EEPMOA Newsletter, May 2018

EEP Museum of Art Established February 4, 2016 -- During Black History Month!

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Founder and Director Page 1 Learn more about Professor Edward E. Parker, the man whose visionary leadership helped transform a 20th-century creative dream into a 21st-century artistic reality.

Museum Scholar Page 3 Meet Dr. Regennia N. Williams, the Inaugural Scholar for the Edward E. Parker Museum of Art.

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A Foundation for the Future Page 4 Discover the treasure trove of visual art that Professor Parker’s curatorial work brings to the attention of art lovers in University Circle.

Many people believe that timing is everything. If that is the case, then those same believers might agree that the Edward E. Parker Museum of Art is part of a vibrant creative community today because the museum is an institution whose time had come in Black History Month 2016. Just four days into that annual celebration, the IRS issued its final letter of determination and formally recognized the museum as a 501(c)(3) organization. For the founder and director -- whose decades-long journey through the arts world had taken him to classrooms, studios, galleries, and museums in America, Africa, and Europe, it was a dream come true, and the timing could not have been better!

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Founder and Director (Continued)

Professor Edward E. Parker

Arts Culture Community

As his biographical sketch for *The HistoryMakers® suggests, Edward Everett Parker was born in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 7, 1941. He was the second son born to Augustine Washington Parker and David Nathaniel Parker, and David Parker was his older brother. When the family relocated to Toledo, Ohio, Edward enrolled in Saturday morning classes at the Toledo Museum of Art while attending Lincoln Elementary School and Scott High School.

He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio and his master's degree at Ohio's Kent State University.

Parker also completed additional graduate level work at the University of Illinois and in Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

After serving as an art teacher in K-12 schools in Toledo and Cleveland, he attained the position of Professor and Arts Coordinator at the Western Campus of Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), where he taught for nearly twenty years until his retirement.

Professor Parker is the founding director and President of the Snickerfritz Cultural Workshop for the Arts, Inc., and he is the owner and operator of the Edward E. Parker Creative Arts Complex in East Cleveland, Ohio. The complex includes gallery and classroom space, meeting rooms, a special events center, and several other small businesses.

His work has appeared in numerous one-man and group shows. He has received commissions from Tri-C and Florida Memorial College, and his educational and community outreach programs have received support from the George Gund Foundation and Neighborhood Connections, among others. In 2017, he launched the exhibition series for the Shinn House Galleries at Cleveland’s Mount Zion Congregational Church, and in 2018, he was nominated for the Cleveland Arts Prize.

In addition to his work in the arts, Professor Parker also served on the Board of Trustees for the East Cleveland Library and as a member of the East Cleveland Board of Education.

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Museum Scholar Regennia N. Williams, PhD, has been named the Inaugural Scholar for the Edward E. Parker Museum of Art. While serving in this capacity, she will conduct research on the history of communitybased arts programs since 1965 (the year in which Congress created the National Endowment for the Arts), with an emphasis on the evolving role of African Americans as arts educators and producers and consumers of art. As a native Clevelander, an alumna of Hawken Upper School, and someone who worked at the Cleveland Museum of Art while completing coursework in her doctoral program, Williams is grateful for the opportunity to work with another Ohiobased arts institution.

Dr. Williams holds a BA in Urban Studies, a BA in Liberal Studies, an MPA in Public Administration, and an MNAL in Nonprofit Administration and Leadership from Cleveland State University, and she received her PhD in Social History and Policy from Case Western Reserve University.

In 2010, she was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and in 2017 she was approved for the Fulbright Specialist Roster. Other research-related travels have taken her to Canada, Austria, China, France, and South Africa. Dr. Williams has conceived, organized, and directed numerous public programs and academic conferences and symposia, For 23 years, she served as a faculty member in the Department of History at Cleveland State University (CSU), where she earned tenure and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. She now serves as a Part-Time Faculty Associate and a Part-Time Instructor at Maryland’s Montgomery College, and she teaches online courses for CSU’s College of Urban Affairs.

Her published works include books, book chapters, and articles in scholarly journals, newspapers, and magazines. Dr. Williams is the founder and director of The RASHAD Center, Inc., a Marylandbased nonprofit organization, editor of The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs and the Traditions & Beliefs newsletter, and co-author (with the Rev. Dr. Sandra Butler-Truesdale) of Washington, DC Jazz (Forthcoming 2018, Arcadia Publishing).

Dr. Regennia N. Williams

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EEP Museum of Art

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Fundraising Goals for 2018-2019 *Revised May 8, 2018

Operations Support Art Education Occasional Staffing Utilities Salaries FT Director PT Scholar / Author Programming Marketing and PR Total

$ 20,000 ($10,000 / year x 2 years) $ 10,000 ($ 5,000 / year x 2 years) $ 10,000 ($ 5,000 / year x 2 years) $ 120,000 ($ 60,000 / year x 2 years) $ 60,000 ($ 30,000 / year x 2 years) $ 20,000 ($ 10,000 / year x 2 years) $ 10,000 ($ 5,000 / year x 2 years) $ 250,000

Building a Foundation for the Future

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13240 Euclid Avenue East Cleveland OH 44112 Phone: (216) 851-6910 Email: snickerfritz1941@yahoo.com Website: http://www.eepmoa.com/

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The Curator and the Community. Professor Edward E. Parker serves as Curator for Shinn House Galleries. The galleries are located at the Mount Zion Congregational Church in Cleveland’s University Circle Community. Professor Parker (right) is pictured here at the May 5, 2018 opening of a show featuring work from the Grafton Correctional Institution’s Art + Freedom Project. With him are (left to right) the Rev. Paul Hobson Sadler, Mrs. Joyce Shinn, and Mr. Eric Gardenhire, director of the Grafton Program. *Dr. Regennia N. Williams interviewed Professor Edward E. Parker for The HistoryMakers®, the nation’s largest African American video oral history project, in 2004.

Dr. Julieanna Richardson is the founder and director of this project. For more information on The HistoryMakers ®, please visit http://www.thehistorymakers.org/.