University Circle

As I have done in the past, I wanted to create this blog post to share my photos from the holiday lights in the area, but this year there were two big differences:

• Unlike past years, I attended the official lighting ceremonies at four locations!! Normally, I only attend the downtown Cleveland Lighting Ceremony, and then would see the holiday lights display at Nela Park, Akron, and University Circle during my normal holiday visits to those venues. This made this year special!

• A second difference is that I also attended two arts venues the same evenings as two of the lighting ceremonies. I wanted to share these experiences this blog post. First, after I attended the University Circle holiday lighting ceremony, I went to a Baldwin Wallace Music Theatre Program production. Second, before the Akron holiday lighting ceremony, I toured Summit ArtSpace.

What follows are my photos and videos of:

• Saturday, November 23, 2024
  Illuminate the Circle: A Magical Holiday Experience - Cleveland's University Circle
  and Jesus Christ Superstar - Baldwin Wallace Music Theatre Program - Wine Cast

• Friday, November 29, 2024
  Tour of Summit ArtSpace
  and
  Welcome Santa Parade & Grand Reopening Celebration For Lock 3 - Akron

• Saturday, November 30, 2024
  WinterLand Cleveland - #WinterLandCLE in Tower City & Public Square - Downtown Cleveland

• Friday, December 6, 2024
  GE Nela Park’s 100th Annual Holiday Lighting Ceremony - East Cleveland

I feel so fortunate to be able to attend these holiday lighting ceremonies and arts events. Thank you to all the creative people who enrich my life!

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.

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.

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!

On Sunday, September 8, 2024, our family was very fortunate to attend the BubbleFest Cleveland public event at University Circle's Wade Oval. We also went to the evening BubbleFest Variety Show as guests of one of the organizers, Steve Presser!

We are so glad to have seen Steve Presser's announcement about BubbleFest Cleveland 2024 and the video he shared, since it led to lots of bubbly fun! We wrote this blog post to thank and honor the organizers of #BubbleFest2024. We are so lucky in Cleveland that this international bubblers convention took place here, and that the convention attendees chose to share their outstanding talents with the public. They provided two FREE events and a special variety show featuring the best bubblers from all over the world!

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!

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

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!

1806 - 2024 - 2099! The April 8, 2024, total eclipse was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence for Ohio!!! We want to share here what we and our son, Michael, experienced during the three-day celebration (April 6-8, 2024) leading up to the start of the eclipse at 1:59 pm on the third day, and the amazing total eclipse as it happened at 3:15 pm.

We ended our blog post about the 2017 partial (80%) eclipse with the message "See you in 2024!" and a countdown clock. After waiting seven years, it feels strange that the countdown clock now shows the number of days since the event happened! Total eclipse 2024 is now history!

The moment of the total eclipse was incredible (it really can't be put into words), but we also want to note that the three days of eclipse celebration also featured many of the great organizations that improve the quality of life for those of us who live in the Greater Cleveland area. We hope to capture here not just what we observed during the 2024 total eclipse, but also the spirit of our community at the Cleveland events we attended.

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.

Starting with the 2012 Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival, I have created a blog post every year to capture some of the incredible chalk art created on the Fine Arts Garden's stone pathways in front of the Cleveland Museum of Art. This includes both 2020, when #CMAChalkFestival was online only -- "Social Distancing Style" -- due to COVID-19, and 2021, when "a spur-of-the-moment trip south to take care of some family business prevented me from attending," but my son, Kevin F. Smith, saved the day by attending and sharing photos on social media.

I enjoyed creating chalk drawings at the event in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, but have not participated as an artist in recent years.

I am so glad I was able to attend the 34th Annual Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival on Sunday, September 17, 2023 -- my 12th year taking photos and videos of the event. I hope you enjoy what I put together to capture the artwork and the atmosphere of the event.