IN THE SCULPTURE GARDEN

Sculpture Reception August 20
There’s a secluded spot on Waterloo Road where trees are the main attraction – a bosky setting for a small sculpture show. The garden is opened for events: on August 20, it will host a formal reception for the sculpture show: Laila Voss’ tree-trunk shapes (rather like finding shapes in clouds), John Ranally’s ten-foot, briskly striding painted metal structures (Stand back! They’re advancing!) And don’t miss Brni Lavrisha’s Cuss Words, attached to the fence by the entrance (and forged while he was going through a divorce). The reception will be free, too; details will follow.

AT ARTS COLLINWOOD

“Primal Cuts”  In The Gallery
Katy Richard’s show of paintings of meat is sort of like walking through the butchers’ section of the market in Calcutta where I used to shop after I figured out how much the cook was cheating. Without the flies and the smells, of course – a more pleasant experience. Katy is very, very good at painting meat; she convincingly conveys the physicality of solid flesh. A rather creepy touch is added by the small fabric squares (white, with bits of eyelet and embroidery) stained with (I take it) meat juices; blood, in other words. This is a striking show.

AT ARTS COLLINWOOD

Music in the Cafe

Ladies’ Vinyl Listening Party, 8:29 on Tuesday evenings. Bridget Caswell will introduce a different lady DJ each week. (Gentlemen are invited to listen, too; they just can’t spin.)

Jazz on Wednesdays continues, with a different group each week (pretty mellow last time we were there) against a background of art that changes monthly.

Yoga in the Gallery   

Led by artist/yoga practitioner Lyz Bly, a series of Vinyasa Flow Yoga classes. Tuesday nights 6 - 7:15 pm, Saturday mornings, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm. Classes are $13 per session, and every second Saturday is Free.

Sand Sculpture   July 17

Is this the eighth Sand Sculpture contest? It’s the world’s most relaxing event – unless you’re intensely competitive, I suppose. Pack up the kids and some sand tools, pick your spot on the clean, little used Villa Angela beach, and relax. The contest opens at 1 pm; stay around for story telling, music and a cookout.  1 – 7 pm. No charge unless you’re an artist competing for an award, which involves a $10 registration fee. (To most peoples’ minds, everyone’s a winner.)

Euclid Beach area, Cleveland Lakefront State Park (Lakeshore Blvd at E. 174th).

This month's meeting is on June 15th at 7 pm at Nottingham United Methodist Church 18316 St. Clair Ave. The Guest Speaker will be Larry McFadden from Friends of Euclid Creek. Please bring food to the June meeting.The Nottingham Food Pantry, located in the Church, is open Tuesdays and Thursdays, noon to 3 p.m. Please donate plastic shopping bags for food distribution.  This food stays in the neighborhood!PLANTERS NEEDED for our 3 neighborhood gardens. Call Donna at 216 289-6570 for details. 

Neighborhood Talents Data Base

 Do YOU have a skill to offer?  There are people in this neighborhood who are experts in many areas:  Golf teacher, auto mechanic, model railroad building expert, outdoor ponds expert, piano teacher, aquarium specialist, party planning expert, home organizing expert, several handy-men, and tree removal expert, sewing & crochet.  Some people are willing to give lessons for free.  If you want to add your talents to our database, or if you want to use any of the services at hand, please give us a call. In addition, a job network is being planned. Just call the Civic Club @, 486-7612, and leave the information, name, number, etc. 

ARTS COLLINWOOD THIS SUMMER

July and August concerts, we hope, will proceed as planned – in the sculpture garden adjoining the Zaller Building at 16006 Waterloo, which is being refurbished by volunteer gardeners with donated plants, and is sprouting new sculptures. (Thanks, Kurt and Charles, for cleaning it up.) It’s shady and cool, and admission is free (performers may pass the hat). Bring lawn chairs, blankets, picnics, children. Refreshments will be available for purchase.

If it rains again, concerts will move to the Arts Collinwood gallery, 15605 Waterloo. For information, call Arts Collinwood at 216-692-9500. The concerts are being presented by the Waterloo Sculpture Garden, with Arts Collinwood and the merchants of Waterloo Road.

.ON AND AROUND WATERLOO

ARTS COLLINWOOD

HEAVENLY BODIES IN THE GALLERY  Until May 15

“Heavenly Bodies” is a pun at several levels; the bodies in Patricia Zinsmeister Parker’s works belong to real women; they bulge and sag in all the real places—at the same time as they gracefully bend and sway. This is a rewarding show. It stays in the gallery until  May 15; the closing party will be enlivened by a concert of contemporary music by No Exit, a distinguished new music ensemble.

GET READY FOR THE PARADE  Starting May 4

If you’ve done Parade the Circle workshops with Arts Collinwood, you know how much more fun it is to be in the Parade instead of just watching (not that watching isn’t pretty fabulous). If you haven’t “done Parade,” you probably should. Every Tuesday evening, May 4 - June 12, 6:30 - 8 pm in the Arts Collinwood Community Center

HEAVENLY BODIES AT ARTS COLLINWOOD  Opening April 15 Work by Patricia  Zinsmeister Parker goes on show with a members-only reception on April 15; the artist will be present, and members of Northeast Ohio Music Exchange (NeOME) will be performing through the building. Not a member? Want to taste those fine pastries and fresh tapas? Join Arts Collinwood! Only $10, call 216-692-9500 or join as you arrive. (And if you are a member, you already know how welcome you’ll be.) If that doesn’t work for you, come to the public opening next night (April 16); see the show (though not the artist), enjoy wine&cheese, visit the extended Happy Hour in the Café and hear a special program of new music by NeOME members (that’s what NeOME does, compose and play new music – Arts Collinwood is very happy to have them visiting) created in response to the paintings. The opening runs 6-9 pm, the cafe stays open till 1 am.

Excerpts from the Artist’s Statement: You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age: William Butler Yeats.

TO DO THIS WEEKEND Saturday, March 13

Arts Collinwood Gallery: Closing party for “A Little R&R” (George Roby’s ceramic sculptures, GR Hamilton’s dioramas), 6 - 9pm. Singer-songwriter John McGrail (“a hell of a guitar player” whose songs express the discontents of our times) will play at 7:30 pm.

Low Life Gallery: Opening Reception for “Junkmail and Advertisements: Paintings by Joshua Rex”, 6-10 pm; Trouble Books perform at 7:30 pm for their Record Release Party. Joshua Rex is appalled by the deluge of advertising flowing from and over “neon chain stores and ravaged cities”; he paints the products they lure us to buy. “Junk is a mood as well as a physical reality.” The show runs till March 28.

New Craft Shop Grand Open: Ever since Waterloo Design closed (quite some years ago), I’ve been agitating for a handicrafts shop – a source of handmade soaps, cushions, wooden objects, pottery (and, in Waterloo Design’s case, felt pierogis. Perfumed felt pierogis.) I’m not sure about the felt pierogis, but Salty Not Sweet, which opened last week next to Arts Collinwood on Waterloo, promises to fill the gap on giftable items in general. And it’s working on a letterpress studio.

YOU NEED TO KNOW

ARTS COLLINWOOD ANNUAL MEETING: STEADY GROWTH

The Arts Collinwood Center was crowded on Tuesday evening; we had to borrow chairs from the Café. Eight new trustees joined the board, and a new employee joined the beleaguered staff – both of which need that influx to handle this year’s ambitious schedule. The foundation to support that expansion was laid during 2008 and 2009, when Arts Collinwood worked with Janus Small, arts consultant (thanks to a grant from the Gund Foundation) to create a set of goals and procedures; then began to put them into action. More funding is in the works for capacity building and financial development – and for programs, which is why we exist.

MESSAGES FROM THE CAFÉ AT ARTS COLLINWOOD

If you’re an artist, film maker, video designer or musician, and would like to show at the cafe, contact Susan at 216-692-9500, 12-5pm Monday thru Friday, or stop in and leave a tape or contact sheet.

And  -- the Café is always looking for volunteers to help with gallery events, classes and other neighborhood projects!

And and – it’s also always looking for couches and easy chairs for its living room theatre, along with video screens, projectors and other artsy things. Don't throw it out! Call first!

Arts Collinwood  15605 Waterloo Road, 216-692-9500, www.artscollinwood.org. Gallery and Café hours: Tuesday –Saturday 11-11; Sunday 11-5.

 

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

A KID-FRIENDLY ART SALE

The Arts Collinwood Holiday Art Sale is the kid-friendliest anywhere. Not only does it have a supervised craft corner in the Art Center, where the kids can make art while you shop; not only does the Café understand the importance of cookies and cocoa (with cocoa, it’s the whipped cream); but on Sunday December 13, the last day of the sale, you can take the family to the Beachland for brunch and a puppet show, and shop afterwards. Food, entertainment, art – Waterloo Road has it all.

THE WEEK ON WATERLOO WATERLOO IS LIVELY

All the gallery shows I saw last Friday will hang through December 5, as (I believe) will Fragments of Fall at Waterloo 7. Enjoy!

Friday evening on Waterloo: three openings, a concert in the Arts Collinwood Art Center, the Arts Collinwood Café jammed and jammin’. The arts village was on display. At the Arts Collinwood gallery, the Casey-Omaitz show was as rewarding as expected; Jen Omaitz’s  constructions play off Amy’s meticulous prints and soft-toned paintings of urban chaos and breakdown, adding dimension and color in the form of orange barrels, wood and ropes. The artists’ statements on the AC Web site illuminate the thinking behind their mixes of falling apart and being tied together. (If you want to own a Casey, move soon! Her prints are very reasonably priced.)

TEN BANDS FOR TEN DOLLARS October 25 Now that Arts Collinwood is running the formerly Waterloo Café (you didn’t know? You have been informed.), every penny you spend there will go to Arts Collinwood programs. Eat in the café, keep the art center rockin’. Getting the takeover underway needs a little jump start, so we’re holding a little fundraiser (repetition deliberate). Come to the café on Sunday, October 25, 1-11 p.m., hand over $10 and you’ll get a hotdog and a beer and all the music you can listen to. (Yes, of course you can also buy more. Lots more.) You can also enjoy the lively gallery show of Gary and Laura Dumm’s cats and comics; then you can stroll Waterloo and visit all the other galleries and shops.The Café at Arts Collinwood  15605 Waterloo Road, 216-692-9500, www.artscollinwood.org. Gallery hours are Thur/Fri 6-9 p.m.; Sat/Sun 1-5 p.m., and whenever the Café is open.

REVIEWS AND PREVIEWS OCTOBER 9 ART DRIVE AT JOSEPH-BETH  October 10-12 

I know we keep telling you to stay out of malls and shop at galleries – but if you shop at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Legacy Village October 10-12, 20% of your purchase (10% of bistro purchases) will go to Cleveland Neighborhood Arts, a consortium of the groups sponsored by the Cleveland Foundation’s Neighborhood Connections program. All the money collected will buy musical instruments and art supplies for the children served by the groups; feel free to bring such donations with you, if you have them. Tell the cashier you’re donating to Cleveland Neighborhood Arts. 

 HAPPY HOUR ART AT ARTS COLLINWOOD   through October

The Arts Collinwood Art Center is offering happy-hour art classes on Mondays and Wednesdays; Michele Biondo will show you how to make jewelry from broken crockery (the small masterpieces created by china painters of the past come into focus when they’re not surrounded by a plate); she’ll also show you how to make