Goldberg and Traenkner met by some fate (or perhaps karma) four years ago on a quiet night at the Lit Café. As the only bar patrons for the evening, they quickly found common ground in a mutual love of poetry. Lit Café owner and bartender, Andy Timothy, [sic] entered the conversation, and by evening’s end, the three had formulated a vision for putting on a show.

The Lit’s site has an archive of all the videos from over the years. Great job, Steve, Nick and Andy. I’m glad to know you guys.

The Tremont Art Walk was bumpin’ last night, despite the rainy weather.  Asterisk Gallery put on a show by the Ohio University graduate art program, which was killer.  Because I’m a Rothko devotee, the artist who caught my eye most was Tiffany Carbonneau, who describes her work sculpting light with shapes thus.

Visual Information has become ubiquitous in our daily lives and as we negotiate its significance, we become numb to its presence and complacent with its existence in our culture.  My work explores the tangible and intangible structures and systems that convey information within our cultural landscape and examines the influence this information has on our thoughts and actions.  Mass media and public architecture can carry with them an underlying intent of consumer manipulation and social engineering by conveying information through an interplay of overt imagery and subtle coerciveness.  Billboards and commercial window displays are blatant and obvious, yet they work in tandem with the more covert ways in which public architecture guides our movements through a given space and the way digital images are presented within a fleeting context.  I am particularly interested in accentuating the human experience of moving through delineated spaces and the interaction of that tangible space with the impermanence of the digital image.  By exposing these structures and systems and stripping them of their original imagery and context, I am striving to provide an alternate mediation of the conscious and subconscious information they are presenting and; subsequently, present a re-negotiation of the way in which we ingest the information that influences our thoughts and actions.

Here’s Tiffany’s blog, and see more of her stuff here.  Pretty cool.  I can imagine her pieces gracing hotel lobbies, restaurants, or other public places.  They pulse with a slow and mesmerizing glow of light, video, and barely recognizable images.  Perfect for a hip hang out in Manhattan….very like the paintings that Rothko created specifically for the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram Building.  That commission now hangs in the Rothko room at the Tate Modern in London, which I visit every time I’m in London.

Tiffany very graciously gave a talk on her work - always cool to hear from the artist in front of their work.  An opportunity that Asterisk, and the Tremont Art Walk, always provides.

and

GLUEster Kevin Leeson hit the streets with an audio recorder to find out why people were there and what the Bridge Project said to them about Cleveland.

Listen here:

• Cyanc Design was there
• Andy Timithy was there
• Dru McKeown was there
• Julie Washington from the PD was there

Here’s a playlist of all the videos I scrounged up:

Or you could just park by St. Malachi’s at West 25th & Detroit. There are a couple of parking lots and entrances right there, and I’m sure there will be signs.

it occurred to me that this city of cle has so many folks without an outlet for what they can offer, without a safe place to explore new interest to push older ones and make waves toward actually reaching their goals. a live’s work.

its time to change this:

so with this - the Praxis Method - i want your thoughts. what would you like to see in the form of forums, book clubs, shows…

I’ve been wanting to revive a version of the salon, bringing Cleveland’s diversity together over some local ethnic food to have conversations on several different topics.

Back when I was writing poetry, I was really interested in finding a group of people who were willing to workshop their (and my) poems. Part of the reason I stopped writing is because I couldn’t find a group interested in doing what Rafeeq is talking about. If you’ve got ideas, leave them here or there.

Meredith Hahn on MySpace

Ingenuity gets more underwhelming each year - as you walk through, you can almost see in your mind’s eye the grant application being filled out months ago, check this box, check that one, Gund happy, Cleveland Foundation happy, this billionaire might like that, such and such millionaire will go for that, ok….open!

So I’d given up.  But this year, founder James Levin approached Dana Depew, owner & curator of Asterisk Gallery in Tremont looking for more local artists.  Asterisk At Ingenuity was born, and unbeknownst to me, my video of Loren Naji’s “Portrait of Obama in Gunsmoke” was included in Dana’s exhibit, next to Loren’s Obama portrait.  Loren kept calling me, telling me to come down, and finally I relented, because Asterisk At Ingenuity was outside the admissions gate, so I didn’t have to pay any money.

From the first few minutes inside Asterisk At Ingenuity, it was clear that nothing inside the admissions gate would even come close to what Dana had put together.  Over 60 artists, all volunteering their work, all local, packed into the two floors of the dilapidated and abandoned former Christian Science Reading Room and 107.9 WENZ offices on Euclid Ave., across from the State Theatre.  Every room was different - from interactive exhibits, to electronic, computer, video, sound, neon lights, smelly stuff, textured stuff, girly stuff, guy stuff, kid stuff, paintings, sculptures - you name it, it was in Dana’s space.

And it all had a very “Cleveland” feel to it, from the moment you walked in.  You could have spent an entire afternoon wandering between rooms, staring into paintings, watching films, becoming part of installations…it was deeply Cleveland art done by the curator of the finest gallery in Tremont, and it screamed for attention around every corner.  There has been nothing at Ingenuity, ever, in its short history, to even compare.  And I did walk through the admissions gate (with my free “artist” badge) to confirm that yet again, Ingenuity itself was a big dud.

I asked Dana how on earth he pulled this together.  He had no budget except to bring the rotting space up to code.  He was given the keys to the space about 2 weeks before the festival began, and in that time, had to clean out the tons of debris, wire it, paint it, make it safe, and fill it with the most diverse and quality art I have ever seen in one space at Ingenuity, or for that matter, almost anywhere in Cleveland at any time. Dana looked exhausted, and with good reason.

Because Dana Depew’s Asterisk At Ingenuity was nothing short of a triumph.

Sitting with Dana on the roof talking, I was struck at how perfectly his experience represents a microcosm of everything wrong, and all that is right, about Cleveland.  A space in the Hanna Building sits and rots, in full view of every single person in downtown Cleveland, at the heart of Playhouse Square, and for the lack of anyone in power with the slightest vision, will do so until it gets torn down.  But in 2 weeks, one person is given the keys, and with no money, runs rings around the entire Ingenuity Festival itself, merely because that one person has the drive, the heart, and the vision to make something incredible happen in a snap of his fingers.

All while inside the admissions gate, steps from Dana’s momentary flourish of brilliance in record time, people pay $10 to enter a corporate and foundation funded fizzle that looks more like an excuse to sell beer and pizza than an art festival.  It was like the fireworks at an Indians game - why pay for a ticket to the game, which is going to suck anyway, when you can watch the real show for free?

James Levin deserves the credit for thinking of including Dana Depew at this year’s Ingenuity, even if Levin put the best he had outside the admissions gate.  If Levin hasn’t lost his soul tailoring his festival to every grant application that he’s ever hunched over, perhaps he’ll learn from this.  Let’s hope so.

I found out from former Merrick House director, Gail Long, that the lot was gifted to the organization in ‘72 or ‘73 by a now long gone bank in the Slavic Village area.   A few years after that, Ohio Bell donated the money for a ubiquitous 1970’s tot lot.  Years progressed, kids grew up and moved away, and all that remained of the Ohio Bell donation were the solid round cement shapes that were originally designed for climbing, sitting, and checking out that great view of the city.  Cut to 10 years ago, and the then emerging, now internationally known artist, Radke, was painting on various natural billboards all over the neighborhood, including garages and the outside walls of businesses. Scott and Merrick House partnered, and the murals still stand today, representing that wild, renegade type of art that doesn’t exist much anymore.  ( See The Temple of  Lost Love.)

As mentioned, Scott has developed an international following. This could make for some great auction.  I am excited and curious to see who antes up on these.  Ideally, they should stay in Cleveland.  It  would be remarkable to have them remain in Tremont.

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