Hello, wonderful Clevelanders —
As I mend from a full hip replacement and have time to reflect and plan ahead for the New Year, I feel well-supported in my hospital-commissioned, no-slip, grippy and compression socks nicely elevated in my lift chair. (All great recommended gifts for a loved one this holiday.) This is a typical year’s-end communication that you would likely find inserted inside a glittery, artist-made, locally sourced holiday card, which details the triumphs, trials and tragedies spelled out from best-to-worst-to-aspirational as we all turn sharply into 2025.
In early 2024, I found a crew of fellow travelers who seek vaster, mysterious and unknown terrain to how we can experience moments of cultural wonder and awe and share it with our wider community. The Quest for the Fest and its members, aka Questers, creatives of all ilk, poke around together and ponder our cross-disciplinary professions and the divine-calling of this creative community of how we can reimagine ourselves within this growing disconnect and isolated world. This group is designed for creatives to remember and remind themselves why they like to make things and send them out into the world. These groups, among others in Northeast Ohio — Ingenuity, Maelstrom Collective, Collective Arts Network, the Black Artists of Zuumba, Djapo Cultural Arts, East Avenue Market Gallery, and many many more — magnify a spiritual-like inquiry and creative exaltation of sorts with the aim to lift us all up through collective energy.
In November, my sister and I moved my father (who turns 90 in January) back to Cleveland from Florida. He is in memory care minutes from my home. I have been privileged to see him most days. I have witnessed my father’s moments of clarity where his memory muscle sings along to a “Besame Mucho” instrumental rendition that plays over the speakers to the residents at the Normandy Lakeside. I see him sing like a choir boy. My dad came over the other day and wanted me to walk him around my house and tell him about every piece of art hanging on the wall (I estimate I have 400 works hung salon-style). My dad was immediately stimulated and engaged with his mood shifting from boredom and frustration to joyful wonder and inquiry.
I have heard more folks completely exhilarated and overjoyed by the Picasso on Paper show at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It is the buzz-worthy show of the year. I look forward to seeing it after I recuperate. Another much-to-see exhibition is the late Patricia Zinsmeister Parker’s show, A Painter’s Painter, at Bonfoey, which has been extended through January 31. She is a giant in this region, and joy and awe will be freshly served in these abstracts, still lifes and figurative works.
In 2024, art activism has made fundamental changes because creatives have shown that representation and involvement can make a difference. Some of those changes took place at Cuyahoga Arts and Culture where voices demanded increased funding for individual artists, resulting in a 25% increase and the sole distribution of funds going through the Assembly for the Arts.
Future changes remain 1. An Arts and Cultural plan developed by and for Cuyahoga County for the full cultural ecosystem 2. Participation in allocation talks and more increases in funding for individual artists/creative businesses from the new levy passed in November of 2024. We need more provocation and rebellion to resist institutional power to fall back into complacency.
More transparency, participation and connections will make life look a lot more like La Dolce Vita, a carnival, as Bob Dylan sings in the song “Motorpsycho Nightmare.” These very risks will create carnivals, festivals, communions and parades. Let’s dare to do this together in the new year.
The high point of these last few years has been the distinct pleasure of working with one of the most brilliant and insightful minds, Richey Piiparinen, who writes eloquently, honestly and soulfully about Cleveland and the Rust Belt. He parallels his own journey of living with and declining from glioblastoma multiforme cancer. I was fortunate to work with him and illustrate his 14-essay writings that were made into a book by Red Giant Books called Octopus Hunting.
Richey and I were able to collaborate with our writing and visual art. Since the release of the book, we have celebrated the book on IdeaStream, City Club at the Happy Dog, Mac’s Backs, HEDGE Gallery and the Rowfant Club. My dear Richey has entered hospice and will find his way, leaving behind three beautiful kids and a family and bounty of friends and colleagues that will always call him Cleveland’s son.
I will leave you with Richey’s words, “I went jogging down Lakeshore Blvd., 3 miles, not a month after surgery. No shit. It was late October but hot. The red, yellow and orange leaves were falling around me as the bright sun shone. The scene couldn’t have been more sparkling with life before death before the afterlife. Cleveland settles into me as I settle ever closer to Cleveland. But one speck heading back to where I came from. Into the soul of my city.”
As we love and lose our poets, painters and city prophets, who leave their permanent marks, vibrations, activations, rumbles, sambas, poetry, fiction, and rallies, let us make their legacies continue to bring that Ode to Joy and art for each of you entering this new year of 2025.
Happy, healthy holidays.
