8ShadesofGray

Neighborhood art installation offers creative, healing response to gas explosion Lee Chilcote, Fresh Water Thursday, July 21, 2011 January of last year, a natural gas explosion ripped through a vacant house on W. 83rd Street in Cleveland, destroying the home, damaging 57 others, and displacing at least 15 families. Ultimately, investigators determined that the devastating eruption was caused by a gas main that hadn't been shut off at the street. This prompted neighbors and city officials to wonder if many of Cleveland's vacant and abandoned homes aren't ticking time bombs, waiting to explode under the right conditions. In the weeks and months following the incident, the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization (DSCDO) found homes for the displaced families and co-hosted a benefit that raised over $30,000. Yet the hazard of potential gas explosions and arson continue to loom large in Cleveland's neighborhoods. Next Thursday, July 28th, a new art and architecture installation will be unveiled that is intended to be a creative, healing response to the incident. Dubbing it "urban therapy," area residents Richey Piiparinen and Melissa Daubert will create an art installation at a vacant home on W. 83rd, then deconstruct it and reuse parts of it to create a nearby community park and reading garden ... ... More available at http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/devnews/w83rdstreetproject072111.aspx

$48k first step toward making buckeye cle's first green-certified retail district Lee Chilcote, Fresh Water Thursday, July 21, 2011 Over the past year, more than $48,000 has been invested in energy audits and "green" retrofits for merchants along Buckeye Road on Cleveland's East Side. According to Deepa Vedavyas, Associate Director for Development at Buckeye Area Development Corporation (BADC), this is just the beginning. She hopes to see Buckeye Road merchants become the first "green-certified retail district" in Cleveland. "We're using this as a learning opportunity, and encouraging them not to stop after the audit and retrofit," she says. "Energy-efficient businesses save on utility bills, which gives them an extra dollar to use towards marketing or expansion" ... ... More available at http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/devnews/buckeyegreenretail072111.aspx

Students use art to help attract new retailers in St. Clair Superior Karin Connelly, Fresh Water Thursday, July 21, 2011 Students from St. Martin dePorres High School in Cleveland are sprucing up their neighborhood. Thirty three students created 11 murals based on the cultural background and institutions in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood. The murals were installed on Tuesday into vacant storefronts between East 60th and East 64th Streets as a way to liven up that section of St. Clair Avenue near the school, eliminating blight and creating interest in the corridor ... ... More available at http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/innovationnews/murals071911.aspx

We just announced yesterday, so there hasn't been any press coverage to post yet. But the program will be focusing on the Waterloo Arts District for the next two years, in partnership with Northeast Shores.

Everyone I know swears by Wonton. It frequently gets raves that it's Cleveland's most authentic Chinese. But I have not enjoyed my meals any of the three times I was there. I'm sure that reflects an unsophisticated palate, but I just can't get into it ... Even as a proud resident of Asiatown :(

^^ Agreed. I think that because the renderings tried to contextualize the building from a little further away, it looked smaller than it's actually going to be. It's a LOT bigger than I anticipated.

^ I had heard a rumor that the banners might be scrapped in favor of thin, large-scale LED projection "skins" ... Allowing them to electronically put up whatever artwork they want, now with a bit more contemporary feel and with more flexibility for changing images, and still not blocking interior lighting into the building. Just a rumor, but it came from a reasonable source.

^ I think with Sawyer's "Brick & Mortar" program, he's hoping to have this be an ongoing series of pop-up restaurants in vacant storefronts. He just started with Noodlecat because he has control of the space and, of course, to promote Noodlecat.

Currywurst! NOW I'm excited! I've been craving that ever since I got back from Berlin.

Yeah, sorry ... Should have been more specific that they're featuring the locally designed Dredgers Union label but also a number of other clothing lines that may or may not be domestically produced. Same goes for household goods. I was curious about the origin of some of the household items that seemed to only have a Dredgers Union tag on them. Vintage finds? Locally designed/produced specifically for Dredgers? Another label that I just didn't catch? I'm thinking specifically of the shorter funky lamps that they have placed throughout the store in about 6 different colors.

Yeah, Prosperity is a real gem. Best juke box in town IMHO.

Yes, Dredgers is definitely produced in the U.S. As noted above, designed in Cleveland (actually in the basement of the store, I believe) and then stitched in Chicago. Sean is the same guy who put together Wrath Arcane, where all the clothing was hand-stitched in the Futon Factory building. But for Dredgers' price point (Wrath Arcane was a little pricier), they needed to have more production capacity. I think they would prefer to have the clothes sewn in Cleveland, but there isn't anything currently of the scale they need locally. Hence, Chicago. I do know for sure that he's absolutely committed to seeing the clothes designed and manufactured within the U.S. ... Really central to his design philosophy.

^ Yep. Still soft open, but open. I believe the hours are: - M-Th, 11-9 - F-Sa, 11-10 - Su, 11-6 When I was down there last night, they still had some people milling around at 9:25 ... Amid a staff that looked happy but very tired :)

Have you eaten at Saigon Grille? No, it just opened yesterday evening, and I was busy checking out Pura Vida. Backlog of restaurants. Haha. Pura Vida was good. My barbecue duck confit was a little dry, but still very good. Macaroni and cheese was excellent, as were the sushi snow cones (seriously, seriously good). Really liked the whole "urban picnic" theme they're running with, the build-out looks great and the view is pretty nice too.

They really do have a nice price range ... My friend bought a couple small pots for $5 each, I got a journal for $7, and then they have large lamps that head into the $200 range. Clothes (including the Dredgers Union label) seem to be on par with a Banana Republic. Didn't look at women's, but menswear was like $30ish for t-shirts, dress shirts in the $70 range, suit jackets up in the lower $100s. So definitely a place you can splurge, but also a place that will benefit from a lot of $20-or-less incidental and impulse purchases.

Stopped in Dredgers Union last night. Really spectacular space ... They didn't cut corners on the finishes. According to sales staff, they're doing very well, moving more product than they expected ... And this is before their official grand opening/major marketing push! They said they're getting not only people from the typical younger demographic of room service but also purchases across the board age-wise. And sales on their locally designed Dredgers Union clothing label are going very well. They also noted that they're getting a surprising number of purchases from out-of-towners. Great job, Danielle! The official grand opening is July 8th, coinciding with Made in the 216 (http://www.madeinthe216.com/), which will be taking place on the lower floor and will feature (among more than 60 local designers) furniture designers from the local F*GROUP. They're basically taking the grand opening/Made in the 216 as an opportunity for an East 4th block party, with a DJ spinning in the store and musicians performing from the roof of the Greenhouse Tavern down onto the street. Should be fun!

The Yellowcake shop is a temporary pop-up shop. Valerie's done a pretty good job of moving these around to build some brand awareness locally ... She had one in Tremont and then the Theatre District and then Gordon Square and now in the Market District. I think the hours are more extensive at this one, however, then in the other pop-ups. Valerie is, however, working on a fashion incubator (http://www.buzzandgrowl.com/) that may eventually have some kind of shared retail component for local fashion designers.

Couple of Asiatown dining updates: - Pho 99 (Vietnamese) is now open in Asian Town Center (38th and Superior). Cute little place, rather limited menu and not a whole lot of visibility, so I worry a little about their longevity, but it may not be a big deal, as Asian Town Center begins to fill up with tenants. - On that note, buildout is taking place for a Korean barbecue joint, Miga, on the second floor of Asian Town Center. Looks like it's going to have really nice finishes. If you haven't checked out Asian Town Center, you definitely should ... It's HUGE and has a pretty stunning vibe, given that this was a family-driven rehab and expansion project of an existing 1922 building. - Saigon Grille (Vietnamese/Thai, Superior between 31st and 32nd) is slated to have their grand opening today. Another restaurant that took their time to put in relatively nice finishes. They've also created a small brick wall in front where they'll potentially be doing sidewalk seating. After these three open, that brings the total number of restaurants in this 10-block x 2-block neighborhood to 24. Add in 6 full-service markets (Asia Food Company, Dave's, Good Harvest, Kim's Oriental Foods, Park2Shop and Tink Holl) and 4 bodega-type convenience stores, and you can start to make the case that Asiatown is the best food-served neighborhood in the city :)

I wonder if anyone has sent out an e-mail to Ingenuity Festival attendees (well, at least those who provided e-mail addresses as a component of their ticket purchases). Seems like a good way to get votes from a big group that has seen the potential of the space first-hand.

The visual design was really good, but I recently attended a conference on arts and culture marketing, and one of the takeaways is how much more compelling stories about individuals can be than a series of hard numbers. This particular speaker argued that focusing exclusively on numbers tends to numb the audience, and interestingly, the larger numbers, the less relatable the information is and the less the audience feels a sense of caring. In reviewing this video, I can't help but think ... $6.8 billion ... That seems like a lot, but is it a lot compared to other cities? What is that opposite local economic output? And by the end I was just like, when will the numbers be over? Not to say you can't have hard stats ... I just wish GCP had humanized it more. What does $6.8 billion in development mean for the 20-something entrepreneur? For the school principal? For the municipal worker? For the CEO? Whoever, just make us care! While they were both well-produced, I think the Downtown Cleveland Alliance's videos ended up a lot more compelling than this one. Still, a dramatic improvement on previous GCP messaging.

Brief update: - Applications are now available for the 2012 Creative Workforce Fellowship. We'll be giving out $20,000 awards to 20 dance, literary, music and theatre artists living in Cuyahoga County. Help us spread the word! http://www.cpacbiz.org/business/CWF.shtml#apply2012 - 13 Cleveland neighborhoods submitted letters of interest to host the two-year, $500,000 Artists in Residence pilot (see above). A panel recently cut that to five neighborhoods, who all have the option to submit full proposals now. The panel will select the pilot neighborhood by July 1, and then we'll start to get things up and running. - We've finished releasing our massive (245-page!) five-part research series "Putting Artists on the Map", which examines artist space issues throughout Cuyahoga County: - Overview. Where can I find a summary of the entire research project? http://www.cpacbiz.org/ftp_file/10-11/PuttingArtistsontheMapSummary.pdf - Geographic Analysis. Where can I find in-depth information about which neighborhoods Cuyahoga Co. artists currently live in? http://www.cpacbiz.org/ftp_file/10-11/PAMPart2.pdf - Attitudinal Analysis. Where can I find a survey of Cuyahoga Co. artists and their space needs? http://www.cpacbiz.org/ftp_file/10-11/PuttingArtistsPart%203.pdf - Predictive Analysis. Where can I find a statistical prediction of which neighborhoods are likely to recruit artists in the future? http://www.cpacbiz.org/ftp_file/10-11/PuttingArtistsP4.pdf - Properties Analysis. Where can I find in-depth information about building stock Cuyahoga Co. artists are currently using? http://www.cpacbiz.org/ftp_file/10-11/PuttingArtistsPart5.pdf

^ Obviously, the number of artists is finite, and not everywhere has equal opportunity on this front, but I think there is still a ton of opportunity to engage artists in this way, with a few caveats: - We use a really big definition of "artist". When people think "arts district", they're often picturing a gallery row representing painters and sculptors, etc. Maybe some design-oriented boutiques. If you're talking about painters, photographers (commercial included), architects, planners, filmmakers, animators, dancers, musicians, actors, furniture makers, potters, writers, etc. Some would even include chefs or other makers of artisan products in the mix. And people also think about 20-somethings living for dirt cheap in converted warehouses. But artists are also empty nesters, raising families, living in cross-generational arrangements, etc. When you start to think of artists more broadly, the opportunity to find a niche within a particular neighborhood becomes astronomically larger. Can the market absorb 20 Tremont-type strategies? Probably not. But if neighborhoods are savvy about understanding what their particular niche is, they can start building a unique value proposition. - You are investing in places that have strong value propositions but may not have had much investment in the recent past. Honestly, I think this type of thing relies on strong storytelling ... Giving people a sense of what you're trying to build. The stronger the assets in a particular neighborhood, the easier it is to tell that story convincingly. Paying attention to what assets artists say they want, and the types of housing and neighborhoods they gravitate toward now, hypothetically puts you in a better position to build a case. At the same time, if assets are strong, but it's a neighborhood that's expensive to live in, it's going to be harder to do anything around attracting or retaining artists. When we survey artists (and in other surveys around the country), two huge factors seem to be a) how affordable space is in the area and b) how much additional financial support you can provide artists. For many artists (although definitely not all), the sweet spot is the "diamond in the rough" ... moving into neighborhoods that have something special or unique about them but that are still really inexpensive. I think this is a great advantage of the industrial Midwest ... We have a kind of epic backstory, a lot of unique, authentic neighborhoods, a lot of historic philanthropic support of the arts and a very low cost of living. That gives us a value proposition opposite expensive cities on the coast, and it gives us a different value proposition for cities in the Sun Belt and many cities in the southeast. - You do a good job of recruiting. This is where I think we fall down in a lot of Rust Belt cities. We either don't market at all because of a prevailing attitude that no one will want to move in, or we market in this really watered down corporate kind of way. We don't embrace the quirkiness of our cities. We don't embrace our industrial past. We don't reach out to art institutes and give graduating seniors a reason to stay. We don't aggressively recruit new hires at arts organizations into the city proper. We don't strategize around who the best prospects are to tap (Is it artsy kids living in rural Ohio and planning their escape? Is it more established artists getting priced out of Brooklyn?). I could go on :) - You're investing in some form of existing culture (jargon being indigenous culture, native culture, intrinsic culture). I think another huge mistake is just saying, "We're starting an arts district", and then having a campaign to plop them down in the community. Some of the best initiatives I've seen (Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, Project Row Houses, the Asian Arts Initiative) are really thinking hard on the front end of what the history of the neighborhood is, what are its cultural traditions, etc., and then thinking about what artists will be most interested in that particular culture and what artists can help amp up that story's visibility. It could be a Latino music scene or it could be a district of local furniture-makers. Or it could be the revival of a historic garment district. Or it could be artists working in themes of sustainability getting recruited into an "ecovillage". Just depends on the story. - You've got both an internal and external strategy in place for engaging artists. Another common mistake is going external right away, trying to recruit artists in. But many of the neighborhoods we're talking about already have artists living in them, so activating them, raising their visibility, getting them invested in community affairs, can really increase the likelihood that other artists will want to live there. We need to do a better job of thinking of a continuum of engagement ... Getting artists to move into a neighborhood, getting them creating work, getting them to display or perform within the neighborhood, getting them engaged with their neighbors, providing them with opportunities to engage visitors in a coordinated way, getting them opportunities to own space if they want to, getting them to serve on committees and boards, etc. We both need to recruit people and get them involved in the most passive ways, but also motivating and empowering artists to get more engaged. Arguably, just like with any group, 20 active and highly visible artists could have a greater impact on perceptions of a neighborhood than 200 artists just passively living in a neighborhood and not interacting with anyone. - You're not positioning artists as a silver bullet. Finally, we have to have realistic expectations of what artists can do. Just as a casino or a convention center can't save a neighborhood, neither can artists generally save a neighborhood. And just like casinos, the more commonplace strategies are to leverage artists in revitalization, the more diluted the benefit of those efforts. Which is why it's so critical if you're going to do this sort of thing to really serve artists' needs and to engage them in neighborhood affairs, rather than to treat them as a passive resource. And it's why it's so important to be building arts strategies into a broader revitalization effort that looks at increasing quality of life more broadly and to recruit other potential groups of residents (immigrants, people looking for intergenerational housing, people looking for co-housing opportunities, students, etc.).

So that's what we're doing specifically on the revitalization front. But that's fitting into a larger community effort to make Cleveland as artist friendly as possible on numerous fronts, with offerings like: - Artist as an Entrepreneur Institute. 24-hour business training course specifically designed for artists, with the intent to help them build their businesses and make contacts in the business world. The program was started in Cleveland, and to date, it's been taken by more than 650 artists from Cleveland, southern Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and the Kyrgyz Republic. - COSE Arts Network. A division of Cleveland's small business chamber specifically designed for artists and small arts businesses and nonprofits. More than 500 members. Gives artists access to affordable health insurance, discounted utility and electricity rates, discounted office supplies, discounted meeting space, training and networking events, etc. To the best of our knowledge, it's the only chamber of commerce in the country with a specific division for artists. - Arts Business and Innovation Awards. Annual awards given out by COSE for artists, arts businesses and arts nonprofits that showcase great business sense. $4,000 and additional support services (accounting, marketing, etc.), plus free Arts Network memberships. - Creative Workforce Fellowship. Each year, we give out 20 $20,000 awards to Cuyahoga County artists. It's one of the largest artist grant programs in the country, and our research suggests it's THE largest that's publicly funded. - Cleveland Arts Prize. The oldest local arts prize in the country. Annually gives out $25,000 in awards to artists of various different disciplines. - Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. This group gives out approximately $15 million to arts and culture organizations and organizations doing arts and culture projects within Cuyahoga County. While artists can't get this money specifically (except for the $400,000 worth of Creative Workforce Fellowships), this supports the employment of a lot of artists through permanent jobs, residencies, etc. Among the 50 largest cities, Cleveland used to have the lowest level of public funding for arts and culture; after our tobacco excise tax went into effect in 2006, it rose to among the highest per capita funders nationwide. I've been told that even if Cuyahoga County was a state, it would still have the third highest level of public funding for arts and culture in the country (!). - Percent for Art and other Public Art. Both the Regional Transit Authority and the city of Cleveland have percent for art programs that open up public art commissions for artists at a pretty healthy rate. In the past few years, you've seen major permanent pieces added all over the city - along Superior, Euclid, the Quigley Roundabout, the Tubbs-Jones Transit Center, Morgana Run, Buckeye, Gordon Square. And there's a ton in the pipeline right now, too - in Asiatown, Tremont, Ohio City, Slavic Village, E. 116th transit station, Fairmount Pump Station, etc. - Other funding sources. Cleveland Colectivo, the Civic Innovation Lab and Neighborhood Connections all give out grants to a variety of sources, but a lot of artists get funding from these three each year. Then you have the Cleveland Design Competition awards, the Cleveland International Film Festival awards, the Ohio Independent Film Festival awards ... A savvy artist could secure a lot of funding in Cleveland! - Foundation Center. Cleveland is home to one of five Foundation Center Libraries in the country, a great resource for anyone looking for assistance in finding out what grant opportunities are out there. They do a lot of grant education work for artists year-round and particularly every October, as part of Funding for Arts Month. - Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. Division of the Cleveland Bar Association that does pro bono work on behalf of artists. Pretty common around the country, but we have a pretty active chapter locally. - Artspace Cleveland. Organization that assists artists in locating studios, live-work, homes, storefronts, etc. throughout the city. - Discipline-focused services. A ton of organizations (Zygote, Cleveland Public Art, RED DOT Gallery, The Lit, Art House, Roots of American Music, SANKOFA, etc.) provide additional classes, funding, exhibition, etc. for artists working within a particular discipline/genre. - Artist-centric zoning. The city has a huge live-work overlay district covering about three miles on the east side, mainly in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood, that tries to make it easier for artists to live and work in industrial buildings. Unfortunately, state housing and building code still requires features like modernized elevators, sprinklers, etc., so there's not much we can do about that, short of lobbying the state legislature. - Centralized website. So there are a lot of resources out there for artists (and this is just the tip of the iceberg), but they're being offered by dozens of organizations. Right now, we're working on launching a "one-stop shop" website for artists where they can find all of this info in one centralized place. Check out Chicago Artists Resource for an example of the type of site we're talking about going live in Cleveland within the next year: http://www.chicagoartistsresource.org/ Sooooo, I would say that yes, Ohio cities, Cleveland included, could be doing a lot more to recruit and retain artists and would be smart to do so. But I think we're on the right track. Almost none of this stuff existed a decade ago. In 2001, there was no $400,000 in grants (nor most of the smaller grant programs either), no percent-for-art, no live-work overlay district, no business chamber offerings specifically for artists, no business training program and definitely no program specifically at getting artists into (and more engaged with) neighborhoods. And for that matter, there weren't a ton of efforts to think about artists in neighborhoods at all. There was the Warehouse District in the 80s and Tremont in the 80s to today, but now there are 13 neighborhoods strategizing around this. Think it's definitely in the Cleveland zeitgeist right now.

I work pretty specifically on this issue in Cleveland, so I'll admit I have a pretty skewed view on the topic :) That being said, I do think we're doing a decent job of incrementally increasing support for artists, and there's a lot of focus right now in Cleveland on artists' role in neighborhood revitalization (check out http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,25429.0.html for examples). In terms of explicitly linking artists to revitalization efforts, the big thing we're doing locally (in addition to CDC-led efforts like in Collinwood, Asiatown, Buckeye and Gordon Square) is Artists in Residence. This initiative is just getting off the ground, but it's going to be investing $500,000 in one Cleveland neighborhood in an effort to get artists more engaged in revitalization. After a two-year pilot, hopefully we'll be able to expand to other Cleveland neighborhoods. $150,000 is for micro-loans for artists who want to buy property in the neighborhood and another $150,000 is for micro-loans for artists to carry out community projects within the neighborhood. We're also kicking off a local and national marketing campaign to let artists know about this initiative and what's happening in other Cleveland neighborhoods, too, and working with other organizations to make local homeownership services (savings programs, individual development accounts, homeownership courses, etc.) more artist-friendly. We had 13 neighborhoods apply to host the pilot program, and we've cut it to five finalists ... We should have the neighborhood selected by July 1. We also launched an annual conference called Rust Belt to Artist Belt that tackles this very topic ... the role artists can play in revitalizing industrial cities. It's been held three times (twice in Cleveland and then in Detroit in April), and in three years, it's attracted more than 600 attendees from 18 states (plus Canada, Germany and the Netherlands). Finally, we also just did a MASSIVE study (like 300 pages) of where artists live in greater Cleveland, plus surveys, housing stock analysis and even regression analysis to predict where they're most likely to live in the future, which should hopefully help us leverage our resources into the places where they're most likely to work.

Arts, military come together with Tech-Arts Dayton artists paired with scientists at base Dayton Business Journal by Joe Cogliano, DBJ Staff Reporter Friday, April 15, 2011 Earlier this year, eight local artists bonded with a group of scientists and researchers from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The unlikely pairing was brought about to better understand each other’s world and methodologies. The meeting, which may be a catalyst for future breakthroughs in military technology, was part of a new initiative known as Tech-Arts. The initiative is the brainchild of Joe Sciabica, executive director of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patt, and Peter Benkendorf, founder of Involvement Advocacy. It came out of talks the two had while serving on an innovation council for the Dayton Development Coalition ... ... More available at http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/print-edition/2011/04/15/arts-military-come-together-with.html.