art all around us
Help Create the Design for Street Painting
Oh boy, this is so not ordinary. Get ready to join us. Hundreds of people are getting together to make our community even more amazing.
Last fall, people from all over came together on Fountain Square to celebrate our city through the power of collective creativity. Cincinnati's first-ever Splash Dance became an Internet hit, getting over 50,000 views.
This year, our second annual "Ta Da" celebration is just as amazing and fun and for everyone.
We are going to paint the street on September 26! (Rain dates October 2 and 3.)
Yup - our canvas will be the actual pavement of 12th Street between Main and Central Parkway. Read more about the event and sign up here.
We're also hosting a community meeting to gather suggestions and design ideas for the street painting. That meeting is on August 10, 5:30 at the Art Academy and we'd love to see you there. Watch our Facebook page and twitter feed for more details on this meeting.
Please share this information widely - we need hundreds of painters on September 26. And if you'd like to organize a team to paint together, contact Tom McLaughlin at TMcLaughlin@FineArtsFund.org.
Summer Walk In A Beautiful Place
Guest blogger: Joyce Monger, Consultant, Art ServicesEarlier this summer, we hosted a neighborhood tour of Over the Rhine -- a cool introduction to our beautiful new neighborhood.
This tour was part of our series of excursions to get people together with our arts community. The evening kicked off at our Jackson and Central Parkway office with guitarist Gregory Harper. Summer was in the air: temperatures around 90°, doors wide open, and people strolling down the streets.
Our neighborhood exploration began with a guided walking tour of the ArtWorks' murals that punctuate Central Parkway, led by Tamara Harkavy, Director, and student mural painter Aaron Siska. Our pace was just right for getting a good view of all these amazing community accomplishments!
Dan Korman, proprietor of Park + Vine, welcomed us at his threshold and shared his passion with our group of 40 when he gave an animated tour of the unique mixture of shops, arts, and eats that comprise this thriving corridor.
Then, we went down the block to our final stop at Ensemble Theatre, where -- with the backdrop of a Fringe Festival performance set -- Lynn Meyers, Producing Artistic Director, shared some neighborhood history and refreshing air conditioning!
And the neighborhood explorations will continue! Yeh! Check back in August for more details on these events or sign up here for our email list to get occasional updates about fun things like this!
Fashion Art On the Block
A few weeks ago, we went to listen to our mayor talk about the state of Cincinnati -- he had some sweet things to say about our arts (more on that later) -- and then we went to a party celebrating the art of fashion.
In the old Shillito's building, Landor Associates put together a beautiful exhibit of the fashion drawings by Anne Wainscott. Anne created these for the newspapers in Cincinnati to illustrate the ads for Shillito's. If you grew up in Cincinnati, and are of a certain age, you're certain to recognize them.
And then Landor complimented her drawings with window displays featuring their brands whipped into clever outfits. You must gather your friends and go see this. The window displays and the interior exhibit are there until the end of July -- making Race Street a happy surprise of fashion art between 6th and 7th streets. There are dresses created out of pennies, newspapers, girl scout patches, and more.
- Authored by Lisa Maly and Margy Waller (only one of us can remember these drawings).
Bubbles on Final Friday
Last Friday was a wicked long day for some of us at the Fine Arts Fund. Happily, it ended with bubbles (watch closely):
We’ve been super busy doing what we always do, and at the same time, working hard to create what we have nicknamed new-FAF. (Generally we eschew acronyms because they don’t mean anything to most readers – but that’s sort of what we are aiming for here. *Smile*)
The crew working on new-FAF was “invited” to meet at 6:45 a.m. Friday morning. After a decade of east coast start-time (around 10), this was an excruciating meeting time for me -- and I was not alone.
Even so, some of us ended the day (mind you – this was the Friday before a three-day-holiday-weekend) by meeting at 4 p.m. to discuss the arts plank of our regional plan – Agenda 360. That’s a fine initiative – but at that time, on that day, after such an early start....well, you get the idea.
So, all day – even tho sorta, kinda exhausted – I looked forward to walking out the work door and into the Final Friday celebration of community, with its open galleries, special shows, street food, and so on.
We started at an exhibit of photographs in our local coffee place and then sat on the patio at one of our pubs, visiting with friends who wandered by on the street.
I left one group to join another for a bite of walk-about food at the new Fork Heart Knife (homemade pretzel for me), stopped in at a couple galleries on Main Street, and then headed round the corner at Jackson and 12th for home. It was still early evening, but remember – there was that very absurd start-time.
There, in front of Know Theatre, I discovered a show: people playing music and throwing around the bubble-making liquid, others on Segways (including the Fringe Angel), many already dancing on the sidewalk. It was the First Annual Spontaneous Final Friday Cincy Fringe Parade.
Sitting on the Know Theatre “porch”, I watched them gather for an impromptu march around the neighborhood. When I got home, I found a feather in my hair. Thanks Angel.
Final Friday is extraordinary, more so every month – and the upcoming days of the Cincy Fringe Festival will be too. Both fill our neighborhood with people – some who come by all the time, and many new visitors. They swell the sidewalks and restaurants and bars of the area – and we get to share a whole bunch of dance, song, galleries, murals, and music all at once in a place that has extraordinary vitality and energy. You know – we Play, with bubbles.
Bike Art
People from all over our community came together to celebrate the dedication of the first art bike rack, Tour de Cincy. This bike rack is 1 of 15 in the Queen City Art Racks series: a new initiative to bring artist-designed, functional bike racks to public spaces.
Do you remember the Big Pig Gig (when all those painted pigs were scattered around town)? Now ArtWorks is rolling out Queen City Art Racks to engage artists who create the bike racks and engage our community who use and see them. Art Racks are unique to our community -- designed by local artists and are installed in public spaces all across our region.
Tours de Cincy designed by Pam Kravetz, Carla Lamb, and Karen Saunders
Within a year, we'll have 15 Art Racks scattered across our community, adding to the art all around us and making our community more vibrant.