There is a core group of really cool people in NEO committed to developing a great intellect and quality of life here, and they turned out in force this Thursday evening in two very different but interrelated ways. Free speech enthusiasts gathered for a poetry-laced fund-raiser for social consciousness catalyst "Meet the Bloggers", at Tower Press, and other free expression enthusiasts turned out for "Street Repairs" at Spaces... between the two, perhaps 1,000 of Cleveland's finest turned out, showing NEO at its best.

ART FOR LUNCH

Slide/PowerPoint Lectures by
Case Art History Faculty, Case Art History Graduate Students
Guest Faculty, Cleveland Museum of Art Curators
 
Prof. Edward Olszewski

Location

The weekend of September 16-17 marks the fourth annual Sparx Gallery Hop, presented by National City, where the work of more than 500 artists will be accessible to the public from inside galleries, studios, major festivals, and art institutions. It's considered Ohio's largest art walk because of it's geographic size and large number of featured venues across the City Center, Tremont, Superior Corridor, University Circle and Little Italy neighborhoods. Read on to see how you can HOP TO IT!

Location

Closing reception of "After Katrina" at Heights Arts (next to the Cedar-Lee Theater) an exhibition curated by Tom Hinson (CWRU alumnus and CMA curator of photography) featuring the works by renowned Cleveland artists Linda Butler, Daniel Levin and Jonathan Wayne. Opening reception from 6:00 to 9:00 P.M. 

Location

It's that time again to get excited about art and fall fashion. Pinky's Daily Planner, the "modern clothes-closet for spirited girls" will feature their hand made fineries and accessories from other emerging artists. visit http://www.pinkydailyplanner.com

Location

  Opening at the Artists' Archives of the Western Reserve from 5:00 to 9:00 P.M. featuring the graphic art of Gary Dumm. The artist will be present as well as Harvey Pekar and other graphic and comic book artists and illustrators.

Location

The Cleveland Clinic Art Program Presents: A Lunchtime Artist Talk with David Levinthal
Please join the Cleveland Clinic Art Program in welcoming internationally acclaimed photographer David Levinthal to Bunts Auditorium for an informal talk about his work and career. This event coincides with an exhibition of Levinthal's works, Baseball, on view in the M lobby corridor on Main Campus. This exhibition of color photographs is part of the Cleveland Clinic Art Program. Part of the Program's mission is to exhibit the works of contemporary artists and encourage dialogue, challenging viewers to experience diverse points of view.

Location

Covering History: Revisiting Federal Art in Cleveland (1933-1943)

Location

When I think about the kids in Brattleboro who are getting naked wherever and whenever they like, it makes me feel very stupid for living by social establishment rules I don't respect. When I think about the fact, pointed out by a poster to realneo, that in Cleveland people doing the same thing would probably get arrested, it makes me feel stupid for living here. But then I think of the beautiful morning a few years ago when 3,000 of us got naked for art, and felt very free and natural, and were not arrested, and it occurs to me I didn't do it to be part of a work of art or to see lots of naked Clevelanders but to be free, in my society and city, as I like. So I propose we who want to be free develop a tradition of expressing our freedom here and become better connected in the process, through some NEO Flash mobs.

Lynden B. Miller is part garden designer and part magician. Her results include some of New York's most famous, graceful and uplifting spaces, such as The Central Park Zoo and Bryant Park.

Prior to her remarks, Miller will receive the Delia White Vail Memorial Medal, which recognizes individuals who have made significant national contributions to the field of horticulture.

Location

Convivium33 Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibit of remarkable paintings, drawings and sculpture, on view beginning 09/09/2006 through 10/15/06.

The Van Duzer Perspective showcases the work of this legendary 20th Century artist.

Location

"Street Repairs", opening at Spaces, fourteen artists use the urban neighborhood as its inspiration or canvas. Aritsts have turned the gallery into a streetscape, complete with storefronts, a night club, bus stop, theater and bike shop. Photography, installation, video, dance, graffiti and sound are incorporated into an artist-envisioned urban space.

Location

I always thought there was something innately good about Cleveland Tech Czar Michael DeAloia but didn't know why or what, and then I learned he's a poet, who has published a book of his work and is now participating in area poetry reading for good causes. That enough tells me he is special, but no way to tell how without reading or hearing the poetry. So I asked him to send over a few works to post with him as this Poet of the Day, for us all to preview... and tomorrow, September 7, we all can experience the complete poet Michael DeAloia as he reads more of his work at a fundraiser for Meet the Bloggers. Thanks for the good words for Cleveland, Michael. Read on, and be there, you all!

The Jazz Influenza

The high sounds of strings

Are teased by petite one-sixteenths

Infecting my soul,

Making me want to dance.

A whole note engulfs my sense of style.

My fingers snap!

Sweat rains on my forehead.

I perish under blue fever.

There rests my anger

On a lofty quarter note.

High….

Buzzing sounds of life

Are being played by a maestro,

By a drug addict,

By a man with a matter-of-fact life.

Ready your souls for cheap brass.

Rich men play money.

Poor men drums.

And I fly away riding on an eighth-note, waving.

Case Associate Professor of Music Mary Davis will be a featured speaker at the symposium, "Rock and Roll Couture: Music, Fashion, and Modern Style," beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday, September 7, at the Western Reserve Historical Society, Norton Room, 10825 East Blvd. The event is free.

Location

Launching the academic year, each fall, the CIA faculty show is always one of the most dynamic art exhibits in Cleveland... eclipsed only by the showing of student work at the end of the school term, in the spring. The annual faculty show will be held from September 8-October 14 in Reinberger Galleries, 11141 East Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio. Exhibition free and open to the public Monday-Saturday 9am-5pm. Be sure to attend the Artist’s Reception Friday, September 8, 6 pm – 8 pm.

Location

In a recent series of editorial rants in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the authors proposed Cleveland must attack "street culture" to correct our condition as the most impoverished big city in America. I've posted on their position and my disgust at their suggestions this is an NAACP issue, or an issue at all, and I questioned what on Earth they mean by "street culture". Then, while working on a website cataloging my parents' art collection for the May Show Project Philip Williams and I are organizing I understood what the PD wants to kill... the culture that empowered the art shown above, being a "Jazz Bowl" by one of the world's most prominent designers, Cleveland's beloved Victor Schreckengost, and a print masterpiece by one of the world's most renowned "minimalist" artists, Frank Stella. Without "street culture" neither of these works of art would exist. Good idea, PD.

When I was researching how Masumi Hayashi was known on the Internet, following her death, I was really impressed by a posting on her work at a very avant garde site called Cold Bacon... I'll let you explore it for yourself. I contacted the creator of the site and learned he served some time in Cleveland and he's featured images of here on the cover of his book and has others on his site. As he's no longer here, but haunted, I thought folks from here would be interested in his work, from the extended NEO community, check out this nicely produced photo gallery (flash) and read his vision on the work of Masumi here and below... the most sincere write-up on the artist and her art I've found...

So much pain in the world.   The swirling hellishness of these past three weeks brings only one realization--Be an agent of creation not destruction.   The human condition is torn between these two forces.  It is easy to destroy, but not to create.  Do not give up. CREATE.

So you think you would not last a day on Project Run Way? Maybe you never learned to sew or maybe you are the creative type but fashion is just not your media? This past Friday I realized anyone can make "wearable art." Tie-dying is easy, no sketching, cutting or sewing, most of the process is left up to chance. Park Works (a great oganization that brings fun events to Cleveland parks) held a tie-dye event at Fairview Park near where I live in Ohio City. Park Works made it easy; they provided free white t-shirts, coolers of cold water for soaking the shirts, rubber bands and rubber gloves and bottles of dyes in every color you could want.

As I drove from the site of the murder of Detective Schroeder, on West 98th Street, I passed the park dedicated in the honor of the murder of John Jackson and Masumi Hayashi on West 65th, and it occurred to me that there must be a similar park dedicated to Detective Schroeder. This is a fitting way to memorialize the victims of murder, and all violent crime, in our city, as it replaces death with life, and sorrow with joy... it gives people young and old a place to move on in the most healthy possible ways. I do not believe the people of Cleveland want to brush away such tragedy, but rather they want to have a remembrance of those who we lose, and a bright spot to remember that... and they want their neighborhoods to grow stronger so there will be less tragedy there in the future.

I'm pleased to promote a friend and great Cleveland community leader Michael DeAloia as poet of the day. From the website where his work of poetry may be purchased is a description of his work... below that is an invitation to a fundraiser featuring Michael reading some of his work...

Michael DeAloia "Roses on the Gates of Hell" is author Michael DeAloia’s first published book of poetry. His collection forms an imagistic journey through the intensely personal and transforms a decade of personal experiences and textured observations into feats of creative imagination with clarity, precision and acuity. Crafted with a thoughtful and cadenced approach, the poems in this collection reach lofty heights while being grounded in the everyday. DeAloia’s meditative, and at times confessional, poems explore the wonder and torment of life, the impropriety of men and the inconstancy of women. DeAloia explores a range of topics: his subject matter varies from spirituality to social commentary to brooding introspection. The results are accessible but not trite, insightful but not pretentious, and well crafted but not overly flamboyant. DeAloia relies heavily on imagery, which becomes the cornerstone of the entire volume, and his verbal facility brings such a polish to these poems that the reader is left feeling that this book once opened must be finished. Michael DeAloia is a poet and essayist originally born in Dayton, Ohio but resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He holds a graduate degree from Case Western Reserve University and an undergraduate degree from Xavier University.

I just got the following invitation from my favorite economic development leader in NEO, Cleveland Tech Czar Michael DeAloia, and I am intrigued he is not only a technology visionary but a poet. It will certainly be worth checking out the next event where he is reciting his poetry, as this is also a good cause of a group of other great NEO community leaders who operate "Meet the Bloggers". See more about the event below, and more about the poet Michael DeAloia in our feature of him as poet of the day. From poet Michael DeAloia, you are invited...

Location

The host, he says that all is well
And the fire-wood glow is bright;
The food has a warm and tempting smell,—
But on the window licks the night.

Pile on the logs... Give me your hands,
Friends! No,— it is not fright...
But hold me... somewhere I heard demands...
And on the window licks the night.

There is an amazing sculpture on the edge of the Cuyahoga River by former CSU professor and renowned NEO artist Gene Kangas, created in tribute to near-Cleveland born poet Hart Crane, situated in far less than a park, but a beautiful site, marked by a wordless sign. You'd only know the sculpture if you know the Flats, or Cleveland sculpture, and I only knew of poet Crane for knowing of the sculpture, and I'm glad for both. This 1992 master work by Kangas is the Art of the Day, and Crane is the poet of the day, today. See and learn more below...