It’s been a rough month for Cleveland’s art and music communities with three beloved creative individuals leaving us way too soon. Musician Derek Poindexter, who died May 15, was only 52; painter/art journalist Dan Tranberg, who died May 28, just 53. And photographer/painter/poet Karen St. John-Vincent was 62 when she died May 31.
Derek had been in a string of local bands including the Tellers and Pleasure Void. But he first became known in the music community when he played bass with folk rockers the Waynes back in the ’90s. Known for its lilting, harmony-driven tunes, the band released three albums and attracted a lot of local attention and acclaim. He was also part of the Cleveland Music Group, a nonprofit organization in the early-mid ’90s that came together to promote the area’s music scene. There he was the resident peacemaker and bridge-builder, always looking to soothe troubled waters. He also taught in the music program at Tri-C and was known for his generosity in lending a helping hand to whoever needed it. He died in the hospital while being assessed for a lung transplant.
Dan Tranberg was known for his cool, elegant, geometric paintings which explored the intersections of form, color and texture, in the end always seeming to exude a sense of balance and peace. He also experimented with non-traditional materials and three-dimensional work. In addition to being a working artist with many gallery shows on his CV, he was well known as a teacher at the Cleveland Institute of Art and an art critic, who promoted the local art scene through his freelance work with the Plain Dealer, as well as national art publications. And in 2003 he co-founded the arts & culture journal Angle with fellow artists Douglas Max Utter and Amy Sparks, an exciting and respected monthly, and later bimonthly, journal that had a four-year run, giving many area artists their first significant exposure. He consumed art as avidly as he created it.
Karen St. John-Vincent was a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, a towering talent whose modesty and lack of pushiness caused her to not as well-known as she deserved to be, despite several stunning gallery shows in the ’00s. She created carefully conceived photos in which she set up situations drenched in mystery and tension that often contained elements of surrealism and the supernatural. She prevailed upon friends and friends of friends to be the actors in her scenarios, which explored relationships on the verge of reaching a breaking point, implying narratives just beyond the viewer’s grasp. Karen’s studio in the Screw Factory Building was a riotous catalogue of her interests, which conspicuously included animals, especially horses, and all types of spiritual experiences. She had been working on an indie film called Vacancy before getting sick. Both she and Tranberg died following long battles with cancer.