Art

"Picasso and Paper" Preview & Curator Tour - Cleveland Museum of Art

December 3, 2024, Stuart O. Smith, Jr. attends preview of the Cleveland Museum of Art's Picasso and Paper exhibition.

I was fortunate to attend the Cleveland Museum of Art's preview of their new Picasso and Paper exhibition on Tuesday, December 3, 2024. As I was talking to blogger Dan Hanson during the preview, he pointed out how incredibly lucky we are to have the Cleveland Museum of Art bring this exhibition to Cleveland. Cleveland is one of very few places in the world where this exhibition will be shown.

I not only appreciated seeing the amazing artwork, but it was great to be given a tour by Curator of Prints and Drawings Britany Salsbury. She was able to give the historical background in a personal way during the tour she led. I always like to first visit the galleries of a special exhibition, and then attend a tour with a curator or docent.

The exhibition is huge, filling all of the museum's special exhibition space (both the Exhibition Gallery and the Exhibition Hall). With all this artwork, you will want to take time to view it closely, so I highly recommend planning to take plenty time to see it all. I also recommend taking a break halfway through the exhibition and then coming back with fresh eyes to see the second section.

I enjoyed the preview, and wrote this blog post to share my experience at the Picasso and Paper exhibition.

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Civic // Space: PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 43 at The City Club of Cleveland

Thank you, PechaKucha Night Cleveland Volume 43 presenters and organizers, for the November 21, 2024, event that took place at The City Club of Cleveland.

One of my joys is not only attending great PechaKucha events in Cleveland and Akron, but then afterwards learning more about the presenters. I do this by developing my PechaKucha blog posts about these events, which feature Northeast Ohio creatives. The process of writing this blog post provides me with the opportunity to take the time to study more about their interesting work. There is so much to learn from these people who make a difference in our community.

TAKE ACTION: I want to encourage readers of this blog post to go to a future events with a purpose in mind. Take time to connect to each other by not only attending the gathering, but interacting with both the attendees and the PechaKucha Night Cleveland presenters. At the very least, please personally thank the presenters and organizers for sharing their talent with our community.

The Thursday, November 21, 2024, PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 43 - Civic // Space event had additional significance, since it took place at the "America's Citadel of Free Speech " -- The City Club of Cleveland!!

I want to thank The City Club of Cleveland Chief Executive Officer Dan Moulthrop and the other City Club staff who helped bring this great event to their place of service to the community. Their hosting of the creative storytelling format event reflects their openness to encouraging postive speech in our community.

I hope you enjoy learning about the "Volume 43 - Civic // Space" presenters from what I share here:

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A Day of Akron Art Galleries: Skulls & Neon

Thursday, November 14, 2024, a day of Akron art -- “Skull & Bones Exhibition” at the Myers School of Art's Emily Davis Gallery, University of Akron, and “GLOW: Neon & Light” at the Akron Art Museum’s Arnstein Galleries.

After spending three days in and around Niagara Falls, we were out again for more fun the day after we returned. On Thursday, November 14, 2024, we had a most enjoyable day with our son, Michael, in Akron, enjoying two art exhibitions. Visiting Akron art galleries was a great way to spend a rainy day.

We first visited the Myers School of Art's Emily Davis Gallery at the University of Akron, and then went to the Akron Art Museum. We would have also visited Akron's Summit Artspace, but it is not open on Thursdays, and the three of us wanted to make use of the Thursday FREE admission at the Akron Art Museum.

Our main motivation for going to Akron was to see the following two exhibitions, but we also want to share what else we enjoyed during our day:

We wrote this blog post so you can learn about our day, and to encourage you to visit these Akron art venues.

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End-of-Summer Weekend Fun: IngenuityFest 2024, PechaKucha Night Cleveland, and Remembering Euclid Beach Park

End-of-Summer Weekend Fun: IngenuityFest 2024, PechaKucha Night Cleveland, and Remembering Euclid Beach Park

The first day of fall had already arrived the Sunday before, but in Cleveland, we stretched the summer fun one more week by having three great events over the weekend of Friday, September 27, 2024, through Sunday, September 29, 2024:

The following blog post includes my photos and videos from the weekend, along with event information and what others have shared. I hope this blog post encourages you to learn about the year-round activities of the organizations that planned these events.

Friday - Sunday, September 27 - 29, 2024 - IngenuityFest 2024: Era of Ascent     Friday, September 27, 2024 at 8:00 pm - PechaKucha Night Cleveland Volume 42 at IngenuityFest     Sunday, September 29, 2024 - The 19th Annual Remembering the Sights and Sounds of Euclid Beach Park

I hope this blog post encourages you to attend future fun events hosted by Ingenuity Cleveland, PechaKucha Night Cleveland, and Euclid Beach Park Now!

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35th Annual Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival

On Sunday, September 15, 2024, my family visited the 35th Annual Chalk Festival at the Cleveland Museum of Art after the event had ended for the day. I like to visit the venue at the end of the second day every year to see all the completed chalk drawings. This is my 13th year taking photos of the museum's annual Chalk Festival.

35th Annual Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival

I want to thank all the creative people who participated. The chalk art created at the Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival every year is outstanding!

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32nd Annual Parade the Circle and Circle Village 2024

We pose with the Parade The Circle's rhinoceros with wings. A version of this rhino starts the parade every year!

We attended the 32nd Annual Parade the Circle and Circle Village with our son, Michael, on Saturday, June 8, 2024, and wanted to share with you our photos and videos, and links to what others shared about the day. We attend this event almost every year.

This blog post mirrors the way the parade was organized into sections marked with colored banners. We divided this blog post into these same color sections to make it easier to find pictures of people/organizations that may be of interest to you. Be sure to watch the videos in full screen mode so you don't miss anything!

We were grateful to be able to attend the Annual Parade the Circle and Circle Village, and look forward to future years of this great arts event!

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Flights of Fancy - An Ingenuity Bal 2024

An Ingenuity Bal: Flights of Fancy - May 4, 2024, at IngenuityLabs, 5401 Hamilton Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44114

I was so glad to attend the Flights of Fancy - An Ingenuity Bal on May 4, 2024, at the IngenuityLabs (5401 Hamilton Avenue, Cleveland) for two reasons. First, is that I attend IngenuityFest practically every year, and write about my great experiences enjoying the event in my Ingenuity Cleveland blog posts. Thus, I wanted to attend the Ingenuity Bal fundraiser to support IngenuityFest 2024 and the year-round programing of Ingenuity Cleveland. The second reason is that I have great memories of attending this fundraiser for Ingenuity Cleveland many years ago, and I knew it would be a blast

Ingenuity Cleveland Executive Artistic Director Emily Appelbaum

As I entered the building, I was fortunate to be able to talk briefly to Ingenuity Cleveland Executive Artistic Director Emily Appelbaum, and thank her for her good work. She had made it a point to approach me and give me an invitation to the Ingenuity Bal at the April 26, 2024, Greater Cleveland Partnership/COSE and Assembly for the Arts "Art at Work "networking event. I greatly appreciated her making sure that I knew about the event. I am glad I was able to attend. At the end of the evening, I made a point to get a photo of Emily Appelbaum and me for this blog post, but unfortunately the photo was too dark and blurry to use here due to the atmospheric lighting. I decided to use her photo from the Ingenuity Cleveland Team Members web page, since it also shows you her extensive experience. We are fortunate to have Emily Appelbaum's expert leadership in Cleveland, organizing our community's creative people.

Cleveland Ghostbusters - Fashion Rock Project - aerialists - costumes - belly dancers - acrobats - circus fun - jugglers - crafts - dancing - and so much more! I hope my photos/videos from the evening give you a sense of the excitement which is Cleveland's Ingenuity!

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Fine Print Fair, Korean Couture, Seven Jeweled Mountain: Variety at The Cleveland Museum of Art

I attended the Korean Couture: Generations of Revolution preview.

When I arrived at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the place was hopping! I saw several youth groups arrive, and many people in the Ames Family Atrium enjoying fine prints, or a meal from the Provenance Café. There was so much being offered at the museum, and I was grateful to be there when the museum opened at 10:00 am to spend the full day exploring!

I want to share with you the following three art exhibitions that I knew about when I arrived on Friday, April 26, 2024, plus the immersive experience that the museum's staff recommended I visit:

  1. Print Club of Cleveland’s 39th Fine Print Fair

  2. Korean Couture: Generations of Revolution Preview and Tour

  3. April 25, 2024, blog post: "Africa & Byzantium" Preview - Cleveland Museum of Art

  4. Into the Seven Jeweled Mountain: An Immersive Experience

Print Club of Cleveland’s 39th Fine Print Fair

Korean Couture: Generations of Revolution Preview

Into the Seven Jeweled Mountain: An Immersive Experience

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"Africa & Byzantium" Preview - Cleveland Museum of Art

Julie and Stuart enjoyed visiting the Cleveland Museum of Art to be among the first to see the Africa & Byzantium exhibition.

Thank you to the Cleveland Museum of Art for inviting us to the Wednesday, April 10, 2024, preview of the Africa & Byzantium exhibition, which included remarks by VIP delegates, and a tour of the exhibition. The exhibition is open to the public Sunday, April 14 through Sunday, July 21, 2024. It took over four years to bring Africa & Byzantium to the Cleveland Museum of Art. We appreciate being among the first people in Greater Cleveland to view these historic artworks, many of which have never been shown in the United States.

We created this blog post to share our photos from our visit, along with our impressions of the exhibition.

The invitation to attend came as a result of our support of the Cleveland Museum of Art with our many sosAssociates.com blog posts about the museum. We enjoyed the event, and wrote this blog post to share our experience at Africa & Byzantium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. We plan to use our membership benefit to return to see the exhibition again. We were very grateful to be able to attend the preview!

Photo of us by Emanuel Wallace of Scene Magazine, at the Africa & Byzantium preview -- Cleveland Museum of Art, April 10, 2024.

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#WowManabu! Manabu Ikeda: USA Debut at moCa Cleveland

March 29, 2024 - I visited the Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage exhibition for a second time.

A friend of Manabu Ikeda introduced me to him during the February 2, 2024, moCa Cleveland Opening Night Celebration.

We are very fortunate in Cleveland to have Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage make its United State debut at our very own moCa Cleveland in Uptown Cleveland - University Circle. When I saw Manabu Ikeda's exhibition, along with two other new exhibitions, as part of the moCa Cleveland Opening Night Celebration, I knew I would need to come back a few more times. There is so much to see in the details of Manabu Ikeda's artwork. Fortunately, the exhibition is in Cleveland through May 26, 2024, and moCa Cleveland is always FREE and open to all.

This blog post is about the February 2, 2024, moCa Cleveland Opening Night Celebration, and my March 29, 2024, return visit during a Studio Access with Manabu Ikeda session at moCa Cleveland.

My photo of curator Kiriko Watanabe and Manabu Ikeda from the February 2, 2024, moCa Cleveland Opening Night Artist Talk

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