining yet rigorous look at the life and work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) and the Supreme Court. It also examines her varied roles as a student, life partner, mother, change-making lawyer, judge, women’s rights pioneer and pop culture icon. “Notorious RBG” will be on view at the Maltz Museum through Aug. 29, 2021.

The exhibition “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” was organized by the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Through archival photographs and documents, historical artifacts, contemporary art, media stations and gallery interactives, the exhibition explores the American legal system and civil rights movements through the lens of RBG’s personal experiences and public service. Like the book, it tells the parallel stories of her remarkable life and the efforts she joined to expand “We the People” to include those long left out of the Constitution’s promises.

In keeping with Carmon and Knizhnik’s book, the exhibition will touch on the playful connection between Justice Ginsburg and the Notorious B.I.G. – both of whom were born and bred in Brooklyn, N.Y., as RBG herself has proudly pointed out. The title of each section riffs off a lyric by the late hip-hop artist: • Introduction: “NOTORIOUS” • Early Life and Education: “I GOT A STORY TO TELL” • RBG as Activist: “STEREOTYPES OF A LADY MISUNDERSTOOD” • Judge Ginsburg: “DON’T LET ‘EM HOLD YOU DOWN, REACH FOR THE STARS” • Ruth and Marty: “REAL LOVE” • Justice Ginsburg: “MY TEAM SUPREME” • RBG Timeline (1848–2018): “BEEN IN THIS GAME FOR YEARS”

Skirball Associate Curator Cate Thurston, who developed the exhibition with Carmon and Knizhnik over more than two years noted that the exhibition weaves briefs and other writings by RBG, including some of her most famously searing dissents, with a range of objects to “give context to the Justice’s place in history.”

Highlight objects include official portraits of her and Sandra Day O’Connor, the first two women to serve on the Supreme Court, on loan from the National Portrait Gallery; and correspondence with civil rights leader, poet and lawyer Pauli Murray, whose groundbreaking idea to use the Fourteenth Amendment to litigate civil rights and sex discrimination cases informed RBG’s winning strategy as an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Three-dimensional environments bring key moments to life, such as recreations of Justice Ginsburg’s childhood Brooklyn apartment and of the Supreme Court bench, where visitors can take a seat and imagine making their own opinions heard.

Visitors will also gain insight into RBG’s marriage to Martin “Marty” Ginsburg, her partner of more than 50 years, through family snapshots and other materials from their life together, including some of Marty’s favorite recipes as the accomplished amateur chef of the Ginsburg household. Finally, reflecting

RBG’s effect on pop culture, “Notorious RBG” will include contemporary art and expression that she has inspired, by such artists as Maira Kalman, Roxana Alger Geffen and Ari Richter.

Ways to Explore

In-person: Visitors can tour the “Notorious RBG” exhibition in-person at the Maltz Museum, Wednesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., by timed tickets, which can be purchased over the phone or online in advance. Masks are required for entry and social distancing is enforced. General: $12; Students & Seniors: $10; Children 5 to 11: $5; Children under 5 and Maltz Museum members: Free Take a public virtual group tour: First and third Tuesdays of the month at 2 p.m. As part of an ongoing outreach effort to connect visitors to the Maltz Museum during the pandemic, virtual visitors can explore “Notorious RBG” online.

Approximately 60 minutes in length, virtual attendees will enjoy a webinar-style narrated exploration of key objects and artifacts followed by a docent-led Q&A. Virtual tours will be offered on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 2 p.m. The cost is $10 per person and free for Maltz Museum members.

Book a private virtual group tour: The Maltz Museum now offers private virtual group tours of “Notorious RBG” with advance notice. Adult tours are approximately 60 minutes in length. Virtual attendees will enjoy a meeting or webinar-style narrated exploration of key objects and artifacts followed by a docent-led Q&A. Email tours@mmjh.org for more information.

Student tours, also virtual, have an alternate format to suit the needs of the school day. Tours are free and recommended for grades 6 to 12. An optional docent-led Q&A add-on is available for $3 per student. (CMSD schools are always free) For more information or to purchase tickets, please call 216-593-0575 or visit maltzmuseum.org.

AR T WITH NO BOUNDARIES

By McKenna Corson

Creating expressive, hard-hitting photography, videos and multimedia, Jacob Koestler avoids fitting within any clean boxes

A

s the old adage goes, blessings can come in disguise.

Jacob Koestler’s greatest blessing came well masqueraded in the form of a car striking him as he rode his bike, leaving a 10-year-old Koestler confined to a wheelchair and in physical therapy for a year each.

Of course, the idea that this debilitating crash was an unexpected gift from the universe wasn’t how young Koestler, now 36, processed what happened. Forced into a prolonged state of recovery, he had no choice but to turn to more sedentary activities for Jacob Koestler entertainment.

Photo / He grew up living at his Laura Bidwell grandmother’s house in Johnstown, Pa., a former bustling steel epicenter turned struggling, infamously thrice flooded, small city about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh. Koestler’s mother worked at a local movie rental store, and suddenly, Koestler had access to an all-youcan-watch buffet of horror and sci-fi films.

It was also around this time that Koestler received his first album, “Siamese Dream,” released in 1993 by alternative rock band Smashing Pumpkins, that brought him into a world of grungy, defiant sound. Koestler plunged into rebellious, rockheavy music and music videos, religiously watching MTV’s late-night alternative-focused television show “120 Minutes,” taking up guitar, composing music, making music videos with friends, creating handmade packaging and dreaming of joining a band.

In high school, his forms of creative expression expanded once more, this time into photography. He had finished the classes he needed for graduation early, but instead of relaxing in study halls, Koestler undertook independent studies in his school’s darkroom and taught himself how to develop photos.

With his eye peering through a camera’s view finder, he could twist mundane structures and landscapes in the outside world into uniquely framed and composed masterpieces.

“I’ve always enjoyed photography because it’s going out

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Above: “Anything but the Shadows” (2013) by Jacob Koestler. Archival pigment print, 40 x 32 inches. Photo from Koestler and Michael McDermit’s forthcoming book and exhibition, “Strange Devotion.” and rediscovering compositions that are preexisting in the natural world, or, with my work, it’s always the human-altered landscape that I’m focusing on,” Koestler says. “Oftentimes, I want to criticize and examine the history of that landscape, but I also want to hold it up and find the magic within it.”

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When it came time for Koestler to enter college, he was left with two choices: study music or study photography.

“I was kind of a punk when I was 18, so I didn’t really want anybody to tell me how to play music,” Koestler says.

“That’s how I decided to study photography and move into that field professionally.”

FINDING HIS STYLE Majoring in photography at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Koestler honed his craft. He and a band of like-minded artists and musicians pooled their money to purchase a former banana refrigeration warehouse and transformed it into a gallery, zine library and show space for bands venturing through the area in Johnstown.

Koestler spent his early 20s seeking to define himself, both artistically and personally, he says. He started playing around with video and how it could be used to add to his projects or tell stories on their own.

“I’d describe my art style as psychedelic realism,” Koestler says. “I want to show the subject how it is, but oftentimes I’m looking at it graphically in such a way that I want to find that mysticism in it as well. I want it to be slightly abstracted, similar to the ways that people bring their own subjective lens when looking at the natural world.”

Photographic flaws, like light leaks and focus issues, became sought after composition aspects Koestler viewed as vital to his goal of revealing an other worldly, historical or socially significant presence in the natural world.

He started allowing literary influences to fuel his photography, namely writings of W.G. Sebald and Rebecca Solnit – “two authors who really tell the history of something, but they’re not afraid to interject their own subjective voice or their own personal encounters to help bolster this historical

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Above: “Like Skin” (2010) by Jacob Koestler. Archival pigment print, 20 x 16 inches. Photo from Koestler and Michael McDermit’s forthcoming book and exhibition, “Strange Devotion.” Left: “Go Away Everywhere” (2014) by Jacob Koestler. Photograph on newsprint, 30 x 20 inches.

Photo from Koestler and Michael McDermit’s forthcoming book and exhibition, “Strange Devotion.” story that they’re telling,” Koestler says.

His music taste brought him into new genres and movements, like experimental and noise music, as he connected with artists and musicians on new frontiers.

Breaking into the empire of mainstream artistry was the last of his worries as a 20-something artist, he says. Instead, he sought to invent his own subsection of the industry, along with his troupe of angst-fueled creators.

“I felt like I was on top of the biggest art world in the world, but I had never shown anything in New York, on the West Coast or done anything internationally,” Koestler says. “I wasn’t even paying attention to the art world. We were coming at it from such a punk music mindset that we were going to do everything our own way.”

KOESTLER VS. THE ART WORLD Into his mid-20s, Koestler began to travel, read theory and study contemporary art more. Five years after completing his undergraduate education, he decided graduate school was his next move. He enrolled in the photography and integrated media department at Ohio University in Athens at the dawn of the 2010s. Video quickly became his newest endeavor, particularly video and multimedia installation and how he could reformat art spaces with projectors, screens and audio components. It wasn’t long before Koestler noticed his ability to devise video installation and experimental cinema ideas functioned far faster than his developing photographic brain.

Diving into this new medium wasn’t Koestler’s only change

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during grad school. He realized for him to continue down this path of professional artistry, he would have to make an effort to join the overarching, seemingly totalitarian art world.

Koestler started taking out applications, seeking out publishers and searching for gallerists and collectors so he could have his work seen and hopefully bring in an income.

He was soon overcome with an overwhelming, existential predicament that continues to linger deep within his brain today. The art world was, in a way, a necessary evil, he says.

It forced Koestler to switch focus from crafting art based on self-expression to constantly worrying about his projects’ visibility, like at art shows and film festivals, and profitability.

He debated if he could continue creating hard-hitting, thoughtprovoking pieces across mediums instead of visually appealing, superficial pictures.

“I started to question if this was sustainable – me and thousands of post-art school people going after the same idea, the same prizes within the art world,” Koestler says. “It just started feeling like it was a bubble over there that wasn’t connected with real life, the violence I was watching in the world, the racism or the transphobia. It was a conversation that existed somewhere else.”

EXTENDING MULTIMEDIA After grad school, Koestler and his longtime partner moved to Cleveland in 2015, to help her nephew who was struggling with school. It wasn’t long until Koestler found his niche in Cleveland’s art community, where he started as a technical specialist at the Cleveland Institute of Art the same year. He eventually settled in Cleveland Heights and worked his way up to a full-time lecturer position in CIA’s photography and video department. Teaching became a beloved endeavor in his life, and he was able to configure his schedule to allow for his studio time.

Each year, his workload managed to increase. He made music and live scores for his videos under the name Rural Carrier. He started dabbling in art installation. He founded a creative imprint with his childhood friend, filmmaker, musician and writer, Michael McDermit, in 2020 with the commencement of their first documentary project in the summer of 2019. Through the imprint, Blurry Pictures, the two produce documentary films, books and printed projects with increasingly nonfiction content.

“We started looking at the world around us and how much was changing, viewing ourselves as two white, cis men making art but also working in education, wanting to change and open up more doors for different types of artists,” Koestler says.

“Taking semi-abstract images with the goal of showing them in a gallery wasn’t really doing any work that we cared about sociopolitically.”

Forming teams of people became just as important as storytelling, and by bringing on production crews, artists, musicians and former students – as well as working with local companies like printmaking studio, gallery, art residency and educational nonprofit Zygote Press in Cleveland – Koestler found himself able to take part in the exclusive art industry in a way he found positive for many.

“We found that we could work with people and then also tell real stories in new ways that we didn’t think were being told yet,” Koestler says. “We’d come at it with everything that I’ve learned about, like striving for galleries and grants, but sort of turn that on its head to make it work for itself a little better, and be a more collaborative and community-oriented process as well.”

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The idea and depth of language became a key focus in their recent documentaries, like the process of relearning how to communicate through speech, music and art following a traumatic injury and diagnosis of aphasia in “Strawberry Forever,” released in 2020, and a dive into the audibly hectic world of cattle auctioneers in “Sell Me A Cow,” released in 2019.

CHEROKEE LANGUAGE AND COVID-19 The duo’s current in-progress documentary, “Handful of Water,” is about the Cherokee language and its imminent threat of extinction. The original thought for the documentary came from an interest in Sequoyah, a Native American who created the Cherokee written language without knowing how to read or write in the early 19th century. As Koestler and McDermit learned more about the Eastern Band of Cherokee in Cherokee, N.C., and the Keetoowah Band and Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Okla., they discovered that American assimilation continues to have a strong, suffocating grasp on Native Americans.

Filming started in 2019, and by working closely with the Cherokee people and Cherokee television station Osiyo TV, Koestler and McDermit are shedding light on an endangered language deeply ingrained in an American population’s culture and history. Despite having been forced into boarding schools to learn English, the Cherokee tribes have fought back through language immersion schools, language activists, master apprentice programs and transformations of Cherokee casinos into language schools.

The ongoing storm of COVID-19 interrupted the film’s production, but Koestler says he is now appreciative for the break in filming. Time away from the project gave Koestler and McDermit the ability to apply for grants, which they used to purchase video cameras sent to their Cherokee collaborators to shoot from their own perspective, and to bring on Cherokee musicians, animators and a producer. Koestler estimates the film is about a year away from being theater-ready.

“The sear of COVID really shaped the project in a way,” Koestler says. “Perhaps we would have kept trying to be directors in the traditional sense and steer this ship and make it our story, but because we had to stay home, we were able to retool a lot to understand that we wanted this to be a collaborative process.”

A GOTHIC NOVELLA, 10 YEARS IN THE MAKING Blurry Pictures is also in the last stages of editing a photo and fiction book, “Strange Devotion,” a 40-page novella written by McDermit and sequenced within 76 photographs of Koestler’s.

The book visually depicts a decade Koestler spent wandering through Appalachia and the Rust Belt, where he photographed man’s ghost haunting a rich landscape abused by industry. The photographs take the reader on a journey above bridges threaded with dripping ivy and fragmented wasp nests, battered mobile homes and poorly constructed wooden sheds atop emerald green grass and river caves layered with years of erosion and dark turquoise stained rock.

On Sept. 4, “Strange Devotion” will debut with a book launch and small exhibition at William Busta Projects, a project space run by William Busta in the Waterloo Arts District of Cleveland.

Busta, who’s owned art galleries for decades up until his retirement in 2015, first became aware of Koestler when he saw a proposal for his photography book, “Everybody Wants

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Above: “Island, Cranks, KY” (2010) by Jacob Koestler. Archival pigment print, 24 x 32 inches. Photo from Koestler and Michael McDermit’s forthcoming book and exhibition, “Strange Devotion.”

Somewhere,” at an artists’ book fair a few years ago. Busta immediately became enthralled with Koestler’s skill and his desire to collaborate with others.

“He clearly, to me, is the most visionary photographer that is currently active in the region,” Busta says. “He takes photographs of subjects that we’ve seen before, like of ruined buildings, caves in the woods or forests, but there’s something that he adds to it. Maybe it’s a little bit like painting, that there’s layers put that the composition seems much more deliberate. It’s not a formal composition, but there’s something to it that sort of snags at the mind and at the intelligence.”

A PROMISING FUTURE To Busta, Koestler’s style of incorporating numerous mediums at once makes him unique. While he’s seen a handful of other artists weave in and out of photography, video, music, writing, publishing, installation and curatorial endeavors, the skill at which Koestler is able to undertake his palette of selfexpression is hard to find.

“That’s part of the charm that Jacob put in front of himself – it takes so much work to get to that level in different media, though he seems to have done it seamlessly,” Busta says.

“That’s very, very rare to be able to transition from one thing to another and achieve at the same level.”

While it might be a headache for others to imagine

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excelling in so many art forms while working full-time, Koestler can find his ever-growing juggling of teaching, creative projects, profitability, visibility and some form of personal life stressful at times. It’s through working with others, especially McDermit, and remembering his creations have the ability to enact positive change that Koestler moves forward – camera, computer, guitar or pen at hand, he says.

One of Koestler’s most recent works showcased locally was “Casual Water,” a package of photographs, printed ephemera and video that weaves a tale of an abandoned country club.

The exhibition was on view at SPACES in Cleveland from April 12 to June 7, 2019.

From a man unsure of his place in a dominating industry to a confident artist with work that’s traveled the world, Koestler has come a long way since the accident that unexpectedly started him down a path of unflinching creativity. In the years to come, he wants to remain just as prolific, but with maybe a little less stress. He already has a handful of documentary ideas in progress and plans to continue his fruitful teaching career.

“I’m unsure always if I’ve broken into an art world or what art world that is,” Koestler says. “It has its perks and also its pitfalls to work in as many mediums as I do. If I’m being realistic, I don’t think any one art world would know exactly what to think of me.”

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Good artistic Silver linings in a plague year

By Carlo Wolff

T

hat awful year, 2020, doesn’t seem over quite yet. While it seems to be lifting – slowly – the pandemic continues to define our times, forcing most of us into ourselves to protect each other.

You might think this necessary isolation has curtailed art making and art sales, but that’s not quite the case, according to gallerists, a prolific artist and educator whose creativity continues to quicken, and a collector whose purchases help keep Cleveland’s artistic scene on course.

Hilary D. Gent and Dan Bush’s 78th Street Studios, a large, artistic haven on Cleveland’s near West Side, reopened last June after a few months’ shutdown, and business resumed.

The couple found “a small audience of guests and art lovers ‘itching’ for a safe experience,” says Bush.

“This small community is beginning to grow in a very controlled way, but we’re grateful that our guests have been respectful and that courteous friends and new faces are excited to be out, to view and purchase the great art of Northeast Ohio,” he says.

Gent, who is director of HEDGE Gallery at 78th Street Studios, notes one reason HEDGE has been selling art throughout this trying period is the isolation the pandemic demands.

“People were home quite a bit more and looking at their interiors, probably noticing areas that could use some freshening up,” says Gent, an artist herself. “New art definitely has the ability to transform a wall or room. People also weren’t spending money on airfare, trips or dinners out, so perhaps that art purchase they had been putting off came to surface.”

People are buying diverse styles, from abstract to landscape, to figurative and narrative. This isn’t art as comfort food, she stresses. “I’d like to be hopeful in saying that true art appreciation is – finally – on the rise.”

Monica Glasscock, coordinator of Artisans’ Corner Gallery in Newbury, is a veteran framer and self-styled “artoholic.”

She says framers and galleries are seeing a resurgence.

“Because we are spending so much more time in our homes, many people are renovating and/or redecorating using funds they would normally spend on travel or eating out,” Glasscock says. “Another factor is the desire to support local and small business whose products are handcrafted and made in America.”

Art that feels safe and speaks to a feeling of home is particularly resonant these shaky days, she suggests. “A depiction that can speak straight to your fond memories can bring a feeling of pure joy,” Glasscock says. “The same can be said for framing personal treasures that are uniquely yours.”

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Above: “Portrait of Q as Job” (1995) by Chris Pekoc.

Published in “Beauty of Damage” (Logan-Shafer Library Collection, acquired 2020). Mixed media on gelatin silver prints, paper and polyester film with machine stitching, 35 ¼ x 20 ½ inches. | Photo courtesy of Jon Logan.

A TEACHING MOMENT – ALL YEAR Sarah Curry has taught art at Charles F. Brush High School in Lyndhurst for 20 years. She relishes interacting with her students. The lockdown the pandemic triggered has taken some adjusting, says Curry.

“Overall, I think artists as ‘makers,’ vs. artists as ‘entrepreneurs,’ have had the upper hand,” she says of this pandemic age. “I’m not sure more artwork has been purchased during this time, but I know we have all witnessed many a blank wall behind participants in Zoom meetings. I was hoping

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cheer

“Natallia’s Daisies” (2020) by Sarah Curry. Gouache and flocking on wood panel, 30 x 24 inches. | Photo courtesy of Sarah Curry

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Above: “Push Pull” (2018) by Sarah Curry. Mixed media on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. | Photo courtesy of Sarah Curry this would encourage others to redecorate and consider living with art since most of their time has been spent at home, and yet we are inviting everyone to see our walls — whether we want to or not.”

From a “maker” perspective, being “forced to stay home and produce rarely feels like punishment,” Curry says, citing “Untethered,” a series she produced before the lockdown, and “Unattached,” created after the lockdown. Her 2018 painting, “Push Pull,” aims to portray the energy and physicality of teen girls. “Little did I know I would soon lose access to these experiences,” she says.

“Once I was cut off from my students and other teen girls, I noticed how quiet and withdrawn my world became,” she adds. “I asked students and daughters of my friends to send me selfies depicting their reaction to the pandemic. Being socially distant is new to us all, but seems contrary to the nature of being a teen. Interacting with one another, bouncing off of each other in the halls, touching each other, forcefully, unintentionally, adoringly – these dynamics hold so much weight, and the narratives sent as well as those perceived help teens find their voice during this tumultuous time in their lives.”

Curry spent part of her alone time experimenting with “flocking,” a technique using the non-reflective medium gouache to “create the illusion of depth with a black so deep it appears as though it almost swallows the girls depicted – an abyss of sorts.

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“These works speak to the quiet, lonely void by removing materialistic attachments to the world while fostering the need to connect,” Curry says. “The flocking enhances the depth of what’s missing in the digital age. Removing the background and tangible objects from the image highlights their essence and disconnection from everything and everyone.”

“Underestimated,” which ran at HEDGE from midOctober to the first week of December 2020, was Curry’s first solo show in 10 years. It was unexpectedly successful, drawing both a virtual and in-person audience, and even the flocked work translated to a digital format. It garnered public radio attention and drew the girls in the paintings and their families.

Curry’s art education also flourished even though it was virtual, she explains.

“Despite the cries of a ‘lost year’ in education, many of my students have learned greater lessons than any information conveyed in a traditional learning environment,” she says.

“They have learned to be self-sufficient, to be self-motivated, time management and patience. Many students with anxiety or fear, who have been bullied or made to feel like an outcast, are thriving in this environment because the playing ground has been leveled. Students have been more forthcoming during critiques, with little fear about the backlash of their words. As teachers, we have had to up our game as well. We have learned to be creative, innovative and concise. Many of our lessons have been changed forever considering all that we have learned over the course of a year.”

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ART ALL OVER THE PLACE Jon Logan’s big, yellow brick house on the western edge of Cleveland is stuffed with art – on the walls, along the staircases, in the hallways, under the beds. All is art in waiting or just acquired. Logan, a podiatrist, has been collecting art, primarily traditional Cleveland School and contemporary Cleveland, for 15 years. A habitué of 78th Street, he’s been helping Third Fridays staff there during the pandemic.

COVID-19 has freed up money Logan would otherwise have spent on the theater, eating in restaurants and travel.

“Because I’m never off work, I never lost any of my income,” he says. “But I couldn’t spend any of my income because there was nothing going on. So I ended up buying probably more art than usual, through auction sites mostly.”

Galleries weren’t open for quite some time, so Logan began to cruise online auction sites “just to look at pictures. I would find things I liked and I bought them.” He displays a small, plein air watercolor of Lake Bunyonyi by Paul Travis that he bought to flesh out his Travis collection. A prominent exponent of the Cleveland School, Travis painted the lake, in Uganda near the Rwanda border, following a trip to Africa in 1928. It and several other Africa Travises were written about in a Cleveland Artist Foundation catalogue. As a member of the foundation’s board, Logan says, “I have an interest in that kind of stuff.”

Logan also likes contemporary art by Christopher Pekoc, Douglas Max Utter, John Carlson, Justin Brennan, Josh Usmani and former Cleveland Institute of Art instructor Phyllis Fannin.

1975 class of

2007 19 98 1982

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Did a particular work trigger his online purchases? Logan shows a mixed-media Pekoc he bought from a gallerist who was moving and eager to declutter. Pekoc takes photographs and other media, cuts them apart, stitches them back together and distresses them, Logan explains. Pekoc may paint them or print them on an acetate. In this piece, he has overpainted a photo with gold spots.

Logan then shows three small, Polaroid paintings on mylar created by Adamchuck (Adam Markanovic), a 2012 CIA graduate who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. At the beginning of December, Adamchuck had a flash sale on his website and Logan snapped up several of these miniatures, which he plans to pin to a staircase wall. Some of the walls are more amenable to such treatment than others, particularly those of lathe and plaster. The house, which Logan moved into in 2002, is around 100 years old.

While Logan looks forward to socializing again, he has enjoyed expanding his buying online – especially when it works.

“I lost several pieces because my internet connection was crummy,” he says. “I was helping a friend move and we were moving things into a storage unit. I was between two industrial metal buildings bidding on something and I went down a little alley between the buildings. My connection really suffered, and by the time we hit the road, literally a block later, it had sold and I was, like, ‘No! No!’” Logan admits he multitasks too much, but he’s an incurable optimist. “Something will come around later.”

’64

2021 Alumni Exhibition Presented by the Cleveland Institute of Art and the CIA Alumni Council, the 2021 Alumni Exhibition will showcase work by distinguished and emerging CIA alums from across the spectrum of artistic practices. Serving as juror is Emily Carol Burns, a multi-disciplinary artist and the founding editor of Maake Magazine.

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June 4 – August 13 Cleveland Institute of Art Reinberger Gallery 11610 Euclid Avenue cia.edu/exhibitions reinbergergallery Visit cia.edu/exhibitions for the most current visitor policy and check cia.edu/alumniexhibition for updates regarding public programming.

Exhibitions and programming are generously supported by CIA’s Community Partners.

Visit cia.edu/partners.

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The

Government relief offers a lifeline to the performing arts community

New Deal

By Bob Abelman

Between 1933 and 1943, during the depths of the Great Depression and into the early years of World War II, federal tax dollars employed artists and craft workers of various media and with varying levels of experience, and kept them from poverty and despair.

In addition to providing relief, the New Deal’s Federal Art Project and other government-sponsored art programs promoted American art and culture by giving more Americans access to what President Franklin D. Roosevelt decorously labeled “an abundant life.” It enabled Americans all across the country to see an original painting for the first time, attend their first professional live theater or dance production, or take their first music or drawing class. An enormous volume of public art intended for education and civic engagement – including 2,500 murals and 18,000 sculptures – was created without restriction to content or subject matter and put on display.

“Artists have been given something more precious than their daily bread,” said social critic Lewis Mumford at the time. “(They have received) the knowledge that their work has a destination in the community.” The public art of the New Deal reflected a vast array of traditions and cultures that served not only to celebrate the nation’s diversity but to reflect and build a common, collective national identity through art.

Never before or since has our government so extensively supported and sponsored the arts. Until now.

COVID-19 DEVASTATION

BY THE NUMBERS The Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Endowment for the Arts report arts and culture contribute approximately $877.8 billion, or 4.5%, to the nation’s gross domestic product annually, according to 2017 data.

Prior to the pandemic, more than 5

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million wage-and-salary workers were employed in the arts and cultural sector.

In the wake of COVID-19, the arts have been devastated. Research published by the Brookings Institution reports the performing arts have been the most at risk and the hardest hit of all the creative industries. More than 52% of actors and 55% of dancers were out of work in the third quarter of last year, when the national unemployment rate was 8.5%, The New York Times reported. Since the shuttering of arts venues in March to the end of the last calendar year, it was estimated that nationwide almost 1.4 million performing and fine arts related jobs and $42.5 billion in sales have been lost. And the numbers are mounting as venues remain closed or open to sparse, socially distanced occupancy.

The live entertainment industry has missed out on $9.7 billion of box office sales, according to Pollstar, a trade publication. The larger economic hit from lost sponsorships, concessions, merchandise and other related revenues may be closer to an estimated loss of $33 billion.

Broadway theaters were among the first businesses to shut down in March 2020, and according to the Actors’ Equity Association, more than 1,100 actors and managers lost work. From May 2018 to May 2019, shows across all 41 theaters garnered more than $1.83 billion in sales. But according to a report published by the Broadway League, a national organization of theater owners and show producers, only around $300 million in ticket sales were generated in 2020 before theaters were shuttered and midtown

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Arshile Gorky works on “Activities on the field,” his 1936 mural project for Newark Airport sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. | Photo / Federal Art Project, Photographic Division

Katrice Monee Headd in Maelstrom Collaborative Arts’ “ACTIVATE 2020” storefront window visual and performing arts project. | Photo / Kaitlin K. Walsh

Darelle Hill, from left, Samantha Cocco, Christina Johnson, Zach Palumbo and CorLesia Smith in Karamu House’s “Freedom After Juneteenth, Episode Two.” | Photo / Nathan Migal

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Spring 2021 | Canvas | 25

Verb Ballets dancers Emily Dietz, from left, Lieneke Matte, Kelly Korfhage and Kate Webb perform “KL3668.” | Photo / Kolman Rosenberg Photography

Manhattan became nearly deserted.

Thousands more working touring shows that contributed $3.8 billion to the local economies of about 200 U.S. cities became unemployed.

In March, we witnessed the abrupt closure of nearly all the nation’s 5,477 cinemas, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In Los Angeles County, where all five major film studios – Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures and Walt Disney Studios – are housed, job losses in the creative community reached 24% between February and December 2020. Disney alone saw a $7.4 billion loss to its operating income in the last fiscal year, despite its effective shift in distribution to streaming services.

Locally in Cuyahoga County, arts, entertainment and recreation is a $1.35 billion industry that employs more than 10,000 people, one-third of whom lost jobs due to the pandemic, ideastream reported in October. Downtown Cleveland’s Playhouse Square Foundation – a consortium of performing arts venues that attract about 1 million visits a year – estimated a loss of about $4 million and laid off or furloughed nearly 200 employees between March 2020, when its theaters were first closed, and the end of the calendar year. Playhouse Square has canceled or postponed 680 performances, the organization reported late last year.

In a May 2020 press release, Gina Vernaci, Playhouse Square CEO and president, said, “Your health and safety are our top priority,” announcing the postponement of the KeyBank Broadway series.

And, of course, local theaters, concert halls, nightclubs and arenas across the region have had thousands of live performances canceled or indefinitely postponed, leaving artists unemployed or severely underemployed. But there has been help.

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A NEW NEW DEAL The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act was a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill signed into law last March in response to the economic fallout of the pandemic. The bill included the Paycheck Protection Program, which offered small businesses – including arts organizations – forgivable loans to help them keep their workforce employed during COVID-19.

Within 18 days of the bill’s approval, the National Endowment for the Arts was awarded almost $75 million, 40% of which was to be distributed to state and territorial arts agencies and regional arts organizations, including the Ohio Arts Council, for their funding of local programs. By law, the agency had to allocate the money by Dec. 30, 2020 which, according to its Executive Director Donna S. Collins in a press release, “will go a long way in supporting the recovery and resilience of Ohio’s creative economy.”

The OAC issued 296 grant awards totaling $20 million in economic relief for the arts and culture sector. Approximately $2.66 million was set to be distributed to arts and culture nonprofits through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, the public agency that distributes some $12 million a year in county cigarette tax revenue to cultural nonprofits in the area. An additional $1.3 million was given to Arts Cleveland, which distributed the relief funds to some 425 Cuyahoga County artists and 38 performing arts businesses, of which 23 are owned by minorities or women, local media reported.

“The CARE funds we received though the Ohio Arts Council and Cuyahoga Arts & Culture have helped survive the loss of a season plus two plays from last spring,” says Bob Taylor, executive director of Great Lakes Theater in Cleveland. “They allowed us to hold onto the reserves we strategically and rigorously built over the last decade

so that we will be ready for when what’s coming next comes along.”

THE SHUTTERED VENUE OPERATORS GRANT PROGRAM In December 2020, tucked into Congress’ massive, year-end $2.3 trillion relief package, was the largest public rescue of the arts in U.S. history: $15 billion in relief grants earmarked to help save the arts and entertainment industry. First crack at the money went to those venue owners who could demonstrate losses of 90% of their earned total revenue because of the COVID-19 shutdown, the Washington Post reported. Allowable expenses included equipment, rent, insurance, worker protection expenditures and mortgage payments.

The PPP was also extended, allowing many arts organizations to apply for a second forgivable loan from a pool of $284 billion. The NEA and National Endowment for the Humanities were given a budget increase of $5.2 million each ($167.5 million each in FY2021) and were tasked with distributing additional funding to nonprofit arts organizations across the country.

AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT Most recently, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 passed this March. The Act provides an additional $270 million in funds to the NEA and NEH, $175 million in emergency funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, an additional $7.25 billion for PPP and an additional $1.25 billion for the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program program. It is expected this round of funding will support about 234,000 jobs, according to the National Endowment for the Arts.

THE IMPACT OF RELIEF FUNDING How do relief payments affect arts organizations on an individual basis?

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The cast of “Ghost Girls,” part of the “5 x 15 Minutes” musicals, a partnership between the Beck Center for the Arts, Baldwin Wallace University and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. | Photo / Screenshot, directed by Vicky Bussert

For one thing, the funding provides for sustainable staffing.

For many arts organization, the first and most accessible form of assistance came in the form the forgivable loans made available through the Paycheck Protection Program.

The first round of the PPP, which issued loans from March to August 2020, helped 5.2 million small businesses keep 51 million American workers employed, according to the Small Business Administration.

This past December, as many small businesses continued to struggle and the PPP was renewed, roughly 60,000 borrowers were approved for the forgivable loans during the first week of the reopening, noted the SBA. A portion of the available funds were set aside for first-time borrowers.

In Northeast Ohio, some larger organizations like downtown Great Lakes Theater did not have to lay off a single administrative or production staffer thanks to these loans.

“When we are ready to go back to work and deliver live theater – hopefully in the fall, along with our Playhouse Square partners – we will have our team in place and hit the ground running,” Taylor says.

André Gremillet, president and CEO of The Cleveland Orchestra, says, “We applied for and received a PPP loan in the amount of $5.5 million dollars, which was absolutely essential in order to be able to pay our employees – including our musicians – in 2020.”

For some smaller arts organizations with limited staffing, such as Cleveland Heights’ Ensemble Theatre, PPP loans were “a lifeline,” according to Executive Artistic Director Celeste Cosentino.

The funds also allowed for creative pivoting. For Gordon Square’s Maelstrom Collaborative Arts, the PPP and other forms of federal funding “allowed us to pivot, creatively,” says connectivity director Marcia Custer.

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Similarly, Laura Wiegand, executive director of Les Délices, suggests grants distributed by Cuyahoga Arts & Culture and the OAC enabled the Cleveland-based chamber ensemble to think outside the box. Adds the company’s artistic director Debra Nagy, “We emerged from the pandemic as providers of virtual interactive programming and pivoted from audio to audio/video recording for later distribution.

It changed our model of creativity.”

The same goes for Verb Ballets in Shaker Heights, which was forced to close its doors last March. According to producing artistic director Margaret Carlson, “we could not have continued without relief funding,” which not only reopened the doors six weeks later by providing payroll for the company’s 14 dancers and six staff, but it allowed Verb Ballets to invest in the equipment necessary to transition a rehearsal studio into a recording studio, and purchase the technology necessary to deliver performances virtually. “Doing so,” adds Carlson, “has significantly expanded the company’s audience nationally and internationally.”

Cleveland Public Theatre’s Raymond Bobgan notes that everything takes longer and requires more resources to produce art under the current circumstances. But the grants have allowed CPT, located in Gordon Square, to “dive in” and reinvent its working model, he says.

Another impact is on programming.

Karamu House, in the Fairfax neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland, and CPT were among the many local theaters to receive a grant from the OAC CARES program. But they were the only two Cleveland theaters of the 30 historically under-resourced Midwestern arts and culture organizations to receive a grant from Arts Midwest’s share of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund.

This first round of funding – consisting

of $50,000 to $55,000 grants for each of the 30 organizations, underwritten by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation – focused on rural communities, Indigenous communities and communities of color.

Karamu is the oldest producing African American theater in the nation, and CPT is home to the Latino theater company Teatro Publico de Cleveland. Grant sources helped make possible Karamu’s original virtual theater social justice series “Freedom on Juneteenth” and facilitated CPT’s use of technology to extend its virtual reach into the community, and to take creative risks in the development of hybrid performance art that merge film with live theater.

WHEN THE DUST SETTLES As might be expected, the New Deal’s Federal Art Project was met with some political opposition. Works of art that promoted social justice, challenged political beliefs or threatened cultural norms, for example, were seized upon by critics of President Roosevelt and used as fuel for the argument that the New Deal was bad for America. Many argued art projects should not be funded with taxpayer money. Several works of art that depicted controversial topics were destroyed by local officials uninterested in or fearful of radical, depressing or “un-American” subject matter.

Clearly, funding the arts is still a partisan issue. Recall that former President Donald Trump’s budgets for the past four years proposed the elimination of the NEA, NEH and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as The New York Times reported.

“As for now,” notes Laura Lott, president and chief executive of the American Alliance of Museums in a recent Times article, “we are relieved with how things ended up (under the Biden administration). But we don’t take anything for granted.”

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Creativity Creativity Takes CreativityTakes Takes Center Stage Center at Hawken CenterStage Stageat atHawken Hawken Given that Hawken School has always been a haven for Given that Hawken School has always been Given that Hawken School has always beenaahaven haven for creative minds, it’s no surprise that opportunities forfor students creative minds, it’s no surprise that opportunities for students creative minds, it’s no surprise that opportunities for students to participate in the arts abound. While many other schools to participate in the arts abound.

While many other schools to participate in the arts abound.

While many other schools are forced to cut funding for the arts, Hawken’s programming areare forced toto cutcut funding forforthe forced funding thearts, arts,Hawken’s Hawken’s programming continues to grow and thrive, enabling studentsprogramming to participate continues toto grow thrive, enabling students to continues grow and thrive, enabling students toparticipate participate at various levels noand matter what their age or experience. at various levels matterwhat whattheir theirage ageororexperience. experience. at various levels nono matter

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Visit hawken.edu hawken.edu to options tolearn learnmore moreabout aboutthe thefull fullmenu menuofofarts arts options available at To more about our gogo toto Visit hawken.edu to learn more about thevisiting full menu ofcampus, arts options available at Hawken.

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Tolearn learn more about visiting ourcampus, hawken.edu/admission or 440-423-2955. available at Hawken. To learn more about visiting our campus, go to hawken.edu/admission orcall call 440-423-2955. hawken.edu/admission or call 440-423-2955.

Arts fests combine new, old for return season

By Alex Krutchik

T

hey might look different, they might feel different, but arts festivals are coming back to Cleveland this summer. Just in time for warm weather and a higher UV index, the streets of Cleveland will soon be filled with art, music and theater performances.

While summer arts festivals can typically bring in over 10,000 people in one given weekend, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it a challenge to balance safety with the highquality experience to which artists and attendees have grown accustomed.

Festivals such as the 30th Annual Art in the Village with Craft Marketplace by Howard Alan Events & American Craft Endeavors will take on an adapted look when it comes to Lyndhurst on June 5.

“It’s sort of a shift in perspective,” says Elizabeth Dashiell, publicist for Howard Alan Events. “This is an outdoor, socially-distanced art stroll. It isn’t stopping and standing around, clustered together, breathing on each other.”

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Howard Alan Events, which hosts numerous similar events around the nation similar to Art in the Village, has been working on its COVID-19 safety protocols since March 2020, as it canceled last summer’s events. Its shows, which are normally outdoors to begin with, will be “very similar” as prior years, according to Dashiell. Howard Alan will also host the 5th Annual Flats Festival of the Arts on Aug. 21 and 22 in the Flats of Cleveland.

However, Dashiell says guests might notice there are only about two-thirds the usual number of artists at the festivals.

Additionally, masks must be worn while attendees are in festivals’ promenade area, and one-way directional traffic must be maintained. In order to limit the number of attendees at

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the festival at one time, it will employ entrance monitors. The artists’ booths are spaced 6 feet apart, and the number of people standing within each booth will be limited.

“We want to make sure everyone, both attendees and the artists and craft artisans, feel as safe as possible,” Dashiell says. “Even in locations where there are no mask mandates, we tell people to wear them. And artists reserve the right to ask you to leave the booth if you are not wearing one.”

BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival, a theater festival that began in Cleveland in 2019, is a biannual event, meaning it was one of the only large-scale events that did not have to be canceled last year. At the 2019 BorderLight Festival, there were roughly 40 unique productions and special events that engaged more than 260 artists from Cleveland, nine U.S. states and eight countries.

“We saw it as an opportunity because we are a new organization,” says Cathleen O’Malley, communications director for BorderLight Festival. “We are a small staff. We don’t own the venues. We are limber. We’re not a brickand-mortar institution, and we had an opportunity. The opportunity presented itself to redefine, in this pandemic year, what this festival could look like.”

In 2019, shows ranged from a circus tent on Public Square, to pop-up performances that engaged audience members on the street, to an IsraeliRussian clown trio that performed a silent physical comedy production.

A vast majority of these shows were done indoors in 2019. But O’Malley says the festival is working with a local production team that has decades of experience in producing outdoor events for this year’s programming. BorderLight is scheduled for July 22 through July 24 at a created festival village along the

Above: Alexandria Old Town Art Festival in Alexandria, Va., one of Howard Alan Events’ first shows after lockdown in September 2020. Its art shows will return to Northeast Ohio this summer. | Photo / Howard Alan Events Opposite page: “Creatures by Roger Titley” was performed at the BorderLight Festival 2019. The performance was presented by BorderLight in collaboration with Cleveland Public Library. | Photo / Steve Wagner West Bank of the Flats in Cleveland, including Nautica Entertainment Complex.

For longtime institutions such as the Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland, details of this year’s activities remain in limbo.

Although John Horton, manager of media relations at Cuyahoga Community College, promises it will be back in some capacity this summer, whether virtually or in-person. The festival was held virtually in 2020.

“One way or another, the music will continue at Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland for a 42nd consecutive year,” Horton says.

“How that will be accomplished safely as the community continues to deal with

IF YOU GO

• Howard Alan Events’ 30th Annual Art in the Village with Craft Marketplace is from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. June 5, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 6 at Legacy Village, 25001 Cedar Road in Lyndhurst. Admission is free. For more information and updates, visit artfestival.com.

• Howard Alan Events’ 5th Annual Flats Festival of the Arts is from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Aug. 21, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 22 at 1055 Old River Road in Cleveland. Admission is free. For more information and updates, visit artfestival.com.

• BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival is from July 22-24 at a created festival village along the West Bank of the Flats, which includes the Nautica Entertainment Complex. For more information and updates, visit borderlightcle.org/ 2021- festival • Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland updates will be available at tri-c.edu/jazzfest

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the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic remains under discussion. We anticipate an announcement soon.”

At Art in the Village, Dashiell says the booths will be arranged gallery-style outside. Guests will essentially walk through an outdoor gallery showcase experience. The art that people will see ranges anywhere from $30 to $5,000.

For crafts, they’ll see items costing from $2 up to $1,000.

Dashiell adds that Art in the Village is unique because every artist and artisan is there all weekend and inperson. She says the benefit is “you can see something absolutely unique and incredibly diverse.”

“There are mediums that didn’t even exist when I was in school,” Dashiell says. “The joy is, you can actually speak to the artists right then and there, on the spot and say, ‘What am I looking at? How in the world did you make that?’ And they can tell you their whole process. They can even tell you the inspiration behind it. ... They come from all over the country. Some people come from other parts of the world and have settled in the United States. Their stories are as diverse and inspiring as the art itself.”

As BorderLight focuses on live performances, one benefit is the ability

Spring 2021 | Canvas | 31

to look at other festivals that have had similar events during the COVID-19 pandemic prior to this summer, O’Malley says.

O’Malley cites a performance from the 2019 Cleveland festival called “Kingdom Chasm.”

An old, dilapidated Mercedes-Benz was driven up from New Orleans by the ensemble, parked on Public Square, disemboweled and used as a stage. It served as a living art installation that the show was performed around. In lieu of lighting, the festival organizers scheduled the show in a way where the sun was setting during the performance.

Creative modes of entertainment such as this continue to inspire the organizers of the BorderLight Festival in this crazy era.

“We’re not promising our audience traditional theater experiences here in 2021,” O’Malley says. “We’re inviting audiences to come and re-encounter the performing arts in a mode that is specifically tailored to the circumstances and the limitations of this moment. We’re calling it a Theatre Festival For a Changed World.”

Dashiell adds that this summer’s festivals will be a chance for people to recapture some sense of normalcy.

“We have received emails, phone calls and people coming up to me to say, ‘Thank you so much. I can’t imagine what it took for you guys to do this, but it feels like I have my own life back just for this moment.’ It will feel that similar.”

Above: Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland last took place in-person in 2019, before being held virtually in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. | Photo courtesy of Tri-C JazzFest

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Events Calendar

Editor’s note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, arts events are subject to change. For scheduling purposes, visit the entities’ websites or social media pages for updated information. For additional events and updates, sign up for the free Canvas e-newsletter at canvascle.com/signup.

MONTHLY ART WALKS AND EVENTS • Canton First Friday: facebook.com/CantonFirstFriday • Walk All Over Waterloo (first Fridays): facebook.com/WaterlooArtsDistrict • Walkabout Tremont: To return, with updates to be posted at facebook.com/WalkaboutTremont • 3rd Thursday Akron: bit.ly/3unfQHL • Ingenuity Cleveland Ignite Neighborhood Nights (third Thursdays): facebook.com/ingenuitycleveland • Third Friday at 78th Street Studios: facebook.com/ 78thstreetstudios MAY 22 Virtual Cleveland Asian Festival: clevelandasianfestival.org/2021 JUNE 4-6 Little Italy Summer Art Walk: bit.ly/3wnKYID 4 - July 7 Valley Art Center’s Art by the Falls: valleyartcenter.org 5-6 Art in the Village with Craft Marketplace: artfestival.com 6 Bath Art Festival: bathartfestival.com 10 - Sept. 9 BAYarts Thursday Market: bayarts.net/events/market 12 Sharon Showcase Art and Music Festival: medinacountyartscouncil.org 26 Wildwood Fine Arts & Wine Festival: bit.ly/3sRzIST

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JULY 8 - Aug. 11 Cleveland International Piano Competition: pianocleveland.org 9-11 Cain Park Arts Festival: cainpark.com 10-11 Rooms to Let CLE: facebook.com/roomstoletcle 18 Art in the Park: medinacountyartleague.com/art-in-the-park 17 Headlands Beach Fest: bit.ly/3cTuu3z 17 Willoughby ArtsFest: willoughbyartsfest.com 17-18 YSU Summer Festival of the Arts: ysu.edu/sfa 22-24 BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival: borderlightcle.org/2021-festival 24-25 Akron Arts Expo: akronartsexpo.org 23 - Sept. 1 Valley Art Center’s Art by the Falls: valleyartcenter.org 24-25 WonderStruck: wonderstruckfest.com AUGUST 7 Lakewood Arts Festival: lakewoodartsfest.org 8 Chardon Square Arts Festival: chardonsquareassociation.org 8 Nature Arts Festival: geaugaparkdistrict.org 14 Art in the Country Festival: ormaco.org/z-art-in-the-country 21 art-A-palooza: cityofgreen.org 21 Painesville Art in the Park: bit.ly/39Xemw6 21-22 Flats Festival of the Arts: artfestival.com 28-29 Cleveland Garlic Festival: clevelandgarlicfestival.org SEPTEMBER 9 - Jan. 2, 2022 Immersive van Gogh Exhibit Cleveland: vangoghcleveland.com 12 Berea Arts Fest: bereaartsfest.org 18 Rocky River Fall Arts Festival: rrparksandrecfoundation.com 18-19 Tremont Arts & Cultural Festival: facebook.com/tremontartsandculturalfestival 21 Music on Porches (Peninsula): bit.ly/2OLvTQq OCTOBER 5-10 Chagrin Documentary Film Festival: chagrinfilmfest.org

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Events Calendar

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ONLINE

Dates of events listed below and on previous page subject to change. To stay connected with frequent updates about events, museum exhibitions and gallery receptions, sign up for the free biweekly Canvas e-newsletter at canvascle.com/signup.

PIANO CLEVELAND 20600 Chagrin Blvd., Suite 1110, Shaker Heights P: 216-707-5397 : pianocleveland.org : PianoCleveland : piano_cleveland : PianoCleveland The Cleveland International Piano Competition, presented by Piano Cleveland, is back! The organization has creatively reimagined the competition, offering virtual and in-person options for audiences to enjoy. The globally recognized competition will present the pinnacle of classical piano artistry from July 8 to Aug. 11, 2021. For more information, visit pianocleveland.org.

2021 Cleveland International Piano Competition Events Virtual First & Second Round: July 8 – July 25 Live & Virtual Semi-Final Round: July 29 – Aug. 1 Live & Virtual Final Chamber Music Round: Aug. 3 & 4 Live & Virtual Final Concerto Round: Aug. 6 & 7 In-Person Bravo Piano Gala: Aug. 8 - 11

classes | gallery | gift shop Classes for all ages, abilities, and mediums.

Spread your wings at

Valley Art Center

Summer Camps!

June 17 - July 31 | Sign up now!

valleyartcenter.org @CanvasCLE

• A transformative augmented reality (AR) experience that is the first of its kind in Cleveland.

• A unique exhibition exploring the forgotten or overwritten histories of Cleveland and its effects on race and neighborhoods.

• 12 Cleveland artists.

• On view in AR in 12 outdoor sites and in The Sculpture Center galleries.

www.sculpturecenter.org/crossroads/

Spring 2021 | Canvas | 35

CURATOR CORNER “Man on Scaffolding, AIDS Project, NYC” by Ken Heyman

By Becky Raspe

E

ven if unintentional, art is created with a message in mind. Whether something abstract, like an emotion or a feeling, or to convey an important religious, political or societal message, artists create to impart their ideas to those who consume their work.

Ken Heyman’s “Man on Scaffolding, AIDS Project, NYC” has its own message, focusing on both the abstract feelings of life, death and everything in between, and how fragile it all can be.

The photograph also zeros in on the more tangible message many heard, or didn’t hear, during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States.

Jeff Katzin, curatorial fellow at the Akron Art Museum, discusses the photo and how complex stories and emotions can be told through a single image of a man sitting on New York City apartment scaffolding in the 1980s.

CANVAS: What makes this piece noteworthy? What stands out to you, and what should viewers note when they see it?

Katzin: With this photograph, I’m amazed how much weight simple information can carry. The year is 1984, and this man has AIDS. Just those few facts and his portrait are enough to set my imagination racing. At that time, reporters and politicians largely avoided discussion of AIDS. I can scarcely comprehend the dire uncertainty this man must have been coping with.

Because AIDS primarily affected gay men, I expect that he faced an additional layer of prejudice. He might have risked outing himself by posing for a photo with this title. Nevertheless, he remains impressively calm and composed. I hope visitors pause for a moment with this photo and feel their own emotional responses to these circumstances.

CANVAS: What response or emotions does this piece evoke?

Katzin: Empathy for this man who meets my gaze with clear eyes and seems to want to share his experience.

Sadness for the painful ordeals he likely went through, and from wondering how much longer he lived after this

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picture was taken. Anger that people with AIDS have often received disdain when they deserve support. A sense that these feelings make urgent demands in a world where disease and identity, sexual or otherwise, remain sources of inequality.

CANVAS: What’s noteworthy about the process the artist employed for this photo?

Katzin: Despite some hard searching, I found barely any information about Ken Heyman’s “AIDS Project” series. Then, right as “Totally Radical” was opening, Heyman’s assistant Adam Stoltman discovered an old project description – the pictures were intended for a book titled “What I Want to Tell You Before I Die of AIDS.” Heyman planned to publish 50 portraits of people with AIDS alongside interview transcripts of whatever they wanted to share. The book was never finished, which is really too bad. Giving people a chance to tell their own stories makes for a compelling project.

CANVAS: How does this piece fit into the artist’s larger body of work?

Katzin: By the 1980s, Heyman was a highly successful photographer working both around the world and in his hometown of New York City. Across all of his work, he shows keen awareness of human relationships, body language and emotions. He possessed all the empathy and interpersonal sensitivity needed to succeed in a project like this one.

CANVAS: What else can you share with us about this piece?

Katzin: In the spirit of Heyman’s original project, I think an excerpt from one of his interviews will be more valuable than anything I could add: “I don’t live to die. I don’t sit and wait for something bad. I do try to work, the little I can, for my head – to keep me thinking – keep my motor running. I try to enjoy whatever I can even though I may be doing it alone. I don’t want to sit and mope. I know that when that happens to you, you fall off the fence on the wrong side. I would like to stay alive as much as possible.”

Photo / Ken Heyman. “Man on Scaffolding, AIDS Project, NYC,” 1984. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Soraya Betterton, Collection of Akron Art Museum 2010.220

ON VIEW

“Man on Scaffolding, AIDS Project, NYC” Artist: Ken Heyman (1930-2019) Details: Taken in 1984; Gelatin silver print, 10.5 x 7.125 inches. Image courtesy of Akron Art Museum.

Acquired: Gift of Soraya Betterton, 2010 Find it: Part of AAM’s permanent collection and on view with three more of Heyman’s portraits in exhibition “Totally Radical: Art and Politics in the 1980s” through Sept. 19.

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LISTINGS MUSEUMS

COLLEGE OF WOOSTER ART MUSEUM

AKRON ART MUSEUM 1 S. High St., Akron P: 330-376-9185 : akronartmuseum.org

ALLEN MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM 87 N. Main St., Oberlin P: 440-775-8665 : oberlin.edu/amam

ARTISTS ARCHIVES OF THE WESTERN RESERVE 1834 E. 123rd St., Cleveland P: 216-721-9020 : ArtistsArchives.org : facebook.com/ ArtistsArchivesoftheWesternReserve

The AAWR invites you to “CONVERGE,” a massive celebration of the Western “Pride-CLE (Detail),” Reserve’s LGBTQ visual arts community, mixed media spanning four exhibition spaces: The assemblage by Greater Cleveland LGBTQ Center, Lake artist Chuck Fischer Erie College, Cleveland MetroHealth and the AAWR Gallery. The show features more than 60 diverse artists working in an exciting range of disciplines and styles. Opens Aug. 26.

THE BUTLER INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN ART 524 Wick Ave., Youngstown P: 330-743-1107 : butlerart.com

CANTON MUSEUM OF ART 1001 Market Ave. N., Canton P: 330-453-7666 : cantonart.org

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF CLEVELAND 3813 Euclid Ave., Cleveland P: 216-791-7114 : cmcleveland.org

CLEVELAND BOTANICAL GARDEN 11030 East Blvd., Cleveland P: 216-721-1600 : cbgarden.org

CLEVELAND HISTORY CENTER 10825 East Blvd., Cleveland P: 216-721-5722 : wrhs.org

CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART 11150 East Blvd., Cleveland P: 216-421-7340 : clevelandart.org

CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 1 Wade Oval Drive, Cleveland P: 216-231-4600 : cmnh.org

1220 Beall Ave., Wooster P: 330-263-2495 : wooster.edu/arts/museum

CRAWFORD AUTO AVIATION COLLECTION The History Center in University Circle 10825 East Blvd., Cleveland P: 216-721-5722 : wrhs.org

GREAT LAKES SCIENCE CENTER 601 Erieside Ave., Cleveland P: 216-694-2000 : greatscience.com

KENT STATE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM Rockwell Hall, 515 Hilltop Drive, Kent P: 330-672-3450 : kent.edu/museum

LAKE VIEW CEMETERY

12316 Euclid Ave., Cleveland P: 216-421-2665 : lakeviewcemetery.com

MALTZ MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE 2929 Richmond Road, Beachwood P: 216-593-0575 : maltzmuseum.org

The Maltz Museum introduces visitors to the beauty and diversity of that heritage in the context of the American experience. It promotes an understanding of Jewish history, religion and culture, and builds bridges of appreciation and understanding with those of other religions, races, cultures and ethnicities. It’s an educational resource for Northeast Ohio’s Jewish and general communities.

MASSILLON MUSEUM 121 Lincoln Way East, Massillon P: 330-833-4061 : massillonmuseum.org : facebook.com/massillonmuseum “Women of Resilience” (through May 23); “A Thrilling Act: The Art of Anthony Eterovich” (June 12 – Sept. 25); “Eterovich Contemporaries” “Portrait of a Woman,” (June 12 – Jan. 2, 2022); “Rebecca Cross: 30 x 22.5, Suspended Animations” (May 8 – June 16); acrylic on paper by “John Chang: In Ink – Transformation of Anthony Eterovich/ Calligraphy” (June 26 – Aug. 11); “Accessible ARTneo Collection Expressions Ohio” (May 1 – June 2); “Canton Artists League” (June 12 – July 25). Free.

MCDONOUGH MUSEUM OF ART 525 Wick Ave., Youngstown P: 330-941-1400 : ysu.edu/mcdonough-museum

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CLEVELAND 11400 Euclid Ave., Cleveland P: 216-421-8671 : mocacleveland.org

Listings are provided by advertisers and as a courtesy to readers.

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Spring 2021 | Canvas | 37

LISTINGS THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME

CLEVELAND PRINT ROOM

THE SCULPTURE CENTER 1834 E. 123rd St., Cleveland P: 216-229-6527 : sculpturecenter.org : thesculpturecenter May 21 – June 26: “Revealed” artists Emily Duke and Kylie Ford, on view in the galleries. July 16 – Sept. 18: “Still We Rise” on view in augmented reality outside in 12 locations and in the galleries. “Still We Rise” explores the forgotten or overwritten histories of Cleveland and their effects on race and neighborhoods.

The Cleveland Print Room wants to advance the art and appreciation of the photographic image in all its forms by providing affordable access to a community darkroom and workspace, gallery exhibitions, educational programs and collaborative outreach.

1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., Cleveland P: 216-781-ROCK (7625) : rockhall.com

2550 Superior Ave., Cleveland P: 216-802-9441 : clevelandprintroom.com : facebook.com/ClevelandPrintRoom

GALLERIES

HUNTINGTON CONVENTION CENTER OF CLEVELAND 300 Lakeside Ave., Cleveland P: 216-920-1449 : clevelandconventions.com The downtown Huntington Convention Center is open, safe and ready to host your next special event. We can handle any event big or small with in-house catering, high-speed internet, top-shelf A/V services, and a direct connection to the Hilton Cleveland Downtown. Call Travis Poppell at 216-9201449 or email tpoppell@clevelandconventions.com.

ARTICLE/ART IN CLEVELAND 15316 Waterloo Road, Cleveland P: 440-655-6954 : facebook.com/artincle Article/Art In Cleveland gallery, studio and classroom in the Waterloo Arts District provides local artists a supportive community environment for creative growth and artistic development. Visit our gallery shows and open studio evenings each first Friday of the month during “Walk All Over Waterloo.” Check our Facebook page for gallery openings and art activities. Artist studio spaces now available.

LEE HEINEN STUDIO 12402 Mayfield Road, Cleveland P: 216-921-4088, 216-469-3288 : leeheinen.com : facebook.com/leeheinen Lee Heinen paints in oil. This work is from a series developed during the pandemic. It represents a pivot from the external world “Aphrodite,” 16 x 16, to an internal world – imagining what may be oil on canvas by going on in people’s heads. Ours is a working Lee Heinen studio in Little Italy, so it’s best to call before a visit.

ARTISANS’ CORNER GALLERY 11110 - 6 Kinsman Road, Newbury P: 440-739-4128 : artisanscornergallery.com : facebook.com/artisanscornergallery Artisans’ Corner Gallery is Geauga County’s premier gallery featuring Ohio artists and craftsmen. Showcasing original artwork, jewelry, woodwork and pottery, the gallery also offers professional custom framing services with 35 years’ experience with superior craftsmanship and creative designs. Be assured you can shop in a beautiful, safe and stress-free environment.

LOGANBERRY

THE SHAKER HISTORICAL MUSEUM 16740 South Park Blvd., Shaker Heights P: 216-921-1201 : shakerhistory.org

CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART 11610 Euclid Ave., Cleveland P: 216-421-7000 : cia.edu : @cleinstituteart CIA’s Reinberger Gallery features emerging and established national artists and hosts popular exhibitions by faculty, students and alumni, and CIA’s Cinematheque is one of the country’s best repertory movie theaters, according to The New York Times. View virtual programming for Reinberger Gallery at cia.edu/virtualvault and stream Cinematheque films at cia.edu/virtual.

Listings are provided by advertisers and as a courtesy to readers.

38 | Canvas | Spring 2021

13015 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Heights P: 216-795-9800 : loganberrybooks.com

Loganberry Books Annex Gallery features a monthly rotation of local artist exhibitions, with an opening reception on the first Wednesday evening of the month.

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Loganberry Books Annex Gallery

13015 Larchmere Blvd  Shaker Heights, OH 44120 www.loganberrybooks.com gallery@logan.com  216.795.9800

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LISTINGS M. GENTILE STUDIOS

1588 E. 40th St., 1A, Cleveland P: 216-881-2818 : mgentilestudios.com

A personalized art resource for individuals, collectors and businesses. We offer assistance in the selection and preservation of artwork in many media. Our archival custom framing services are complemented by our skill in the installation of two- and three-dimensional artwork in a variety of residential and corporate settings.

TRICIA KAMAN STUDIO/GALLERY School House Galleries in Little Italy 2026 Murray Hill Road, Unit 202, Cleveland P: 216-559-6478 : triciakaman.com : facebook.com/ TriciaKamanArtStudioAndGallery Tricia’s studio/gallery is housed in the Historic Little Italy Schoolhouse building. The studio features Tricia’s original oil paintings and limited edition “William’s Giclee and canvas prints. Also available are gift Portrait,” certificates, cards and calendars. She offers 20 x 16, freehand custom-cut silhouettes which make for a pastel by special and unique gift. Visits are welcome by Tricia Kaman appointment.

UNCOMMON ART

134 N. Main St., Hudson 234-284-9019 : uncommonarthudson.com : facebook.com/ uncommonarthudson NEW LOCATION! Uncommon ART offers an eclectic mix of handmade jewelry, mixed media art and fine craft from 24 Northeast Ohio artists. Whether you visit online or in person, you’re sure to find a unique treasure for a gift or your home! Artist owned since 2016. Open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

EVENTS NORTHCOAST PROMOTIONS, INC. P.O. Box 609401, Cleveland P: 216-570-8201 : northcoastpromo.com Northcoast Promotions, Inc. specializes in art shows, craft fairs and festivals. Please visit us at Walkabout Tremont Second Fridays, Third Fridays at 78th Street Studios, every Saturday at Old Firehouse Winery, Makers Town every Sunday at Saucy Brew Works Vibe Garden from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and the Tremont Farmers Market May 11 to Oct. 12. Visit our website for more events and details.

FRIENDS OF CANVAS CLEVELAND ISRAEL ARTS CONNECTION Jewish Federation of Cleveland E: israelarts@jcfcleve.org : jewishcleveland.org/israelarts The Cleveland Israel Arts Connection Spring & Summer 2021 Season features the finest in Israeli film, documentary, theater, dance, music, visual art and literature. A digital copy is available at jewishcleveland.org/israelarts. Please join the Cleveland Israel Arts Connection Facebook page for additional opportunities to experience Israeli arts.

VALLEY ART CENTER

155 Bell St., Chagrin Falls P: 440-247-7507 : valleyartcenter.org

The hub of the visual arts in the Chagrin Valley, providing local communities with art classes, exhibits and fine art shopping for almost 50 years. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes, workshops and summer camps for students, from children to seniors, beginner to seasoned professional.

YOUNG’S ART CENTER 22084 Lorain Road, Fairview Park 44126 P: 216-370-2414 : YoungsArtCenter.com : facebook.com/YoungsArtCenter Available studio space to rent on the second floor. Summer Art Markets May to September, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. on the second Sunday of the month. Featuring family yoga from 1 to 2 p.m. Summer Mini Art Camps dates June 21 – 25, July 12 – 30. Community Challenge Week Aug. 2 - 6. Rube Goldberg Machine Contest Aug. 7.

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A Theatre Festival for a Changed World July 22-24, 2021 Cleveland, OH Live Outdoor + Open Air Performances with Select Virtual Programming www.BorderLightCLE.org Spring 2021 | Canvas | 39

:

SCHOOL REDEFINED Get ready to learn more!

On-campus and virtual tours are available.

We are offering in-person individual family tours and virtual tours for all campuses.

To schedule, call 440.423.2950 (Lower & Middle School), 216.251.2321 (Birchwood School), 440.423.2955 (Upper School), or 440.423.8801 (Mastery School).

COEDUCATIONAL, TODDLER – GRADE 12 Lyndhurst

hawken.edu

Cleveland–West

Gates Mills

University Circle