CityBeat | February 2021

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In the Walk This Way Exhibition,

Shoes Do the Walking and the Talking The Taft Museum of A rt’s upcoming exhibition traces human stories and social movements through footwear.

By Madge Maril

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NEWS

Anti-racism signs dot Xavier University’s campus.

P H OTO : X AV I E R U N I V E R S I T Y

Xavier University Investigates Vandalism from Suspected White Supremacists The January 30 incidents happened just as Southern Poverty Law Center released its 2021 report about hate groups in Ohio.

BY A L L I S O N B A B K A A N D L EE D E V I TO

A

fter discovering campus vandalism by white supremacists, Xavier University has one message: “These incidents were an attack on our community.”

Xavier president Michael Graham, S.J., shared those words in a statement to the university on Feb. 1 about hateful stickers and destruction of property found on campus in January.

The Xavier Newswire, the university’s independent student newspaper, reports

that Xavier University Police and the school’s Bias Advisory and Response Team (BART) are investigating incidents that included a slashed Black Lives Matter banner and numerous stickers promoting Patriot Front, a white nationalist group, posted throughout campus.

The stickers read “America is not for sale,” “Conquered, not stolen,” “Reclaim America” and “Better dead than red,” the Newswire reports.

The 2021 Xavier Police Crime and

Fire Log shows entries of “criminal mischief” and “criminal damaging” both at Bellarmine Chapel and the Campus Services Building for Jan. 30.

The Newswire reports that university officials sent campus community members an alert about the incidents, saying, in part, “Xavier is aware that material from a group that advocates extremist ideologies (were found on campus)… and that a Black Lives Matter sign was vandalized… XUPD has removed the material and is investigating the situation. Hate has no home in the Xavier community.”

Graham condemned the incidents in his statement.

“As a University we shall continue to denounce these acts. And as our president, I will continue to unequivocally declare my belief – our belief – that Racism is a Sin and BLACK LIVES MATTER. You can be sure, as well, that we will investigate these crimes. Let me also assure you that we will leverage all of our resources to care for the safety and wellbeing of all our community members, in particular our Black students,

staff, and faculty. These responses are, of course, not nearly enough,” Graham said.

[All emphasis is Graham’s.]

Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups within the United States, describes Patriot Front as “an imageobsessed organization that rehabilitated the explicitly fascist agenda of Vanguard America with garish patriotism. Patriot Front focuses on theatrical rhetoric and activism that can be easily distributed as propaganda for its chapters across the country.”

In its 2021 “Year in Hate and Extremism” report, released Feb. 1, and on its “Hate Map,” SPLC identifies that there were 21 hate groups in Ohio during 2020, with some operating in Cincinnati and others operating in multiple locations.

Patriot Front is listed in the report as having multiple groups throughout the Buckeye State.

According to the report, the SPLC identified 838 active hate groups operating across the United States in 2020 — a

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NEWS

Vandals slashed a Black Lives Matter sign at Xavier University.

P H OTO : X AV I E R U N I V E R S I T Y

FROM PAGE 5

decrease from the 940 documented in 2019 and the record-high 1,020 in 2018.

The authors caution this just means many organized hate groups have migrated online, a move exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, where they’re more difficult to track.

The violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 further points to the mainstreaming of hate groups, the authors say, as does a recent — and rare — National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that warns of a heightened threat of domestic terrorism from militia groups.

“The number of active hate groups in the SPLC census, conducted each year since 1990, is a barometer of extremism in the country, but not the only one – and the drop from the previous year does not signal a decline in extremist activity or the threat of domestic terrorism,” the SPLC says in a statement.

“The insurrection at the Capitol was the culmination of years of right-wing radicalization,” Susan Corke, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, says in a statement. “Most recently, it was the product of Donald Trump’s support for and encouragement of radicalized individuals and groups to buy into conspiracy theories about a ‘stolen election.’”

According to the report, in a survey conducted in August, 29 percent of respondents said they personally know someone who believes that white people are the superior race. The poll also found that 51 percent of Americans thought the looting that occurred in several cities amid Black Lives Matter protests was a bigger problem than police violence against Black people.

The SPLC does not consider Black Lives Matter to be a hate group. According to an FAQ page on its website, “While its critics claim that Black Lives Matter’s very name is anti-white, this criticism misses the point. Black lives matter because black lives have been marginalized for far too long. As BLM puts it, the movement stands for ‘the simple proposition that ‘black lives

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also matter.’”

The SPLC defines a hate group as an organization or collection of individuals that “has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics. An organization does not need to have engaged in criminal conduct or have followed their speech with actual unlawful action to be labeled a hate group. We do not list individuals as hate groups, only organizations.”

It adds, “The organizations on our hate group list vilify others because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity – prejudices that strike at the heart of our democratic values and fracture society along its most fragile fault lines.”

The SPLC’s definition is similar to the FBI’s criteria for hate crimes: “[A] criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”

The SPLC defined “groups” as having members who pay dues or make donations or participate in meetings and rallies.

But the organization notes that many groups decreased in-person activity because of the pandemic, and also noted a crackdown of social media companies like Twitter and Facebook kicking groups off their platforms, forcing them into secret, encrypted text message groups and other alternative forums.

The report notes the Ku Klux Klan appears to be collapsing. According to the report, last year Klan chapters shrunk to 25, down from 47 in 2019, while in the past, there were typically about 150 chapters in a given year. But in the shadow of the KKK, new groups have emerged, including the Proud Boys, who vandalized historically Black churches in Washington, D.C., during a pro-Trump demonstration in December. According to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal, the Proud Boys were “key instigators” in the Capitol riot.

Read the report at splcenter.org.

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Planned Parenthood Adds Services for Trans People

BY R AC H E L S M IT H

Planned Parenthood now provides specialized healthcare services for transgender residents of Ohio, which could also entice more patients from beyond state borders.

Genderaffirming hormone therapy is available at four local health Planned Parenthood centers, according P H OTO : DA N I E L L E S C H U ST E R to a recent release

by Planned already having a positive impact for our Parenthood Southwest Ohio. The new community and beyond,” Liner adds. services, which were implemented A few transgender people shared in late 2020, have since been utilized their experience with Planned by 39 patients across the region as of Parenthood Southwest Ohio in the mid-January. release.

The decision to offer more “They made the process extremely personalized care to transgender easy and made sure I understood patients was inspired by recent everything about the process and research into how LGBTQ+ changes,” says one transgender communities—especially people who patient, who received genderare transgender—can be underserved affirming hormone therapy at Planned or discriminated against in a healthcare Parenthood Southwest Ohio. “They setting. didn’t talk to me like I was unsure and When it comes to policy protection, they did not make me second guess.” the LGBT Movement Advancement This kind of care “couldn’t have Project scores Ohio low in sexualitycome at a better time” for 60-year-old and gender-based equality. In Andie Hock, an advocate for southwest addition, Ohio’s 2015 U.S. Transgender Ohio’s LGBTQ+ community and a trans Survey reported 25% of respondents person. experienced a problem in the past year “I was so excited to hear [about the with their health insurance related to launch] because I know so many their being transgender, and 32% of people are in need of more options. those who saw a health care provider We have a few providers, but there is in the past year reported having at least so much room to grow before we say one negative experience related to their there’s sufficient amount of access,” being transgender.

Hock says in the release.

According to Planned Parenthood, According to Hock, many access to gender-affirming hormone transgender patients do not feel therapy breaks down existing barriers comfortable in a healthcare setting that prevent transgender patients from due to fear of mistreatment and the receiving proper care. feeling of exposure. Hock says Planned “We have been working toward Parenthood’s launch of its new services providing this service to our patients will help many transgender Ohio for a couple of years as we know residents. that, despite there being wonderful “Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio providers already offering this care, is making a great effort to personalize there is still a need to bridge the gap the care they are offering, which is the for those who have been left out of beginning of eliminating barriers to representation in health care,” Sharon care for trans people,” Hock says.

Liner, M.D., medical director of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio, says in the release.

Learn more at “We are seeing confirmation through plannedparenthood.org/ patient response that our work is planned-parenthood-southwest-ohio.

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In the Walk This Way Exhibition,

Shoes Do the Walking and the Talking The Taft Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition traces human stories and social movements through footwear.

By Madge Maril

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All Photos: Glenn Castellano, New York Historical Society.

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T

he upcoming Taft Museum of Art exhibition Walk This Way is as much a showcase of improbability as it is a collection of historical shoes.

Shoes haven’t always been made to last — not for a decade, and certainly not for hundreds of years. But some certainly do, which leads to the coincidental way the exhibition’s 100-plus pairs came together.

“It was started by accident,” says Stuart Weitzman, prolific shoe designer and owner of the collection.

“My wife would buy me an appropriate gift at birthday time or for Valentine’s Day, like I would do for her, and I generally would return them because either they were too small or I didn’t like them. After about six ties, I decided to convince her I don’t wear ties. So the next few, she bought an antique shoe, and that was great.”

One shoe turned to many, many more, including early-1800s satin wedding shoes, silk boudoir shoes created for the 1867 International Exposition in Paris, and 1940s leather and suede pumps signed by the New York Yankees (an odd yet amazing entry, even for this exhibition).

“At every occasion, when a gift might be appropriate, she found another antique shoe,” Weitzman says. “Then we both started filling them in with wonderful pieces, and that’s how the collection happened — started by accident, and then it became quite serious.”

Jane Gershon Weitzman’s gift-turned-family collection, since organized by the New-York Historical Society, opens as an exhibition at Taft’s Fifth Third Gallery on Feb. 27.

“For me, it’s a very multi-layered exhibition,” says Ann Glasscock, assistant curator at the Taft Museum of Art. “There’s really a focus on women’s contributions as makers, buyers, designers, and entrepreneurs. I think visitors will be both very happy with the shoes that they see and also pleasantly surprised by the rich and perhaps unexpected stories that we tell throughout the exhibition.”

After all, a shoe isn’t just a shoe, particularly when it’s one of the vintage or antique pieces from the collection’s nearly 200-year span.

In showcasing these shoes, the museum invites guests to imagine the stories of those who walked in them, cared for them, and lived their lives wearing them, whether it’s a pair by Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, or, yes, Stuart Weitzman.

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“There are a lot of great shoes in the exhibition that tell these stories,” Glasscock tells CityBeat. “Guests will see shoes that suffragists would’ve worn as they marched through the streets.

There are these leather, high-button boots, spectator pumps, lace-up shoes — the types of shoes that those women would’ve worn in the early 1900s.

Within our presentation section, there is a section on suffrage, so that’s more of the multiple layers that we’re getting into here.”

With each layer peeled back, there’s something more to be seen, and the stories become more defined.

“In terms of labor activism, we have a beautiful black beaded shoe that has the stamp of the shoemaker’s union on the bottom, and that gives us a chance to tell all these stories about women who were active in trade unions, like the Daughters of St. Crispin or the International Boot & Shoe Workers Union, and how they really participated in strikes to protest low wages and poor treatment,” Glasscock continues.

“This was kind of radical for its time, for women. And so for that single shoe — that black, beaded shoe — it gives us a chance to tell that story.”

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“And there’s some other great shoes by female designers, because our industry was not an opportunity for female designers, even though we were making shoes for ladies,” adds Weitzman. “Eventually, two or three women became very renowned in footwear. We have shoes in the collection by Margaret Jerrold, who was maybe the first one who made a big mark. She was an American manufacturer — her husband actually was the shoemaker — and Beth Levine is the other.” (Glasscock notes that the exhibition will have a pair by Edouard Jerrold, Inc., specifically.)

Beyond history on women’s labor activism, suffrage, and the sexual revolution — all told through shoes and all detailed throughout the exhibition — Glasscock and team dig deeper into

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shoe-specific narratives via Taft’s “More To The Story” labels, a newer addition to the museum’s traditional labeling system.

“These labels really help tell stories about underrepresented or misrepresented people throughout history,” Glasscock explains, noting that there are 10 “More To The Story” labels “sprinkled throughout” the Walk This Way exhibition. Find them, and you’ll find a snapshot worth seeing: red, thigh-high boots from the musical Kinky Boots give way to the history of the first drag queen, who Glasscock says lived in Washington D.C. in the late 1800s. The pumps signed by the Yankees lead to a discussion about the color barrier in baseball.

“These labels are really wonderful in

that they allow us to take a deeper dive into different and perhaps unexpected avenues throughout history,” Glasscock adds.

That said, there are shoes in the exhibition that remain personal to the Weitzman family, regardless of their connection to broader moments in time.

“There’s a shoe that was created by my father, and it’s an example of his talent. Some of it I suppose kind of rubbed off on me,” Weitzman says, referring to his father and fellow shoemaker Seymour Weitzman.

“We were at an event at Nordstrom in Seattle, where our company was being awarded for the business that we generated together, and my wife went out shopping with my two kids in Seattle, sort of a cool town then, and found a pair of shoes in a box.”

Another odds-defying stroke of fate: it was a Seymour Weitzman box, with midcentury Seymour Weitzman-brand shoes inside of it.

“I had never seen that shoe, and she gave it to me — it’s a beautiful, spike heel, pointed toe, lace-up, but a very sexy lace-up. It’s a play on a shoe that’s traditionally a low heel, an Oxfordtype shoe, and is made into a very high heel,” Weitzman says. “It’s not the kind of design that I saw throughout my career, it just isn’t. I don’t know why, because it really is very, very sexy, with a very dipped side. Before the ribbon wore out, it was laced with a beautiful silk satin ribbon. And of course, with that toe, and that heel! He made it look great, he did a good job with that one.”

As it turns out, excelling at shoe design runs in the family. Weitzman says that while he worked a few summers with his father and older

brother at a factory his dad had set up, his career-defining moment arrived by way of a friend, whose father also owned a shoe factory.

“He saw how nicely I drew, and he said, ‘My dad doesn’t design shoes, he buys ideas from the outside. He has his own factories. He’s a good shoemaker, and that’s how he creates his collections. Maybe he’ll buy something from you,’” Weitzman recalls.

“And sure enough, he did. He bought 19 sketches from me the first time I met him,” Weitzman continues. “And I’ll tell you, I didn’t know what I was gonna even suggest as the price. He says, ‘I’ll give you 20 bucks a sketch.’ That was $380, and my tuition at the Wharton School was $3,700. And those sketches took me less than an hour. I mean, I’d just made 10% of my tuition, and wow, maybe I ought to try this for a living.”

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So then, how does something like a shoe — inconsequential to some, a fashion statement to others — become museum-worthy art, something that would be featured in a traveling exhibition? It’s a broad-strokes question often pondered by the fashion community at large, like how a piece becomes a political statement, or how something you wear now might connect to the larger fluctuations of history.

Sometimes, these latter two are easier to spot. Weitzman points to the high-button shoes often associated with the Victorian era.

“1915 to [19]20, women’s dresses started to rise. Maybe it was practicality — they wanted to keep the edges clean — and they were being more liberalized, so they were doing things on their own and men weren’t, like, carrying them over a puddle, so to speak,” Weitzman says. “And it created a real moral crisis with their families because their ankles were now showing. The high-button shoe was made to allow you to wear a skirt, say, 12 inches above your ankle and not

show any skin.”

But quantifying Art with a capital A is a bit trickier.

“I think a lot of things are exhibit-worthy. And if you have something that tells a good story, you’ve got a great start,” Glasscock says. “The wonderful thing about the shoes and boots and this exhibition is that they all tell stories. I also find that objects that are really well-made are art, in my opinion. For example, one of the first pairs of shoes that guests will encounter is a pair of silk boudoir shoes created especially for the 1867 Paris Universal exhibition. A skilled artisan made and embroidered this pair by hand, with this beautiful embroidery.”

“Some clothing is art. Downtown in the SoHo area of Manhattan, there was a great store called Wearable Art. Every piece was one of a kind. Every piece was unique. Some were beautifully done, some were outrageous, and some were ugly, but they were all very artistic,” adds Weitzman.

“Why can’t a consumer product be a work of art?” he asks. “It can. And many of them end up in the Smithsonian or other museums in Washington as examples of the perfect design. There’s a fountain pen that Elsa Peretti created that you’d want to wear in your shirt pocket just to show off the top half of the pen. Listen, a lot of people paint, a lot of it becomes good art, most of it doesn’t. The same thing with consumer product.”

But… why shoes? Why not paintings, or pens, or any other type of products?

Weitzman brings up the movie Forrest Gump. After pointing out that “Life is like a box of chocolates” is, of course, the most famous quote, Weitzman notes one he found “equally as prophetic” from the title character.

“He was sitting on that bench, waiting to go see Jenny, waiting for the bus with that lady next to him. And a man was walking by, and he spotted this man, maybe 100 feet to his right.

And he never took his eyes off his feet.

The man passed him, and continued up the road. And the woman said to him, ‘Forrest, why were you watching that man’s feet?’ And he said, ‘Oh, my mama told me that you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where they’ve been and where they’re going,’” recalls Weitzman. “I always felt that about footwear, and it intrigued me to be able to create product that a woman could use to make herself a little bit who she wasn’t for a little bit of time of the day or night.”

Ultimately, visitors get to be the judge of it all — the art, the politics, and the shoes — when they experience Walk This Way. And the curators share that coordinating, opening, and showing an exhibition during a global pandemic is defying many odds.

“Because of COVID, capacity is limited at the exhibition, so we do require guests to purchase their tickets in advance, at least until further notice,”

notes Glasscock.

Beyond abiding by health and safety protocols for in-person guests — safety guidelines are available on the museum’s website — the Taft is stepping into the digital arena with virtual museum tours and programming tied to the exhibition.

“We’re definitely doing everything we can to get people involved and make sure that everyone’s safe,” Glasscock says.

It’s well worth a visit, either in person or through one of the virtual avenues. When talking to Weitzman and Glasscock, one is reminded how miraculous it is that these historical pieces have survived through decades of genuine wear and tear: “Footwear has a tendency to selfdestruct over a certain number of years.

Not like paintings that are protected or sculptures that are forever,” Weitzman says. “And what you will see when the exhibition opens is that life’s work.”

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Walk This Way opens Feb. 27 and runs through June 6.

Learn more at taftmuseum.org.

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Future Retrieval Looks to the Past to Create Pieces for Contemporary Times

ARTS & CULTURE

The art duo’s Close Parallel exhibition launches this month at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

BY M AC K E N Z I E M A N L E Y

K

atie Parker and Guy Michael Davis – aka art duo (and married couple) Future Retrieval – spent most of 2020 creating art for their solo exhibition Close Parallel for the Cincinnati Art Museum, which opens Feb. 26.

It’s the biggest show of their lives, they say — one that has been years in the making.

After years in Cincinnati, the pair moved to Arizona in late June of 2020.

In many ways, Close Parallel represents the nexus of their time in the Queen City. The exhibition contextualizes ceramics selected from the museum’s permanent collection with the duo’s contemporary works.

And like much of Future Retrieval’s body of work, natural forms are explored: A vulture lurches atop a troop of mushrooms, cast in porcelain; a pair of rhesus monkeys gaze at one another in wool shag; various flora and fauna stretch, swirl and slink on hand-cut paper, vases and tile.

Their collaborative studio practice first formed in 2008. At the time, they were working with two other artists in Columbus, Ohio under the moniker Nonfiction Design Collective. That group split when Parker and Davis accepted positions at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design Architecture, Art and Planning, but Parker and Davis continued working together.

“I was really interested in pattern, and he was really interested in clean, simple forms,” Parker says. “I’d start decorating his forms and then he would start making forms for me to decorate. Slowly it came to where we were developing concepts and making everything from start to finish, maybe not hand in hand, but the ideas and the concepts from then forward.”

By 2011, the pair had a show at the Taft Museum of Art downtown. The collaboration stuck – and so did the name Future Retrieval, coined after a term Parker and Davis found on their student loan forms.

Future Retrieval has since shown at a number of solo and group exhibitions locally and beyond.

They’ve also completed several residencies, including at Rookwood Pottery, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, a stay at laspis – a studio in Stockholm, Sweden – and, most recently, at Lloyd Library and Museum in 2019.

And now the duo is ready for their Close Parallel exhibition for the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Amy Dehan, CAM curator of decorative arts and design, says in a release that she loves how museums and archives are integral to Future Retrieval’s work, which takes on an interdisciplinary approach.

“They find inspiration from the past, and in referencing it and paying reverence, they create something completely new, propelling it into the contemporary,” says Dehan, who toured Parker and Davis Katie Parker and Guy Michael Davis of Future Retrieval through the museum’s P H OTO : P ROV I D E D storage vaults for the show. They chose table based on the designs of French pieces ranging from the 18th to early sculptor Bernard Turreau and pieces 20th century that shared a likeness with from Elkington & Co., an English silver their own art, which date between 2014 manufacturer. and 2020.

“Amy was just pulling trays. We were From the museum’s archives, works looking at what’s there, at furniture, and chosen include Art Deco furniture just quickly and intuitively responding from Paul Frankel, a Meissen tureen, a

to different pieces,” Parker says of the process. “We took photos, went back to our studio and started to talk about ‘How can we use these pieces? How could they work with ideas we have?’”

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VISUAL ARTS

Taft Museum Is in the Presidential Spotlight

BY H A N N A H G WY N N E

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A painting by a 19th-century artist who was based in Cincinnati recently was in the spotlight after the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

For the traditional Inaugural Luncheon on Jan. 20, First Lady Jill Biden chose to display “Landscape with a Rainbow” by Robert S. Duncanson, an African-American artist who was active in Cincinnati in the 1840s-50s, shortly before the Civil War began.

The luncheon has been a postinauguration tradition since 1981 and involves the President and their family choosing a painting to adorn the wall in the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building.

The Taft Museum of Art, located on Pike Street in Cincinnati, has eight landscape murals by Duncanson that were commissioned by Nicolas Longworth in 1850. The museum used to be a residential home, and Duncanson painted the murals for Longworth, not knowing they’d remain for hundreds of years.

Tamera Muente, associate curator at Taft, tells CityBeat she was thrilled to learn that Dr. Biden chose to display Duncanson’s work during the luncheon.

“A lot of people in Cincinnati don’t really know about him,” she says. “The national attention is really exciting. Those of us who know about Duncanson and his work really want his story to be known.”

Duncanson lived during a time of turbulence and violence leading up to the Civil War. His paintings, however, often depicted peaceful, natural scenes of beauty. Duncanson completed “Landscape with a Rainbow” in 1859.

“I feel like this might be one of the reasons why Dr. Biden selected

the painting,” Muente says. “Here’s someone who is achieving something remarkable, an African-American artist against the odds, painting such beautiful imagery during a time of great crisis.”

“It’s an example of the power of art and the power of beauty during these really difficult times,” she adds.

Mostly self-taught, Duncanson was the first African-American artist to achieve an international reputation.

He was born in New York, grew up in Michigan and traveled to Cincinnati to pursue painting as a young man.

Eventually, he was inspired to become a landscape painter after seeing the work of Thomas Cole.

The beauty of the Ohio River Valley entranced the young artist, and many of his landscapes were based on the scenery around Cincinnati. Eventually, he traveled to Europe, where he studied master paintings in person and met other artists. He returned to Cincinnati for a brief time but fled in 1863 during the Civil War. He was more than a refugee during this time, though. Traveling to Montreal, the United Kingdom and Scotland, Duncanson used his time away as an opportunity to improve his skills. He sold paintings to the King of Sweden and even met Queen Victoria.

Duncanson’s legacy lives on in Cincinnati today. In 1986, the Taft Museum of Art established the Duncanson Artist-in-Residence Program to honor contemporary Black artists.

Learn more about Duncanson and the Taft Museum of Art at taftmuseum.org.

CULTURE

Cincinnati Pride Cancels 2021 Festival and Parade

BY A L L I S O N BA B K A

Cincinnati celebrates the LGBTQ+ community at Pride.

P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

Cincinnati Pride is cancelling its major in-person Pride celebrations for 2021.

In a Feb. 1 Facebook post, Benjamin Morano, Cincinnati Pride’s festival and parade chairperson, says the organization’s board of directors concluded that large in-person events don’t support health initiatives to slow the spread of the coronavirus during the ongoing pandemic.

“We know these events are very important to our community. However, our main consideration is and always will be the health and safety of all attendees and volunteers,” the post reads.

“In good conscience, we cannot continue to plan for these events in a manner that reinforces those beliefs, given the continued trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic. We felt it was important to decide now before our community’s planning and eventual disappointment continue to grow.”

While the parade and festival won’t be happening this year, Morano says that the board is planning to host both

virtual and smaller in-person events that will celebrate Pride and build community.

“We are dedicated to finding new and innovative ways of celebrating Pride this year. We will be bringing various online content, as well as very small socially-distanced experiences and events, which we will announce to you in the coming months,” Morano says in the post.

Cincinnati Pride also canceled its 2020 celebration amid coronavirus concerns, initially postponing the event to later in the year but ultimately aborting as COVID-19 cases in the region continued to rise.

“Given the constant threat of COVID19, it is not in the best interest of the community in which we serve to have such a large event that places tens of thousands of attendees at such high risk for spreading this potentially deadly virus,” Morano said last year.

Learn more at cincinnatipride.org.

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Davis says that they have always admired Meissen, the first European hard-paste porcelain. When they found the Meissen candler tureen, it had a mysterious air about it. Supposedly, it was a gift from Saxony to the Queen of Naples that eventually landed in the basement of CAM. “It may not be what it is. It may be a fake. It may not even have that entire story at all, we don’t really know,” Davis says, with Parker noting that the piece had a crack in its bottom. They ran the tureen through photogrammetry software with the hopes of giving it new life. But every 3-D model created produced a crack in the same spot. The imperfection could not be corrected, despite centuries between the piece and the duo. The process was quite literally, parallel with history.

“One of the Elkington pieces we had picked turned out [to be] a copy of a copy. And so, it’s this idea of reproducibility,” Parker says, “and how, 250 years later working with some of these objects, we still can’t fix the problems they couldn’t fix, even with technology.”

They returned to CAM several times, including right before their move to Arizona, where Parker took a position as assistant director and associate professor at Arizona State University.

Much of the coordination, however, was taken online due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

And in October, another aspect of their lives shifted: Parker and Davis had twins.

“I don’t know if it is visible to people when they see the show. But a few pieces were made prior to whenever we went underground (due to the pandemic),” Davis says. “But several of the pieces that were made afterward were probably unconsciously doomsday looking. Things got darker!”

Though not planned, Davis said there’s a room about the sun and another about the moon.

“It wasn’t until the experience happened and we look back on it,” Davis said. “We were like, ‘Whoa, there’s really a night and day here.”

Parker adds that the glazes and forms evolved.

“There’s vultures; there’s mushrooms.

It’s like this decay or abandonment,” she says. “The last piece we made was a screen. I was thinking maybe we made this screen because we moved to this tiny house; we can’t get away from each other. There’s no place to have our meetings and work.”

They made what they were experiencing, Davis says, and screens are about dividing people. But, as Parker notes, the pandemic also gave them time and space to “hole up and

make a show” uninterrupted.

The resources they were able to tap for materials also changed. Once in Arizona, their scenario shifted again.

“We work at home. We built a little building out back,” Davis says. “We don’t have access to the things that we’re comfortable with. And we don’t have the time that we had and the work is changing, based on what we can get. I kind of love that.”

The duo’s body of work has a feeling unique to Cincinnati, having watered their roots here for over a decade. To have the biggest show of their lives to date on the heels of their move and amid a global pandemic is certainly bittersweet. Though Parker and Davis won’t be able to attend the show’s opening at CAM, they hope to visit in May. One consolation? Had they remained at their home in Northside, they’d still be meeting mostly over Zoom to hash the rest of the show out. Along with countless meetings, Parker says CAM mailed them “giant paint books” and showed them mock-ups to figure out how to paint the gallery. The installation team sent pictures from the warehouses as they built things and as they arranged the pieces in the galleries.

As Parker points out: “It all works again.” It’s just a new way of working compared to a “normal” year.

“The support (from the museum and community) was amazing. Just to be able to have that opportunity to put ourselves in some type of a lineage,” Davis says. “We call the show Close Parallel. And that’s because we’re running so closely to things that are kind of constant. And we’re aligning ourselves with these [historical pieces].

And so it’s really an honor, in a way, to be able to pair ourselves with some of these things that we love so much.”

It may very well be the final chapter of their Cincinnati years. Now living in an entirely new biome, Parker says their work will evolve. The duo describes their new surroundings as dry, rough, gritty, dusty and sharp. Arizona’s museum collections are also less Euro-centric.

In the end, Parker says it felt amazing to reach out to all the local resources – framers, fabricators, Neonworks of Cincinnati, powder coaters and others – they’ve worked with to finalize the work for Close Parallel.

“It’s something we’re so crazy proud of,” Parker says. “And just everyone coming up with every solution possible to make it work.” Housed in the Vance Waddell and Mayerson Galleries at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Close Parallel will be on view Feb. 26-Aug. 29.

Admission is free.

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Learn more at cincinnatiartmuseum.org.

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FOOD & DRINK

The Hangover at Yucca.

P H O T O : F R A N C I S C O H U E R TA

Yucca Promises Brunch with a Novel Latin-American Flair Jeremy Faeth’s second restaurant will take cues from Covington brunch spot Cedar with fresh ingredients and unexpected combinations.

BY M EG B O LT E

A

layer of spicy chorizo rests underneath a blanket of sunny-side eggs. Beneath those are the homemade, steaming breakfast potatoes. The fresh jalapeño compliments the creaminess of the avocado slices and the tang of the house-made pico de gallo.

This made-from-scratch dish is called The Hangover, and it’s one of the most popular dishes at Covington brunch restaurant Cedar. It’s also one of the

inspiration dishes behind an upcoming new restaurant.

Jeremy Faeth, the co-owner and executive chef at Cedar, will soon debut his second Northern Kentucky restaurant Yucca. Like Cedar, Yucca will be open for breakfast, brunch and lunch, but with a Latin-American twist.

When deciding how to craft their new menu, the team – Faeth, his dad Tony Faeth, and staff — drew inspiration from Cedar.

“We looked at our menu we have now at Cedar, and we just looked at what’s been successful, what’s not been successful, and really our most successful dishes are the Latininfluenced dishes,” Faeth says.

Faeth, who is launching the business with his father, decided to create the new brunch spot after noticing an absence of that particular style in the area.

“We said ‘Who does Latin-American breakfast?’ You know, I can’t think of any. We can build a whole entire restaurant and menu around this food and be very successful, we think,” Faeth says.

Faeth’s approach to food elevates classic dishes through local, madefrom-scratch elements, like spreading homemade bacon jam and green olivegarlic aioli on their house Cedar Burger, and serving their sandwiches on bread from Sixteen Bricks, a local artisan bakery. With funky combinations like coconut rum-marinated salmon and spicy candied bacon in cocktails,

omelets topped with shrimp and crab cream sauce, or serving macaroni and cheese for breakfast, it’s clear the Faeths are bringing fresh ideas to the table.

“You know, I always say that there’s nothing on our menu that’s out of bounds and crazy. You look at our ingredients top to bottom, A to Z, there’s nothing you’re like, ‘Wow I can’t believe they’re working with that really strange ingredient.’ All of our ingredients are pretty normal stuff,” Faeth says.

When it comes to crafting the perfect menu, Faeth says sometimes you remarkably get the dish right on the first try, like his team did with Cedar’s tomato bisque recently. Other times, he says, it can take a couple hundred rounds. The team downed a lot of subpar Bloody Marys on the hunt for the perfect mix.

While Yucca’s menu will have similar elements to that of its sister restaurant, the team is also working on developing

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CONTINUES ON PAGE 21

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THE DISH

Farmer Nate’s Hot Sauce Spices Up Greater Cincinnati

BY S E A N M . P E T E RS

Like it spicy? Farmer Nate’s Sauce Co. premiered its first line of locally harvested and processed hot sauces in December.

Nathanael Nunemaker is new to farming, but he jumped right in with his boots on. Before he began introducing himself to the public as Farmer Nate, Nunemaker worked as a photographer and videographer. These days, however, he’s busy prepping crops and working out new hot sauce recipes in anticipation of the next harvest.

Although farming has been a personal goal his entire life, he describes himself as a city boy getting his hands dirty.

“With quarantine and COVID-19, my work as a freelance photographer slowed down. So [farming] was pushed a little more by COVID, but it’s been a strategy of mine to get into this industry for years,” Nunemaker says.

When asked why he specifically chose to market hot sauce, Nunemaker said it was a way to preserve the massive amounts of peppers and other vegetables he harvested in Covington.

“The first thought to come to mind was hot sauce ... I love hot sauce. I bought some cheap dropper bottles from Amazon and I gave them to my friends,” Nunemaker says. “I fell in love with the process and became obsessed with flavor profiles and textures.”

“There is something rewarding about creating something physical from scratch,” Nunemaker continues. “Since it started with a garden in Covington, the transition into commercial farming has actually been extremely easy for me because I didn’t know anything else before or have any expectations. So, now that I’m on a farm, I’m able to do things that cater towards Farmer Nate’s Sauce Co. and build around that.”

Over the past year, Nunemaker has become a farmhand for a friend/ mentor in Piner, Kentucky. In exchange, they’ve given him a plot of land to grow on, and he’s preparing that plot for the 2021 growing season. Just as a seed grows into a vegetable, Nunemaker’s interest in commercial farming bloomed as he saw the potential yields he could harvest from less than half an acre of growing space.

“Ten months ago, I was just excited my plants were growing. Since then I’ve put a lot of time into it and tested a plethora of different methods. Now I’m on the farm most days, or in the kitchen trying to perfect my sauce,” Nunemaker says. “I try to spend most of my free time reading or studying up on how I can make my sauce even better. One of

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the biggest changes is my taste buds have become very immune to capsaicin [the compound that gives chili peppers their kick]. I’m able to take big bites of 7-pot peppers and not feel too much.”

The 7-pot pepper is approximately 370times more intense than a jalapeño on the Scoville Heat Unit scale and is so named because one small pepper is spicy enough to flavor seven pots of Trinidad stew. The pepper is used in the production of Varieties from Farmer Nate’s Sauce Co. military grade teargas P H OTO : P ROV I D E D for Trinidad and is a component in marine or goat masala. paint to deter barnacles.

There’s a pleasant While the 7-pot pepper is not sweetness beneath yet an ingredient in any of Farmer the quick flash of Nate’s commercially available hot heat this sauce sauces, there’s a strong likelihood that provides, making peppers of that intensity will make an it something you’ll appearance. continually go “I believe that you can taste the effort back for regardless I’ve put into these sauces,” Nunemaker of the sweat says. “Every single pepper is handstarting to bead picked and you can trace back exactly at your brow. This to where that pepper was harvested is a universally from. We don’t use pesticides or appealing hot herbicides. We like to keep it all natural sauce and will here at Farmer Nate’s Sauce Co.” likely be the first Three varieties of hot sauce are bottle of the trio available for purchase through the to go empty in Farmer Nate website, and Nunemaker CityBeat’s fridge. is working to have the bottles available in stores throughout the region soon.

SMOKEHOUSE Nunemaker shared all three hot HABANERO sauces with CityBeat for our own taste If you’re not a test: well-seasoned capsaicin devotee, KENTUCKY TANG you may want to Kentucky Tang has an earthy aroma have a glass of milk thanks to cumin and a prominent handy when you sweetness from cinnamon, which try Smokehouse contrasts with the jalapeño and red Nathanael “Farmer Nate” Nunemaker P H OTO : P ROV I D E D Habanero. The cayenne that provide the thick sauce’s bright orange color very mild spice. This would go naturally complex array of flavor in Smokehouse is so inviting and as a component in homemade Habanero, and it could very well the aroma is innocently citric, but it’s Cincinnati chili or drizzled over become a favorite for lots of home a sauce made for sparse application poutine. cooks. in a large dish or for those who need a flaming kick in the mouth. It’s not CURRY JALAPENO overwhelming when used cautiously, Curry Jalapeño is reminiscent of a To learn about Farmer Nate’s but is not for someone with even the really nice chutney that would pair line of hot sauces, visit slightest aversion to spice. Still, there’s a wonderfully with a buttery aloo matar farmernatessauce.com.

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THE DISH

La Soupe Addresses Cincinnati’s Food Gaps

BY M EG H A N M A L AS

A Cincinnati food-assistance organization has fed thousands of area residents both before and during the coronavirus pandemic. But it could use a little help to keep the meals flowing.

In 2014, after 25 years as a restaurateur and caterer, Suzy DeYoung left her job as a chef and owner of La Petite Pierre and started a nonprofit organization in Newtown called La Soupe. At that time, La Soupe was cooking for a few people in need and rescuing about a hundred pounds of produce each week, according to the organization’s website.

Today, La Soupe is trying to tackle the economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Emmy Shroder, director of the Community Kitchen program at La Soupe, the organization’s mission has been the same since the beginning: bridge the gap between food waste and food insecurity by rescuing otherwise wasted perishable food to provide nutritious and satisfying meals for people in need.

“The pandemic struck our community and provided La Soupe with an enormous amount of opportunities,” Shroder tells CityBeat.

COVID-19 and its fallout are leaving more people hungry, more food wasted, and more people out of work.

In response, La Soupe kickstarted the Community Kitchen program in April 2020.

“The program is designed to temporarily expand La Soupe’s capacity beyond the limits of its production facility during the COVID-19 crisis while stimulating the local food industry,” Shroder says. “These meals are serving the increased need in the Cincinnati school systems, pantries, churches, libraries and at-risk elderly population.”

Since moving into its own 10,000-square-foot facility off of McMillan Street in Walnut Hills, La Soupe and partnering restaurants create and share around 30,000 servings of food and saving over 20,000 pounds of perishable food from waste every week.

Here’s how the Community Kitchen program works: La Soupe receives more than 20,000 pounds of food per week that would otherwise be thrown away from grocery stores, distributors, manufacturers, farms and restaurants. Hundreds of volunteer drivers make deliveries to 20 Community Kitchen partners, and then La Soupe employees sort and store items appropriately.

Next, the Community Kitchen partners transform the materials to make the meals that work best for their facility and meet the quality and health standards set by La Soupe.

Finally, volunteers distribute the meals from each Community Kitchen to specific partner agencies designated

by La Soupe. Cincinnati Public Schools, the Cincinnati Public Library Network,

Episcopal Retirement Services, and the Esther Marie Hatton Center are some of the locations distributing meals.

“During COVID, we have seen food insecurity touch the lives of countless neighbors for the first time–people who thought they would never be in need of emergency food assistance,” Shroder says. “We see the look of relief on mothers’ faces when they receive another healthy meal for their families brought to a distribution point in their neighborhood week after week.”

Pre-pandemic, this gap between food waste and food insecurity was already significant. The National Resource Defense Council reports that 40 percent of food grown in the U.S. ends up wasted. Meanwhile, the United States Department of Agriculture reports that more than ten percent of U.S. households were food insecure during 2019.

In Cincinnati, food insecurity is higher than the national average, with one in every four Cincinnatians living in poverty, according to Census data.

When the pandemic hit, Ohio’s unemployment rate skyrocketed to 17.6% in April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Additionally, restaurant closings meant there was going to be even more food going to waste and a lot of restaurant industry personnel out of work.

By the end of 2020, the Community Kitchen program produced 175,000 meals, invested $640,000 in local restaurants, and rescued an additional 100,000 pounds of produce and protein.

With wider access to COVID-19 vaccines on the horizon and warmer months being generally better for business, the Community Kitchen program is expected to fade out by spring this year. But Shroder says La Soupe is in need of further financial support to keep the program running at full capacity through the remainder of the winter.

“Business is slow in most restaurants, and people still need these meals,” Shroder says. “We hope to help keep a small army of the amazing restaurants and foodservice employees of Cincinnati working and helping their hungry neighbors.”

Last year, La Soupe invested $750,000 in the Community Kitchen program and received $250,000 in support from the Hamilton County CARES Act. For the Community Kitchen program to continue through April, Shroder says La Soupe is seeking $400,000 in private and corporate donations.

“Recently, Formidable Asset Management gave $20,000 for the meals for CPS schools for the month of January,” Shroder says. “A similar gift could sponsor a month of meals for the Cincinnati Public Library network, or another month of Cincinnati Public Schools.”

For more information or to donate to La Soupe, visit lasoupe.org.

FROM PAGE 19

some fresh feasts. Faeth says he’s most looking forward to debuting some experimental Cubano sandwiches.

“We’re getting real close on our first one that we think is going to be a very, very special sandwich — house-made pickles, we’re gonna somehow incorporate some shredded pork shoulder and probably some pork belly into this Cubano,” Faeth says. “And we’re obviously going to feature that local Sixteen Bricks bread. I think our Cubano Jeremy Faeth is going to be really solid.”

P H O T O : F R A N C I S C O H U E R TA With his focus on fresh food, Faeth eliminated a delicious menu to this Bellevue the microwave and freezer from Cedar’s community that we love so much,” Kate kitchen. Yucca won’t have those Moeves says. appliances either, an impressive feat in While the Faeths will move into the today’s fast-paced food world. bottom floor, the Moeves still own “We try to get the freshest ingredients the historic building, which currently we can, and we treat them right,” Faeth operates as The Fairfield Venues. The says. “We make everything fresh to building features one floor of rentable order and that kind of eliminates the event space, with plans to develop the microwave aspect. We call it ‘making top floor for additional event space — it on the fly,’ we scratch-make it right and a rooftop bar as well. This will give there. If we need hollandaise or we the two families a chance to collaborate need gravy or some kind of sauce, we with catering. make it right then and there.”

Building a restaurant from the Cedar has been successful with its ground up is a slow and steady process, mission to take diners on a one-hour one that lacks an instruction guide and vacation through food and experience. rule book, but Faeth says he’s lucky to The Faeths want guests to unplug, relax have ten years of corporate restaurant and escape while enjoying comfort experience to back him up. food and craft cocktails at their “We’ve learned a lot at Cedar just kind restaurants. of trial by error, and I think we’re going “Our identity is if it doesn’t equal a to bring that same philosophy to Yucca,” one-hour vacation for our guests then Faeth says. “I don’t think there is a list we don’t do it,” Faeth says. of do’s and don’ts; I definitely think it’s Cedar just opened in July but, hoping kind of an organic thing. It kind of just to ride their current wave of success happens as you go.”

— and thanks to a space conveniently The Faeths always had plans to looking for new ownership — the expand, with a goal of eventually Faeths are already expanding their having four or five restaurants, but no restaurant portfolio with Yucca. one expected it to happen so quickly, Yucca will take over the former space especially in the midst of a pandemic. of The Fairfield Café+Bar in Bellevue.

Faeth notes that much of the family’s Kate and Toby Moeves, the owners of success, and the reason why they’re the building, say they are thrilled to opening their second establishment pass the torch — and the keys — to a less than a year after their first, is due new set of restaurateurs. The Moeves to Cedar’s regular clientele who come had been quietly waiting to find in weekly. someone they felt confident could “We’re really grateful and appreciative bring a hip and delicious experience to of those folks to keep coming back and Bellevue. They found that in the Faeth trying new menu items. It really means family. a lot to us,” Faith says. “It definitely “We are so excited for Jeremy and happened quicker than we thought but Tony Faeth to bring their vision of the goal was always to get into this and Yucca to Bellevue, and they have definitely have three, four, five of these been a dream to work with through things.” this transition period. The restaurant/ bar industry thrives on really great customer care and service, and they Faith anticipates opening Yucca’s will bring exactly that, along with doors by Mother’s Day.

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MUSIC

Musicians long to perform again at the Woodward Theater and other local venues.

P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

Rock (and Scrabble) in the Time of COVID-19 Local musicians are pursuing a variety of creative endeavors as the pandemic continues to push pause on live performances.

BY B R I A N BA K E R

I

t’s been nearly a year since the world ground to a halt under the deadly and disruptive coronavirus.

2020 easily could have been “The Year Without a Santa Claus” for the local music community, but Cincinnati musicians have shown resilience and resourcefulness in the myriad ways they’ve worked within and around the pandemic’s fallout of closed venues, limited bookings and few opportunities to sling merch. And with COVID-19 sticking around a bit longer, they’re continuing to power through in 2021.

Some local musicians have used their quarantines to write, record and release new music, while others have poured their creative energies into music-adjacent activities. Some have blazed new trails down career paths

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unrelated to their musical directions.

And a good many have advanced their personal lives while doing some or all of the above.

Electric Citizen lead vocalist Laura Dolan is one such human. Dolan’s father, Paul Busse, founded Applied Imagination three decades ago to provide botanical gardens with scale model landscapes made entirely of natural materials; the Krohn Conservatory’s train display is an example of his work. Busse brought Dolan into a company leadership role in 2017, six years after his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, and she is now president and CEO. Although Electric Citizen has been relatively inactive recently, Dolan notes that the group has been busy behind

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the scenes.

“My intention is to absolutely keep going with the band. It’s important to my dad that I do,” she says. “I restructured the company in 2019 to ensure I could step away for touring. I have yet to test that, but in theory, I should still be able to tour. We’ve been using this down time to write a new album; Ross [Dolan] and I even built ourselves a little home studio. And [bassist] Nick [Vogelpohl] and his wife had a baby!”

In their own words, here’s what other Cincinnati-area musicians have been up to during live music’s forced hiatus: Jess Lamb, singer/songwriter and co-founder of the Factory with partner Warren Harrison: “In response to a year marked with isolation and polarity, we released our newest album, You Are, a collection of songs and mantras written over the past several years, celebrating personal empowerment, unity and the wonder of human life. I also began teaching a songwriting course at Xavier University, which was a happy, unexpected turn.

I love teaching and mentoring. Going from performing three-hour gigs three days a week, to being more still with my

Self gave me time to grow as a teacher and writer. I am grateful for that quiet time with Self, but I can’t wait to hug all of you at a live, sweaty show soon. You are beautiful. You are powerful. You can make it. Enjoy being still. Just be.”

Brian Kitzmiller, drummer for Van Echo and founder of marketing company Reveal Concepts: “Right now, business is going well, even though events have fallen off.

I’m currently working with Van Echo (Wes Pence, Randy Cheek and Ed Shuttleworth) to finish our record after two years. Also getting ready to organize songs with The New Usuals (Wes, Randy and Justin Lynch) and get some kind of recording out this year.

We’ve been in the studio almost every week this past year and ongoing now.

I’m also playing golf a ton with Wes. Even in the cold.”

David Butler, frontman of Black Owls: “I’ve been channeling my energy into my writing, fine art, design, and, ahem, athletics. The same impetus of the Black Owls aesthetic I’ve been pouring into my own fine art pieces in collage and video. I set up my online presence (dwbfolio.com) and have been working

on some multi-media (oh God, really?) comedy stuff with another local artist.

Our project is a sort of ‘Funny or Die’ thing. We’ll be rolling into ‘21 like a skateboard on early ‘70’s urethane: brittle, tired, and yet somehow still brittle, tired. But honestly, having fun.

Still planning on an Owl renewal. Also playing platform ‘paddle’ tennis and still mountain biking, snowboarding and breaking things. I definitely had the COVID in February of ‘20 while snowboarding in Utah before it was a well-known deadly pandemic. Glad I didn’t know... could’ve killed me!”

Kate Wakefield, cellist, co-founder of Lung and session musician: “I’ve been working at a restaurant during the pandemic, which has been interesting. I’ve gotten really into online kickboxing. I like the free pre-recorded classes you can find on YouTube with the overly enthusiastic instructors who shout at you the whole time. Also, I’ve been finding that playing Scrabble with my girlfriend is my Saturday-night substitute now that shows are not a thing.”

Dave Purcell, former frontman for Pike 27 and drummer for the recently launched Ghost Man on Second: “GMOS has written a dozen new songs during the pandemic, mostly thanks to the wonderfully prolific Andy Hittle. My main quarantine activities are connected: (1) focusing on my drumming and composing, including studying with Mark Guiliana, a brilliant jazz and electronic drummer and composer best known for playing on David Bowie’s Blackstar; and (2) reconnecting with my Buddhist practice of mindfulness and meditation.

The beautiful fusion of the two got me through a brutal year personally on top of the pandemic, the lowlights being three deaths close to me (none from COVID, oddly) including my mom.”

Wes Pence, ex-Middlemarch/Ready Stance guitarist/vocalist, now playing with Van Echo and the New Usuals: “Both bands have continued playing and recording since the early weeks of COVID, but more notable is my personal story. Freed from the shackles of the workday week, there were finally enough hours in the day to pursue long-ignored personal priorities like intensive daily exercise, yoga and meditation regimens, growing and harvesting our own food, writing my memoirs, oil painting, translating the works of Schopenhauer from the original High German to the more contemporary form and many other pursuits. Those are all things I definitely would have done this year, if I’d foreseen the lethargy and precipitous weight-gain brought by the first few

months in pajama pants.”

Kim Taylor, singer/songwriter: “My partner and I are moving to Berkeley, California. He’s in grad school, and it’s worked out for us to live there rent free so we’re heading out to be in the sunshine for a while. We’ll hopefully be back in 2022. Hoping to shake a record out of myself while I’m there. Gardening was a grounding force for me while it was warm. I expanded a really lovely, mostly native garden on our acre of property in Loveland. I also practiced piano every day, focusing on sight reading classical music, something I don’t do enough.”

Mike Montgomery, guitarist for Ampline and R. Ring, and owner/ producer at Candyland Studio: “My wife and I had our first child at the end of 2019, so we’ve been raising our little boy. I halted client-attended sessions at Candyland in mid-March as the pandemic was taking hold. I set up a small studio at my house so I could work at either place. I’ve stayed surprisingly busy despite not recording any bands for most of the year; I’ve shifted to more mixing and mastering.

I’ve helped a lot of friends and clients set up or augment their own home recording studios so we could continue working on their projects together, and the flood of new music people have been generating is giving me renewed faith in the power of creative pursuits to function as a beacon of hope in the darkness. With my own music projects, I’ve been sending way too many demos to my bandmates and writing partners, but it’s nice to know we’ll have material to rifle through when we can finally be in a room together again. R. Ring finished a sophomore LP that we’ll release either late 2021 or sometime in 2022. I’ve just been trying to say ‘yes’ to things as they come up to make sure I have fun stuff to keep my thoughts above water. I’ve been cooking a lot more, really trying to grow into my new ‘dad bod.’”

Maurice Mattei, singer/songwriter, frontman for the Tempers, graphic designer and photographer: “The new line-up for the Tempers Debbie Immesoete on drums and Bryan Berwanger on upright bass - is, in my opinion, the best one I’ve ever had, and we’re continuing to get together to rehearse as well as actually doing (very) occasional shows. The show we did for the Southgate House/Save Our Stages benefit (YouTube: bit.ly/3q6V1hS) in November turned out so well that we’re thinking of releasing it as a live album.

The big news concerning the band is that we’ve been booked to perform May 1 on the nationally televised ‘Song of the Mountains.’ It will be livestreamed

Kim Taylor P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

the night of the show and then telecast at a later date. We’re also working on new material for a possible upcoming new record. As far as my art work, even before COVID, I had been finishing up three major projects - my Italian photos, my ‘Highs in the Low ‘90s’ USA ‘Street Photo’ series, and my Urban Dweller drawings. The first two projects are complete and I am now finishing up scanning the last of my drawings.”

David Rhodes Brown, frontman for Warsaw Falcons and pedal-steeler/ vocalist for 500 Miles to Memphis: “Bobbi Jean and I are doing well or getting well. It’s always something at our age. I gained 16 pounds and then lost 16 pounds. I’ve been making single song videos for YouTube; ‘String

of Hope’ has a couple. The third one with Moriah Haven will be released soon, and we’re planning another together as well. My roofing company does new construction and residential replacement roofing. Just a ma and pa deal we’ve worked for almost 20 years now. And we’re new grandparents for the first time. Wolfgang, our oldest, and his wife, Jessica, have given us the gift of a grandson, Atticus Augustus Kayser.

Being a provider and gramps at 70 keeps me pretty content. It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”

Musician updates have been edited for clarity and space.

F E B R U A RY 2 0 2 1

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C I T Y B E AT. C O M

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An emergency care research study of bleeding in the brain.

University of Cincinnati is conducting a research study to study bleeding in the brain, also called intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Most of this bleeding occurs within a few hours of onset of symptoms.

An The emergency brain injury fromcare ICH isresearch usually verystudy severe, and of bleeding in the brain. there is currently no treatment for ICH that is proven University of Cincinnati isThe conducting astudy research study to to improve outcome. research is testing if study bleeding in th An emergency care research study intracerebral hemorrhage Most of this bleeding a medication can slow(ICH). bleeding.

Some patientsoccurs may within a few hours of of bleeding inThe the brain. injury from ICH is usually very severe, and there is currently no treat bebrain enrolled consent if unconscious or a also family University of Cincinnati is conducting a researchbefore study to study bleeding in the brain, called proven to improve outcome. The research study is testing if a medication can s or occurs representative ishours not rapidly intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Most of member this bleeding within a few of onsetavailable. of symptoms. patients may be enrolled before consent if unconscious or a family member or r The brain injury from ICH is usually very Before severe, and is currently no treatment forconsult ICH that is the there research study starts, we will available.

Beforeifthe research study starts, we will consult with the comm proven to improve outcome. Therapidly research study testing a medication can slow Some with theiscommunity.

We welcome yourbleeding. feedback your feedback and questions.

For more information, or toisdecline participation in patients may be enrolled before consent family member or representative not andif unconscious questions. or Fora more information, or to decline please visitstarts, https://redcap.link/FASTEST or contactWe our study staff at (513) 558-45 rapidly available. Before the research study we will consult with the community. welcome participation in this research study, your feedback and questions. For more information, or to decline participation in this research study, please visit https://redcap.link/FASTEST please visit https://redcap.link/FASTEST or contact our study staff at (513) 558-4536. or contact our study staff at (513)558-4536.

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PUZZLE

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BY B R EN DA N EM M E T T Q UIG LE Y

1. Key with two sharps: Abbr.

5. “While we’re talking about it,” in Internet slang

55. Knock out of the water

27. Best-of-the-best athlete

56. “My Year Abroad” author Chang-___ Lee

28. “Put that in your Netflix queue”

11. Super Bowl LIV halftime show co-headliner with Shakira

58. “Kings & Queens” singer ___ Max

29. Took a chair

59. “You bring shame to your family’s name!”

14. Review that hopefully translates to sales

31. Make stuff up

60. Holdup in reissuing Beck’s album?

15. Accrues, as a massive bar bill

35. It’s not funny!

64. Dash lengths

16. Cereal tidbit

37. Canvas application

65. “You can forget that happening”

17. Brightly colored kitchen appliance?

66. Point of view

38. “Things are complicated”

19. Measurements equal to 1000 joules per sec.

67. They stereotypically have big heads

20. Peach leftover

68. Overdoes it on stage 69. Mark for life

21. Circular shape

DOWN

22. Bass-line symbol

1. “Can we move on, please”

24. “Did you not hear me the first time?”

2. Lyra’s mother in “His Dark Materials”

26. “Wonderwall” band, warts and all?

3. Online gamer’s character

30. Relating to the ankle bone

4. White House press secretary Psaki

32. Blue Grass Airport’s code

5. Honorific in a Joel Chandler Harris story

33. More, on some packages

6. Sports car supercharger

34. Horse reins and bit

7. Vitagene test sample

39. Mid-afternoon break 40. Had ‘em rolling in the aisles on open mic night 41. Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin’s stage name

45. 60 minuti 46. Donkey Kong’s world 48. Like some slanted writing 49. State added during the Civil War

53. Copy line by line?

57. Words said in passing?

13. Sudden death periods: Abbr.

59. Transaction ___

18. Close for the time being, as a theater

61. Old name for Tokyo

23. Not so strict

62. Beyond blasted

25. Book ID

63. Subject heading?

50. More distinguished, so they say

42. PRC founder

12. They work on a case-by-case basis

F E B R U A RY 2 0 2 1

11. Laugh-a-minute type

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52. Pimply area of the face, to dermatologists

C I T Y B E AT. C O M

10. Eyeglasses

24

42. Sch. adjacent to a bridge measured in smoots

51. Section of eye-bending prints?

8. “Forged By the Sea” mil. group

47. Working hard at

9. Software patch, maybe

46. Org. that assists with telemedicine

37. Pig tattooers?

44. “While I’m thinking of it ...”

36. Crash helper, for short

43. Get to

54. “Until next time”

It Was Nothing

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