Read the Original Article on Cool Cleveland.com

Gordon Square Arts District

Cleveland is alive with art. It’s one of our greatest strengths.

Would-be artists have been awed by The Cleveland Museum of Art with its world-renowned collection and free admission. Budding violinists have been inspired by the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom or a Celtic band in a local pub. Thespians have taken to local school productions after witnessing Shakespeare performed on Playhouse Square.

Great art, when combined with opportunities to create it, breeds new ideas, new art, innovation. Nonprofit organizations and community organizations provide instruction and incubation takes place in studios and backstage rehearsals.

In Cleveland, arts districts invigorate our neighborhoods. Gordon Square Arts District was born when $20 Million was spent to renovate the near west side surrounding the Capitol Theatre. Restoration of the Capitol Theatre, a throwback to the era of classic movies like “Gone with the Wind,” was just the beginning. The Cleveland Public Theatre got a facelift and the Near West Theatre was constructed, making Gordon Square a destination for film and live theatre http://gordonsquare.org/capitol.html. You can watch a video of CoolCleveland.com’s Thomas Mulready interviewing Joy Roller of the Gordon Square Arts District by clicking the image below or here. Also pictured are Gordon Square Arts District Executive Director Jeff Ramsey and Cleveland City Councilman Matt Zone.

The streets were enhanced by new street lights, wider sidewalks, and accessible parking in the highway-accessible Detroit Shoreway neighborhood. Long underutilized and not-so-well maintained, Detroit Shoreway now enjoys great restaurants, musicals, galleries, films, and dance, in a clean and comfortable urban environment.

I headed out there on a Sunday afternoon to catch “Alice in Wonderland” at the Capitol. Others had the same idea– there was a line. Inside the theater’s lobby, the shadowy wall-sconce light and dark wood against light walls created the feel of the 1920s, the time of silent movies. The old Vaudeville stage (yes, it IS that old) remains amongst the three screens with digital projection foreign and independent, and the latest pop-culture, films, like Alice. Check out their Classic Brunch and Movie Series: a classic movie followed brunch in the adjacent restaurant, for $25 (call 440-349-3306, ext. 111 for your reservation). Late Friday Shift Schedule includes films like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “The Room,” 6515 Detroit http://www.clevelandcinemas.com.

Cleveland Public Theatre has become the west side’s incubator for new talent. Dancers, choreographers, playwrights, musicians, and directors are encouraged to seek their muse and create art with the support of art professionals. Although students create raw material from inexperience, that doesn’t mean the show is deficient. The theatre has drawn a large audience from around the greater Cleveland area since 1983 http://www.cptonline.org.

Visual arts and design, including fashion, brighten 78th Street Studios a few blocks north on Lake Avenue. The Creative Arts Open House is the best way to see what the West Side’s art community has to offer. Check it out every third Friday, not the same weekend as the Tremont or Little Italy walks, which means you can walk and look at art on lots of Fridays. The hunger and thirst are staved off by light food and beverage every third weekend quarterly when the exhibits change, making it a happy hour experience from 5 until 9 http://www.78thstreetstudios.com. Music stirs in the Lava Room recording studios, and print media is alive and well at the Alternative Press.

After all that exploring, you’ll be hungry, and although Gypsy Beans & Baking Company is great for coffee and pastries, pasta at Luxe will taste heavenly after all that walking http://www.GypsyBeans.com. That’s what I plan to eat after I spend an evening with W.B. Yeats at Cleveland Public Theatre sometime between May 13 and June 5.

“The Secret Garden” is playing at the Near West Theatre Thursdays through Sundays from May 7 through May 23 at 3PM. The kid-friendly production costs just $8 for adults and $6 for children. Call 216-961-6391 to purchase tickets. The Near West Theatre is a grassroots theatre with a focus on educating the public and strengthening people of all ages, with an emphasis on youth. Its philosophy is rooted in the transformative power of theatrical arts http://nearwesttheatre.org.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Claudia Taller, whose passion for words has led to creation of the Lakeside Word Lover’s Retreats, an outgrowth of her work with Skyline Writers.

Her favorite foods are red wine, salmon, ice cream, and chocolate. She loves to read, write, tour wineries, ride her bike, ease into yoga, and cook gourmet meals for friends. Find her at http://www.claudiatallermusings.blogspot.com.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 8th, 2010 at 3:54 pm and is filed under BizTech, Claudia Taller, Events, News, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Read the Original Article on Cool Cleveland.com

By Julie Washington, The Plain Dealer [Cleveland.com Original Article]

View full sizeThe Plain DealerThe Plain Dealer’s critic Steven Litt has won the Robert P. Bergman Prize as part of the 2010 Cleveland Arts Prize.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — In a rare move, a Cleveland Arts Prize has been awarded not to a person or an organization, but a neighborhood.

Gordon Square Arts District — a collection of theaters, restaurants and galleries clustered around West 65th Street and Detroit Avenue — and its leaders are being honored for having the vision and influence to revitalize a Cleveland neighborhood using the arts as an economic engine.

And among other winners of the arts prize is Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer’s art and architecture critic won the Robert P. Bergman Prize for leaders who are dedicated to a democratic vision of the arts.

Gordon Square leaders include Cleveland City Councilman Matt Zone, Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization executive director Jeff Ramsey, Gordon Square Arts District executive director Joy Roller, and Cleveland Public Theatre executive artistic director Raymond Bobgan.

Winners of the 2010 Cleveland Arts Prize — given to creative artists whose work enriches Northeast Ohio and whose accomplishments set a standard of excellence — will be announced today. They will be honored at the annual awards event Saturday, June 26, at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

“This crop of winners is broad-based and reflective of Cleveland today,” said arts prize executive director Marcie Bergman. “I find it thrilling to look at the people represented.”

Here are this year’s winners:

Lifetime Achievement Award in Visual Art: Artist Audra Skuodas spends so much time in her Oberlin studio, her husband jokes that she’ll grow roots there. Naturally a reclusive person, Skuodas has never done the kind of self-promotion that many artists do to goose their careers.

So it was a wonderful moment when she learned that she had received the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in Visual Art.

“It’s just a beautiful reassurance,” said Skuodas, pronounced SKOO-dus. “I exist.”

Skuodas has spent 40 years building a body of work that includes wall sculpture, book making, drawing and writing.

Martha Joseph Prizes for Distinguished Service to the Arts: Honors an individual or organization whose vision or philanthropy has made a significant contribution to the arts in Northeast Ohio. It is being awarded to Gordon Square Arts District and its leaders.

Other winners include:

• Joanne Cohen, executive director of the Art and Medicine Institute’s Art Program at the Cleveland Clinic.

Harper Collins BooksFormer Akron Beacon Journal reporter and author David Giffels is the recipient of the 2010 Cleveland Arts Prize’s midcareer award.

• Trudy Wiesenberger, curator and creator of the Art Program at University Hospitals of Cleveland, a trustee at Cleveland Institute of Art and a co-founder of the institute’s craft council.

• Mary Louise Hahn, former chair of the Cleveland Arts Prize and consultant for the Cleveland Foundation, where she bolstered the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award jury, increased the awards prize to $10,000, and turned the awards ceremony into a compelling event.

• Mickie McGraw, co-founder of the Art Studio at MetroHealth Medical Center.

Emerging Artist Award in Literature: This prize, awarded to a promising artist living in Northeast Ohio, carries a $5,000 prize. Poet and author Phil Metres, an associate professor of English at John Carroll University, is the recipient.

Mid-Career Awards: This honor spotlights artists who have received national and regional recognition and have lived in this region. The literature award will go to David Giffels, former Akron Beacon Journal reporter and author of “All the Way Home.” Giffels is assistant professor of English at the University of Akron. The music and dance prize will go to world percussionist Jamey Haddad, visiting associate professor of percussion at Oberlin College. Giffels and Haddad each will receive $2,500.

Lifetime Achievement Award: Writer Henry Adams, professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University, is the author of “Eakins Revealed: The Secret Life of an American Artist.”

[PDF] [Original Cleveland.com Article]

Fellow Detroit Shoreway resident Qian Li has produced this short film “the Bus Stops Here” which focuses on the Detroit Avenue Streetscape and Robert Maschke’s bus shelter design.

Quote from Qian Li

“The Bus Stops Here” is an short documentary about a pair of innovative bus stop structures designed by Robert Maschke for the Detroit Shoreway area. Located on Cleveland’s West Side, Detroit Shoreway is a neighborhood in transition that has a diverse population. This documentary depicts the commitment of people who believe in their community, in Cleveland, and in the future of the region. The bus stops, two of which will be built at the center of the Gordon Square art district currently under development, will become the first public visual art forms in the neighborhood and symbolize not only the transformational power of art, but a turning point for this evolving area.”

Artists vs. Blight – WSJ (4.17.2009)

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