Friday night I attended a reception and lecture at SPACES Gallery for select Cleveland organizations with interest in urban planning and sustainability. The current exhibition at Spaces, Shrinking Cities, explores strategies for post-industrial urban areas and should be of great interest to anyone interested in urban planning and sustainability. Terry Schwarz, Senior Planner at the Urban Design Center of Northeast Ohio, was to give a tour of the exhibition. My affiliation? I am an energy ambassador at Case. I am also an art historian, and although there are some witty, beautiful and innovative works represented in the exhibition the theme and the messages of the show truly over power the aesthetics. One could easily forget they are in an art exhibition.

$millions spent - outside advertising firm brought in - focus groups of kneeling cheerleaders and deer in headlights conducted - press conference in airplane - check, check, check and check. "NEO" leadership did it again. Another Case of mistaken identities, being those who hired those using outdated formulas to decide how to market our city to us and the world. Every identity mistaken, as plusers ask us to believe in them, and Case re-begets CWRU.

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 It is very nice to see my favorite real urban planner Joe Stanley featured on Lee Batdorff's very informative University Circle Blog - and thanks to Joe for mentioning us here at realneo! We set up and host his http://neomainstreet.com site, which is one of the best uses of Drupal in this region, and presents excellent work by a talented planner and designer. Joe is working on all the community development projects I'm involved with, including overall East Cleveland planning and the Star Intergenerational Neighborhood planning and The Intergenerational School, along with other work Joe does independently.

We live in "Forest City" so Arbor Day should be an important holiday in Cleveland. Here is one idea how you might celebrate ...

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Interesting perspectives on economic and community development from Coral's Peter Rubin, from the Villager Newspaper Online. I think Rubin makes some good points, and the reality is that we are overbuilding the Cleveland housing market, and other amenities, and that will make Cleveland a more powerful residential draw. As more of Cleveland becomes more "livable", more people will chose to live here. Add good schools and free city wide wifi and watch out. Clevelaqnd first will draw people from other parts of the region - empty nesters from the xburbs, students and young professionals from the inner heights - it will be cool and good to live in Cleveland again. That will attract people from other regions and parts of the world, and they will grow the economy - you need a critical mass of urban housing and culture to be a player and we aren't even near that yet - time to keep building and innovating in Cleveland housing! Now for the chair half there, with Rubin:

While not currently a powerhouse in Free Open Source Software (FOSS), Northeast Ohio is positioned to begin excelling with FOSS in some very strategic ways that may add great value to the regional economy. 

Because of FOSS, we may now bridge the digital divide more quickly and completely here than has any other large urban center in America, we may soon have the highest percentage of workforce properly educated for the new economy, and we may lead the world in some fields of application development and technology innovation with global, open standards, all if the region now embraces FOSS..

Buzzing Hong Kong is better known for keeping lights on all night and the air conditioner running full blast, not saving energy. But engineers in the city have introduced an innovative wind energy technology than can help both rural and city residents protect the environment and cut down on energy costs - without having to spend a fortune on an expensive device. Claudia Blume reports.

Asterisk Gallery

Opening Reception: Friday, May 11, 6-11 p.m.

(during Tremont Art Walk)

May 11 - June 2, 2007

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May 14th at 7:00 Mayor Frank Jackson and Cleveland City Council will honor us by holding a City Council Meeting in the neighborhood.  Josaphat Arts Hall ( 1433 E. 33rd Street ) will host the meeting.  This is our chance to see decision making in action right here in our neighborhood.  Please join this meeting. 

-Jamie Baker/Executive Director/St. Clair Superior Development

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To:         To Potential CMSD Arts Education Strategic Planning STEERING COMMITTEE members

From:         Dawn M. Ellis, Consultant to the Cleveland Municipal School District

 

I was pleased to be invited to participate on the steering committee for developing the Cleveland Municipal School District Arts Education Strategic Plan, which is a fairly large workgroup of many CMSD arts educators and administrators and other community representatives, that is working with consultant Ms. Dawn Ellis, the facilitating consultant and writer of our strategic plan. We had our first orientation today at 3 PM, at Trinity Commons, and it was a well facilitiated and enlightening activity. The format was very interactive, with Dawn surfacing key issues, themes and opportunities and driving participants through structured brainstorming. 

"I think Cleveland is a good place. Inner city is rough, but the outskirts is real beautiful, and great schools there. Plus my family, my mom and my sisters, they're all in Cleveland, so it's easier for me to be there than anywhere else." This quote, from an excellent Free Times interview with Charles "Wish Bone" Scruggs, of Cleveland-roots, Grammy award winning, multi-platinum rap trailblazers Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, sings the woes of a place branded as a "Shrinking City", where even the urban hard-core Thugs chose the 'burbs over the 'hood. The result of such out-migration, and downright defection, as is the case with all the other members of Bone, is the subject of a series of art exhibitions and related events taking place over the next month, all over town... which event sponsor Kent Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) introduces by pointing out: "In 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Cleveland had lost nearly 20,000 residents in just five years. The city’s population of 458,684 was the lowest in nearly one hundred years." Starting Friday, April 20, 2007, at 4:30 PM, with a lecture at CUDC, explore what it means when a city loses its Bones...

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This is a piece about the modern consumer-grade digital camera.  What it can do. Amazing piece of equipment.  A Panasonic DMC – FZ50 for less than $500. Records to postage stamp size 4 gig SD media card.    I have used large format film and 35 mm film cameras all  through my years.  Today film cameras have nothing on digital.  Film cameras are relics.   I bought my first Sony Mavica digital in 2001.  2.2 megapixel maximum file size recorded to pocket CDs in the camera.  That camera cost $1,000 and worked great – even after I dropped it out of a tree.  But now, 6 years later, digital cameras with file capture 5x’s larger (10 megapixel) are available for half the cost of the 2001 camera.  That is a success story from the mass production economy.   And Moore’s Law is borne out again.

While I don't really care for the Cleveland Institute of Art slogan "Making Art Work" (to me, work is a 4-letter-word, and art is not), the CIA turns out some of the hardest working and most work-force attractive designers in the world, and each year showcases their talent at an annual Design Show. To get a sense of what to expect, here is my preview of the show from 2005 (missed the 2006 show - will be there this year!).

Here's more info from the official invitation...

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Few occassions in NEO or anywhere offer a more diverse and exciting perspective on life and art than the annual CIA BFA Thesis Exhibitions... from the CIA Website: See exceptional work by the next generation of artists and designers as graduating students present their Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis exhibitions. The Joseph McCullough Center will be bursting with energy and excitement as the Institute’s graduating seniors challenge the public with fresh ideas and commentaries on our world. Work will be presented in all media including performance and installation art. The senior thesis project is the culmination of a student’s career at the Institute. Please join us to celebrate their achievements!

Exhibition Hours

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Claes and I were picking up Evelyn at the University Circle Arabica Sunday around 5 and I heard one of my favorite sounds flowing over from my favorite area spot - the Barking Spider - roots jazz. I knew who I would find there... the finest roots jazz musician I know in town, George Foley... so we headed right over. George plays and sings, solo and with many area musicians, in every imaginable combo, all over town, and it is always a fun, uplifting and inspiring experience.

Two ways to put an end to junk mail >>>

http://www.newdream.org/junkmail/#more

Don't miss the new documentary about Ralph Nader's life, An
Unreasonable Man, premiering Friday, April 20, 2007 in
Cleveland and Columbus. Click here to watch a quick preview.
 On opening night and Saturday, April 21 in Cleveland,

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E4S Third Tuesday Network Event
An E4S Network Celebration

Date: Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Time: 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Location: Great Lakes Brewing Company, Tasting Room, 2701 Carroll Ave., Cleveland
Price: Free, registration required

In the last several years we have seen a tremendous change in the sustainability landscape in Greater Cleveland. How have things changed? What is still missing from the picture that is needed to encourage more to embrace sustainability as a key transformational design strategy for our region? To participate in this discussion, register now for the next E4S Third Tuesday Network Event in Cleveland.

Speakers will include:

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The question "Am I possible?" is the beating heart of Get Rid of Yourself, and it echoes throughout Bernadette Corporation's existence on the borders of fashion and art.  The group is influenced by Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren, and Jean-Luc Godard. They are also interested in new immigrant cultures surrounding their loft "headquarters" on the Bowery in New York City. Bernadette Corporation's interventionist projects function as a critique of our global culture, which constructs identity through consumption and branding.

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