convivium33 gallery

Susan - nice photo

You got it up!  The photo!  Keep publishing...
best,  j

Can you tell us more about Convivium33

Glad to see you got the pic posted - more the better. I've heard good things about the space at Convivium33 - still need to check it out. What's up there fashion week? How does Convivium fit in the overall arts scene?

Frontinin was @ convivium

Norm, didn't you see the Frontini exib at Josaphat ?  What do you mean "still need to check it  out"  You posted a photo from the Frontini show on RNeo.

I plugged the show but didn't get there...

I posted about the Frontini show because it looked cool (http://realneo.us/Thomas-Frontini-at-Convivium33) and, as Susan says, the more success for more such efforts the better - but I didn't get over there and don't know much about the place, other than what's on their website. I don't drive much so I miss things off the main grid and downtown. My associate Peter Holmes did go to the show and liked it very much.

We'll make sure everything happening there is promoted here (community responsibility) and I will make a point to check it out - thanks

Convivium33 Gallery at Josaphat Hall

I had written a post about Convivium33 Gallery in response to the realneo roundtable with Steven Fong. Then I was trying to post this photo and after considerable machination, I apparently lost the text part of the post.

Anyway, about the Gallery... My husband and I visited at the invitation of our longtime friend Herbert Ascherman, Jr. whose photo show is currently on display there. The space is amazing. It is an old church on 33 between Superior and St. Clair. It is owned by a striking woman named Alenca Banco who has renovated not only the hall into a gorgeous gallery, but also adjacent spaces for artist studios. You all can link here and read the press and see more pics. www.josaphatartshall.com
   
My earlier intention was to point to Fong's suggestion that artists can begin a revitalization of a district. We don't necessarily need a huge master plan; we can begin by one small district at a time.

Banco is wielding a hammer and saw, screwdriver and paintbrush like Joan of Arc leading the charge. You have to experience the way the vaulted ceilings lift your spine, align the domes of feet, diaphragm, palate and skull and prepare the physicality for new resonances.

 
Of course, she follows others who have gone before. I can remember staging performances in the dusty moribund buildings on West 6th Street back in the early 1980's -- dancers who are still making work on the vangaurd were collaborating with sax players and photographers and somehow we got people down there to see them. If you are old enough and were hip enough to know about it, you might remember seeing "the dark bob" down there in a dirty cavernous space. Folding chairs came from somewhere...

Bill and Harriet Gould have been undaunted in their efforts to secure live work opportunities. Read about their achievements at www.artspacecleveland.com

There are many more such stories. Let us hope that these pioneers of our new urban frontiers will persist and attract others to build more districts teeming with life, ideas and art in our urban core.

Another time I will discover how to easily insert a photo into this post.