Every year, we visit and write a blog post about the Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival. It is one of our favorite events in our community. This year, we also visited other art events on the same weekend, so we included our @sos_jr tweets with photos of these events as well. Enjoy!
At the start of the week of August 15, 2016, we were prepared to write a blog post about how lucky we are in Cleveland to have PechaKucha Night Cleveland (@PKNCLE), which was coming up on Friday, August 19th. As the week progressed, we realized that, starting on Wednesday, we were going to have the opportunity to attend five consecutive free creative arts events! All of these events deserved at least a special mention and a thank-you, while some even warranted a full blog post.
Thus, this blog post has morphed into something different. While focused on PechaKucha Night Cleveland, it will also include mention of the other free creative events, and an additional inaugural arts event. This is our way to publicly thank the following organizations for their work to provide these free arts events:
Wednesday: WOW! Wade Oval Wednesdays - University Circle (@InTheCircle)
Thursday: Edgewater LIVE 2016 - Cleveland Metroparks (@CleveMetroparks)
Saturday: Arts In August - Tremont West Development Corporation (@TremontWest - @ArtsInAugust),
plus the inaugural Flats Festival of the Arts (@FlatsForward) which cost $10.
Another month, another BIG 2016 event where Cleveland shines -- The July 18-21, 2016, Republican National Convention!
July is the third consecutive month in 2016 where Cleveland had a huge event that reflected positively on our area.
While I did not attend the actual Republican National Convention, which was directed to out-of-state convention delegates visiting Cleveland, I did attend related events that engaged many local people and visitors.
With the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame offering free admission, the unveiling of the new Cleveland Public Square, and special programing by the great cultural institutions of both North Coast Harbor and University Circle, there was an amazing amount of activity crammed into four days.
I have always enjoyed reading Janet Cho's #SocialMedia Tips articles, so I was honored when she contacted me to be featured in her column.
Smarter #SocialMedia Tips from #HappyinCLE Stuart O. Smith Jr. (@sos_jr)
Although it is a very busy time of the year, and we had visited the Cleveland Museum of Art and University Circle recently, when we heard about the Ohio Blogging Association's University Circle Holiday Night Out, we knew we had to make the time for this special night. We know that we will remember this fun evening for a long time!
During the 2014/2015 program year for Cleveland Museum of Natural History, I remembered hearing about Think & Drink with the Extinct events. Since I have attended astronomy programs and other public events at the museum, I was intrigued, and started promoting the events in my @sos_jr tweets. Promoting events/meetings is the reason I starting using Twitter.
I did not think that it would take until Fall 2015 to finally have a night that I could attend. I decided to share my photos and tweets from the evening to thank the organizers of the event, and to encourage others to attend. I will not attempt to fully express what the event is like -- it is something you need to experience for yourself -- but I will say that if you like having access to extremely bright people from whom you can learn, then you should attend.
On October 21, 2015, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (@goCMNH) had their monthly Think & Drink with the Extinct (#ThinkandDrink). The evening's theme was "Paleontology - Fossils and Ferments." October 21, 2015, just happened to be Back to the Future Day -- somehow it seemed right to be in a museum to celebrate.
Every year, we enjoy viewing the artwork at the Chalk Festival at the Cleveland Museum of Art. As in 2014, Stuart was glad he was able to participate by adding his chalk drawing to the weekend display.
The weather was beautiful, and there was a huge turnout of Cleveland artists. Please read on to learn about an act of kindness and generosity by some children at the festival.
After attending six of the Cleveland Foundation's centennial events in 2014, Stuart was disappointed that he would not be available on December 30th for the final event due to work commitments.
Then, unexpectedly, he was given two extra days off from work! This allowed him, on December 29th, to enjoy a day of hiking on the Buckeye Trail in the Cleveland Metroparks and Cuyahoga Valley National Park. On December 30th, he was able to return to both parks and University Circle for Cleveland Foundation's Family Fun Day.
What follows is information about this final centennial event, and our photos/tweets of our activities of the day. Before we share our experiences from this one day, we want to share with you, the reader, Cleveland Foundation's "Enduring Trust" video. Understanding the worldwide importance of the first community foundation is more important than our thank-you message for one day of family fun.
I was not able to attend the City of Cleveland and OneCommunity's November 21, 2014, announcement. I watched it via Twitter, and thought it was very important to write this blog post to say:
Congratulations, @CityOfCleveland and @OneCommunity...
...for making Cleveland the first city in the United States to have a commercially available 100-gigabit fiber network!
Thank you, Cleveland Museum of Art, for your 2014 Chalk Festival. As always, we had a wonderful time! We attended on Sunday, September 14, 2014, and want to say...
Congratulations on
25 Years of Chalk Art!