Getting back to the arts

A few weeks ago I wrote about the demise of a dream called Avenues Magazine. What I neglected to share is that during my five years there, I received a crash course in art history, architecture, playwriting, dance, opera and classical music.

I’ve always been artistically inclined. I spent seven years playing flute and studying with teachers at the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music. I’ve never shied away from theater, dance or classical music. In fact, those things speak directly to my soul and, when done well, can cause the hair to stand up on my arms and cause me to weep for their beauty and soulfulness.

When Avenues closed, I had begun work on a series of articles about arts outreach. Unfortunately, I couldn't turn all that work into something saleable elsewhere I think because I was too emotional to think clearly. But the idea of building audiences for the arts is something about which I feel very passionate. Stay tuned for more info on a new project that addresses just that.

On another artistic note: I found an ad in Amy Bracken Sparks’ Angle magazine announcing that CMA is reinstating what used to be called The May Show. This annual event used to be a great place for local artists to exhibit their work. While looking over my photos from my honeymoon in Aruba, a newspaper photographer I used to work with joked that I could enter them in the May Show. Not because they were good, but because I had put the same roll of film through my camera twice and the result was double images on the prints. Some were kind of cool. But I digress…

Now known as The NEO Show, (honestly, can we PLEASE get away from using NEO? Team Neo, NeoBio, blah, blah, blah) it is a juried exhibition of work in all media: painting, works on paper (prints and drawings), sculpture, metals, jewelry, ceramics, installation, film/video, performance (dance and musical), photography, textiles, web-based and interactive art by artists living in 15 counties throughout Northeast Ohio.

The exhibition will be on view, free of charge, July 10 through Sept. 4, 2005. Artists take note: The deadline for submission of the entry form, slides, video and DVDs is March 18.