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Mayor Justin M. Bibb today announced several key appointments to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) Board and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) Board.

Cleveland residents and riders Lauren Welch and Jeffrey Sleasman are appointed as trustees to GCRTA Board and Marjorie Chambers is appointed to serve on the NEORSD Board.

Effective March 3, 2022 Ms. Welch will complete the final year of a three-year term that concludes on March 3, 2023.  Mr. Sleasman will begin a three-year term effective March 3, 2022 through March 3, 2025. Ms. Chambers will begin a five year term. 

“Today’s appointments reflect my administration’s commitment to elevating the lived experience of residents and a diversity of voices to key boards and commissions,” Mayor Bibb said. 

“Both Lauren and Jeff are residents and riders. They bring over 15 years’ experience in advocacy and the technology sector respectively and will play an important role in continuing to advocate for equitable public transit policies, funding and innovation,” Mayor Bibb stated. “Marjorie is a respected labor leader and will serve as a critical voice for workers and unions in the delivery of essential services.”

About the Board Appointees:

Jeffrey Sleasman is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Boussole, a consumer goods startup and previously served as Director of Strategic Partnerships at Compass Biomedical. He lives Downtown with his family and is car-free. Jeff has been a dedicated transit rider for 30 years in four cities across two continents. Jeff holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University and earned an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Strategy from Ohio State University.

Lauren Welch resides in the Edgewater neighborhood and currently serves as the Assistant Director of Communications at Say Yes Cleveland. She is the founder of Laurel Cadence, a marketing and advocacy firm and brings over 15 years of expertise in marketing, communications, and advocacy. She has used public transit since high school and continues to take transit regularly today. Lauren earned a Bachelor of Arts from Wittenberg University and is currently undertaking a Masters of Nonprofit from Case Western Reserve University. 

Marjorie Chambers is the Chairperson of the Northeast Ohio Community Action Program Council (NEO-CAP) and member of the United Auto Workers Union. She is a skilled tradesperson and has worked at General Motors for over 40 years. Marjorie is a two-time graduate of Cuyahoga Community College and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management and Labor Relations from Cleveland State University.

West Park is rife with talent! We were recently fortunate enough to learn a little more about Shiny Penny Studio Owner and Photographer Keli Schimelpfenig. Check out our Q&A below. If you’re getting married, graduating, or are looking for a professional photographer, keep this local name in mind!

Q: When did you start taking photographs and what were some of the first things you enjoyed taking photos of? 

My parents had a very good SLR Pentax that I would often snap photos on and I got my first camera at a very young age from my parents or my aunt. I think it was one of the very first versions of the Fisher Price cameras with actual film. I remember taking vacation photos and photos around the holidays since film and developing was expensive. Really just playing with framing and composition. But I think I have always been drawn to people in their environment. I think that’s why I love portrait work. People at play, work, in love, changing, staying the same.. .each with their own unique life story. 

Q: You started the idea for dad bods back in 2020 after a conversation about how bad the dating selfies of men can be… Have they improved, in your opinion, at all since? What are some tips you came up with after the shoot? Or maybe had beforehand? 

Oh lord no. Dating sites and profiles are generally a hellscape. But my advice would be to a.) angle the cell phone above you when you are taking a self portrait so you are not shooting up your nose b.) smile (you look like a serial killer if you don’t smile in any photos) and c.) consider hiring a pro for a couple of decent headshots. Most of us need a respectable profile photo for LinkedIn and other social media and they are tax deductible as a job search expense. 

Q: Your calendar benefited Meals on Wheels. Do you plan on doing something similar to this (not dad bods) in the future? 

We are a very community-centric business and Hannah and I met performing in a community theater production.  We do a number of fundraisers every year as well as having non-profit rates and a number of pro-bono projects we do for various organizations. We also partner with other local small businesses for fundraising sessions or events. Our Santa sessions this year featured a local santa, local baker and a portion of the session fees were donated to two community theater spaces in the neighborhoods where the sessions happened. 

Q: Do you work with a lot of people in the neighborhood? 

 I do and that is constantly growing. I end up covering a lot of photo sessions of seniors at St. Joes, headshots for realtors at Lokal and Howard Hanna, and an ever growing list of families for sessions of all kinds and weddings. 

Q: How long have you lived in West Park? 

I moved here in 2017 and then bought my first home here in 2018 after deciding this was the neighborhood where I wanted to buy. 

Q: Do you take a lot of photos in West Park? Where are some of your favorite places to use? Or, maybe even favorites for those having their photo taken? (I thought I noticed one of the Bethany Lutheran Church on your site). 

Since most of our sessions happen outside, West Park often has a guest role in a lot of photo sessions. I will use Bethany English Lutheran Church for some sessions because I’m a member and sing in choir there most Sunday mornings. People just wave and smile rather than shooing us off of the property. (That has happened to me before! Once while I was taking anniversary photos for a couple outside of the church where they got married and we got quite the gruff “greeting” by the groundskeepers.) We can also be spotted down in the metroparks –  that is a visual playground we take full advantage of. Tyler Barn and the nearby pine trees are always a popular spot for family sessions in the fall. 

Q: Along the lines of the last question, do you shoot a lot of corporate branding sessions or weddings, etc. in West Park or the area? 

We have worked with a number of local couples for wedding day coverage. It’s fun because we know this area so well we can manage almost any scenario that may be thrown at us on a wedding day. Rain in the forecast? No problem, we know a cute bridge and path area with tons of fall foliage near a shelter large enough for your wedding party. That kind of thing. And our branding sessions are a growing part of our business and we are seeing more and more local realtors, small business owners, and we covered corporate headshots in the past couple of months for the entire Heartland Financial Services team on Aerospace Parkway. 

Q: Can you elaborate a little more on your corporate branding sessions and why a West Parker might be interested or how they might benefit from this? 

Branding photos quite simply are just a step beyond a profile/headshot photo. They feature you doing what you do to serve your customers. They are sneak peeks into the behind the scenes work at a business. I’m working on a session right now for a local artist who is launching a couple of lines for wholesale sticker distribution. Some of the photos will be of her at work creating her art, working on her ipad and laptop or on the phone with a client. A lot of those photos are use for social media posts, linked-In profile photos, and websites. As consumers are becoming more conscious of purchases, having a real face behind a product or service can really help establish who you are in the community. 

Q: Do you have tips for other photographers out there? 

 Always be shooting. Always be playing. Always be exploring.  Really it’s just like anything else – the more time you invest in something generally the better you become. As we grow and get bigger I find myself learning and picking up new skills at a faster rate simply because I am getting more practice. 

Q: What do you think are some of the most important qualities a photographer can have? Do you feel it’s important to make people feel at ease, comfortable, etc. 

My number one lesson to anyone who works with me is that our number one goal is to leave a session with our client feeling confident, relaxed and hopefully happy. This is more important than any of the photos you may have snapped, or camera settings, or any of the technical aspects. Getting a portrait taken can be really intimidating and the number one thing I hear before going into a session is “I hate having my photo taken.” So our first job is to make clients not hate the process. Why do people hate it? Probably because the results of having your husband or child snap photos of you at unflattering angles and in sweats is not all that great. So we set you up for success by providing flattering lighting, clothing advice and finding locations that are perfect for what you want to express visually. 

By Jerry Masek

The Bellaire-Puritas Development Corp. (BPDC) has several new projects that will benefit businesses, students and residents of Ward 16 in 2022.

 Bryan Gillooly, Executive Director since 2006, summarized the projects that keep BPDC busy.

Community development

    BPDC works closely with Ward 16 Councilman Brian Kazy to support and help developers working on physical investments. Main projects in 2022 are the redevelopment of the vacant Nathaniel Hawthorne School into housing, and breaking ground on a larger Rockport Library branch of the Cleveland Public Library.

    Councilman Kazy will discuss those projects in detail in March at his State of the Ward Meeting. Gillooly urges residents to attend.

    “We are excited about the impact of the new Rockport Library. Long-term, it could help attract investment to the Puritas-West 140 Street area,” Gillooly said.

Middle Neighborhood Initiative

    BPDC is very interested in plans the city is making for “middle neighborhoods.” The Middle Neighborhoods Initiative will create programs that help homeowners and businesses “close the gap” between the cost to build or renovate, and thefinancing needed to afford the renovation and improvements.

    “Residents will hear a lot more about this program later in the year,” Gillooly said. “It will be a major benefit to homeowners, and it can help Ward 16 promote the construction and renovation of middle-income housing.”

Youth Programs

    “Working through COVID,” he said, “brought opportunities to work with families that needed help beyond the youth programming we provided. In 2020 and 2021, we built partnerships to address more family needs, and we can continue to address those needs in 2022.”

    For example, BPDC is working with Say Yes Cleveland to serve 100 students at RG Jones Elementary with an expanded after-school program. This partnership helps both students and their families, he said.

    BPDC is the lead agency for the West Park MyCom. MyCom stands for “my commitment, my community.” It helps young people to advocate for themselves. BPDC will support and promote the program in schools throughout West Park. They are introducing a “resource closet” for schools to help students with their basic needs.

WorkForce Development

    Throughout the pandemic, after meeting more and more people in need, it also became clear that local job training programs were unable to fill their training classes.  BPDC is working in 2022 to connect families to existing opportunities in training.

Community Engagement

    BPDC, working with Neighborhood Family Practice, helps Ward 16 residents fight COVID. Using a hotline phonenumber, residents can obtain information, transportation to vaccinations and boosters, and access COVID testing.

    The West Park COVID Hotline is 216-230-9730.

Neighbor to Neighbor Cleveland

    As a part of this new program BPDC’s goal in 2022 is to survey, measure and reduce the digital divide, so more residents can fully utilize computer and internet resources.

The event

    The Color Your World Rainbow holistic fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb 12, at the LGBT Center, 6705 Detroit Ave. The site was chosen for its modern facility and central location. The event is open to the public.

    The event, sponsored by Harmonic Journeys, includes holistic practitioners, energy healers, psychic readers, vendors, and speakers. Alternative healing products to recharge your body, mind and spirit, will be available.

Jerome Masek

   Jerome Masek sees clients for hypnosis sessions at West Park Massotherapy, and offers sessions via Zoom.

    On Feb. 12, he will be one of many vendors. Attendees can get a 1-on-1 consultation, and

• Enter a drawing for a free or discounted session.
• See a demonstration of hypnosis.
• Receive a low-cost mini-session at his table.
• Take a free focus test.
• Stop by and leave stress-free.

Cindy Christman    Cindy Christman is part of the Harmonic Journeys team that volunteers to keep the grass-roots organization going. On Feb. 12, she will be volunteering, so you may see her in the reception area, or answering guest questions.   

A Reiki master, she recently authored a book, Connect With Heaven, about the death of her twin sister. At holistic events later this year, she will offer reikki and talk about the book.

The Cleveland Museum of Art announces Key Jo Lee’s promotion to associate curator of American art, effective July 1, 2022. Lee began her tenure at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2017 as assistant director of Academic Affairs and in 2021 became director of Academic Affairs and associate curator of special projects. She specializes in American art and visual cultures, as well as photographic history and theory. Her research interests include 19th-century photography and portraiture, interdisciplinary art histories, new materialism and Black abstraction.

“It has been an honor and a joy to witness Key Jo’s evolution as a museum professional. Her insights are keen, her writing eloquent, and her ambitions admirable. She has already made a marvelous addition to our curatorial team, and I am delighted that she will be devoting herself wholly to curatorial work at the CMA. I very much look forward to her future exhibitions, her interpretive work in the galleries, and her acquisitions,” said Director William Griswold.

Lee said, “I look forward to conveying new narratives through the museum’s collection of American art, to continuing to work with colleagues across the museum and other communities, to reimagine how the CMA presents the works in its care and to acquiring objects that diversify the museum’s holdings in ways that will deepen and expand the collection.”

Lee’s first exhibition at the CMA, Currents & Constellations: Black Art in Focus, will open on February 20, 2022, in the Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery. An accompanying publication, Perceptual Drift: Black Art and an Ethics of Looking, includes an introduction and essay by Lee as well as essays by scholars Christina Sharpe and Erica Moiah James, and poetry by Robin Coste Lewis, and will be distributed by Yale University Press in June 2022.  

Lee brings to the position a decade of experience as a museum educator. For the CMA, she conceptualized and oversaw the museum’s innovative “Art & Insight” program that teaches medical professionals how to look closely at works of art to increase empathy. During her tenure at the CMA, the museum transitioned entirely to paid internships, thereby diversifying the pipeline for students interested in pursuing museum careers. She has also been active as an independent curator; in 2021, she co-curated the exhibition Somethin’ to Say with artist Felandus Thames at Galerie Myrtis in Baltimore, Maryland. The exhibition featured ten Southern Black artists and opened a conversation on the American South as a creative incubator. 

Lee graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Art History from Douglass College at Rutgers University in 2009 and earned an M.A. in History of Art and African American Studies at Yale University in 2013. She is currently a PhD candidate in the same departments at Yale; her dissertation is entitled “Precarious Matter(s): Blackness, Nineteenth-Century Photography, and Contemporary Art.” Before her employment at the CMA, she was the Rose Herrick Jackson Curatorial Fellow in American Art at Yale University Art Gallery.

In fewer than five years in Cleveland, Lee has demonstrated a deep investment in the local arts community. She served on the board of Twelve Literary Arts from 2018 to 2020 and is currently Board Vice President of SPACES, an international contemporary arts venue in Cleveland.

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About the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes more than 63,000 artworks and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. The museum is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship and performing arts and is a leader in digital innovations. One of the top comprehensive art museums in the nation, recognized for its award-winning Open Access program and free of charge to all, the Cleveland Museum of Art is located in the University Circle neighborhood.

The museum is supported in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture and made possible in part by the Ohio Arts Council (OAC), which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts. The OAC is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally and economically. For more information about the museum and its holdings, programs and events, call 888-CMA-0033 or visit cma.org.

Friday, January 14, 2022 – Cleveland, OH — Today, Mayor Justin M. Bibb announced a plan to expand the use of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Diversion Center for non-violent offenders and to refocus City resources to fight violent crime.  

In collaboration with law enforcement, the Diversion Center is designed for individuals experiencing a mental or physical health crisis due to substance abuse and/or addiction or for individuals with a history of experiencing a mental or physical health crisis. 

“The Diversion Center offers mental health services and is a proven model to reduce re-offending,” stated Mayor Bibb. “It is critical that we re-prioritize City resources to help first responders deliver the right response at the right time and target the root causes of violent crime.” 

The expansion of services includes: 

1. Eliminating the need for pre-approval by a City Prosecutor and trusting Cleveland Police Officers to make the correct decision at the time of an arrest or stop; 
2. Dramatically expanding the range of non-violent offenses for which Diversion is permitted; and 
3. Protecting victims and complying with Marsy’s law by requiring officers to articulate and record their reasonable efforts to contact victims and the grounds for diversion. 

Under the new expansion, any non-violent misdemeanor offense can be eligible for screening and review for the Diversion Center except for the following: 

1. Any escalating misdemeanor (i.e. domestic violence, menacing by stalking), including operating a vehicle impaired (OVI) and physical control;  
2. Assault where physical harm results in medical assistance being needed; and 
3. Any offense that qualifies as a sex offense. 

Earlier today, Mayor Bibb toured the Diversion Center with Interim Chief Drummond and Public Safety Director Karrie D. Howard. 

Mayor Bibb added, “Expanding these services will provide our officers with an alternative course of action and ensure that individuals experiencing a mental or physical health crisis receive the services and support they need.” 

By Jerry Masek   

(Editor’s note: These remarks were made before the Dec. 31 shooting of officer Shane Bartek.)

Charles Slife, appointed Ward 17 Councilman several years ago, is looking forward to 2022 — his first full year as an elected City Councilman.   

“We are going to hit the ground running,” he said. “I appreciate the incredible support of the voters. We want to build on our past momentum and bring Ward 17 to the next level. The reputation of Ward 17 is growing. We had new businesses opening in the middle of the pandemic.”   

Slife, who also serves on the City Planning Commission, plans to take “a more robust role on Council.”   

“I want to be a more vocal advocate for Ward 17. I believe we are now a model neighborhood. We are at a place of strength and we can build upon it.”   

Slife recently joined the board for Cleveland Neighborhood Progress — an umbrella group for community development corporations in the City. He looks forward to working with others who share a common goal.   

“I think Ward 17 is a model of a desirable, middle-income Cleveland neighborhood,” said Slife, who has several goals this year. 

Improve Public Safety

Slife said that in talking to voters during the campaign, “the importance of public safety to our neighborhoods was astonishing clear. It affects all that we do.”   

He said one question is “how Issue 24 will unfold” in the Bibb Administration.     “Safe neighborhoods often start with a strong sense of community, and we have that in Ward 17. I love to see people walking through their neighborhood,” Slife said.    Slife wants to add more security cameras on buildings and at intersections. Ward 17 now has eight cameras.   

Using funds available to Cleveland from the American Rescue Plan, Slife has requested cameras for 22 more locations in Ward 17. He will soon meet with First District police officials to review that request. 

Expand Recreational Opportunities

Planning for major upgrades at Impett Park — one of the largest in the City — will be finalized in 2022, and work on improving the tennis courts will be done this year. Impett is the home court for St. Joseph Academy tennis teams.   

A “really special playground” will be built at Drafefield Park.   

To better connect West Park residents to the Metroparks’ Rocky River Reservation, three new connectors are in various stages of planning and discussion.

• The Hogback Ridge area.
• Near the Oatey facility on Emerald Parkway.
• Behind Fairview Hospital, on Old Lorain Road. A public meeting on that connector was held in early 2021.

Monitor building and construction projects   

Slife said CMHA is nearing completion on a multi-year “much-needed facelift” of units in the large Riverside Park, 17800 Parkmount Ave. He said Riverside has a “great youth program,” a large population of Hispanic-speaking persons, and Puerto Ricans who came here after a hurricane ravaged their island.   

Slife wants to see other building projects reach completion in 2022.

• National retailers in the West Park Shopping Center want to be open in time for holiday shoppers at West 150th Street and Lorain Avenue..
• An addition is planned to the Muslim Community Center, 4600 Rocky River Dr.
• Construction is underway for an addition to Laura’s Home, 18120 Puritas Ave.
• Renovation is on track at the West Park Library, 3805 W. 157th St.
• A new building is underway at the West Park Animal Hospital, 4117 Rocky River Dr.
• Ground will be broken for a new MedVet facility, near Subway at Grayton Road and I-480. The owners are moving here from Brookpark to give animal owners another option for pet care. “Ward 17 will become the animal hospital capital of Cleveland,” Slife said
• Arby’s is nearing completion at the former Steak-and-Shake site at Kamm’s Corners.
• Some restaurants may make their popular outdoor space more permanent. Slife expects announcements later this year.

Get recycle rolling   

“Past attempts to start a citywide recycling program have been a nightmare,” Slife said. “Some residents are very eager to recycle, but there was so much confusion. We need more consumer education.” 

Work with a new Administaation    

Slife already toured Ward 17 with then Mayor-elect Bibb.   

“The merchants and residents were happy to see him. We discussed neighborhood and legislative goals. Mayor Bibb realizes we have a shared destination. He recognizes the potential and strength of Ward 17. All indications are that he is ready to partner with us and do some really cool things in Ward 17.”   

“I love this neighborhood. It is really a special corner of the world.”     

Jerry Masek has been a resident of Ward 17 for 38 years.

Sources report that a grand opening has been set for March 7, 2022, “as long as everything stays on schedule.”

It’s also reported that this location is now accepting applications.

Visit here https://careers.arbys.com/us/en/

SUBMITTED

Recent acquisitions by the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) include an important watercolor by Paul Cézanne; a mixed-media artwork by Rashid Johnson and three sculptures from Melvin Edwards’s series, Lynch Fragments, that build upon the CMA’s commitment to diversifying its collections.

Footpath in the Woods

Watercolor by Paul Cézanne is a new highlight in the CMA’s internationally recognized collection of works on paper

The acquisition of Footpath in the Woods, a watercolor by Post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne, builds upon the CMA’s internationally recognized stature as a repository of important 19th-century French art.

With its innovative depiction of a trail traversing a forest at the Jas de Bouffan, an estate Cézanne inherited from his father, Footpath in the Woods exemplifies the artist’s groundbreaking practice. He used selective strokes of watercolor from a limited palette to suggest light and shade, and allowed work in graphite in combination with the paper’s whiteness to construct the image. The result is a seemingly unfinished work that was in fact carefully rendered through a process that did not allow for revision.

The subject of Footpath in the Woods is Cézanne’s most characteristic; he depicted and reinterpreted the chestnut tree forests of the Jas de Bouffan in various media throughout much of his life. This experimental approach allowed Cézanne to interrogate vision itself, as if to suggest that seeing occurs just as much through absence as it does presence. The composition’s balance of abstraction and representation, as well as its experimental style, make Footpath in the Woods an ideal example of the artist’s watercolors.

Although the CMA has three paintings and several drawings and prints by the artist, Footpath in the Woods is the first watercolor by Cézanne to enter the museum’s collection and will be highlighted in the forthcoming exhibition and publication Nineteenth-Century French Drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art, on view from January 20 through April 30, 2023.

Footpath in the Woods, 1882–84. Paul Cézanne (French, 1839–1906). Watercolor and graphite on laid paper; image: 47 x 31 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr., Fund 2021.165

Standing Broken Men by Rashid Johnson

Long Term, À Lusaka and Miliki by Melvin Edwards

Works by Rashid Johnson and Melvin Edwards expand the CMA’s representation of works by African American artists

Standing Broken Men (2021) by Rashid Johnson is an important addition to the CMA’s contemporary collection and meaningfully advances the museum’s goal of diversifying its holdings.

At the center of a frenzied mosaic, an abstract, fractured figure stares wide-eyed at the viewer. Standing Broken Men and a related series of mosaic works grew out of Johnson’s Anxious Men and Anxious Audiences series (2015–18). As Standing Broken Men exemplifies, Johnson’s latest works continue to represent the experience of anxiety by composing figures through fragmented shards of ceramic and mirrored tiles. Through this technique, brokenness is inherent in the figures and the worlds they inhabit. However, their pieces are reassembled into a dynamic colorful whole, suggesting the possibility for healing and renewal. As with much of Johnson’s work, Standing Broken Men can be interpreted as a poignant reflection on the time when it was made, defined by a global pandemic and a heightened reckoning with racial inequality. Standing Broken Men comes to the museum as a generous gift from Agnes Gund in honor of Helena Huang. 

Alongside recent acquisitions by artists such as Robert Colescott, Simone Leigh, Emma Amos and Wadsworth Jarrell, among others, Standing Broken Men expands the range of narratives surrounding African American experiences on view at the CMA. This monumental work also complements three prints by Johnson from his Anxious Men series that the museum acquired in 2020 (2020.77, 2020.78 and 2020.79). Together, they capture the innovative evolution of Johnson’s art across media.

Standing Broken Men will be on view in Toby’s Gallery for Contemporary Art (229A) beginning in late March 2022.

Standing Broken Men, 2021. Rashid Johnson (American, b. 1977). Ceramic tile, mirror tile, branded red oak, bronze, spray enamel, oil stick, black soap, wax; 240.7 x 186.7 x 7.6 cm. Gift of Agnes Gund in honor of Helena Huang

Long Term (1980), À Lusaka (1982) and Miliki (1987) by Melvin Edwards further enhance the CMA’s commitment to diversifying its collections and presenting a broad range of histories in its galleries.

Long Term, À Lusaka and Miliki belong to an ongoing series, Lynch Fragments, that Melvin Edwards began in 1963. The Lynch Fragments are relatively small-scale, abstract metal wall reliefs that feature recognizable objects—often objects that could serve as weapons, such as chains, knives and railroad spikes. Through Edwards’s composition and welding technique, familiar elements lose their functional associations and yield innovative sculptural shapes. These forms reveal Edwards’s influences, which range from Western modernist sculpture and jazz to traditions of African metalsmithing. 

The series title, Lynch Fragments, the artist has explained, is reflective of his intention to encourage consideration of the violence and destruction wrought by racism in and beyond American society. The title is not, he has said, to be taken literally; from the outset he determined that the series would never depict narrative scenes or recognizable figurative imagery. Even without literal scenes of violence, the works invite a direct confrontation with the viewer; they are displayed at eye level and protrude off the wall into the viewer’s space. 

Through the Lynch Fragments series, Edwards combines his commitment to abstraction with his investment in the social and racial histories unfolding outside his studio walls. In this sense, his work shares attributes with peers that include David Hammons, Jack Whitten and Martin Puryear, whose works are represented in the CMA’s collection and offer rich context for this acquisition.

Left to right
Long Term, from the Lynch Fragments series, 1980. Melvin Edwards (American, b. 1937). Steel; 30.8 x 19.1 x 20.6 cm.

À Lusaka, from the Lynch Fragments series, 1982. Melvin Edwards (American, b. 1937). Steel; 34.3 x 19.4 x 14 cm.

Miliki, from the Lynch Fragments series,1987. Melvin Edwards (American, b. 1937). Steel; 33 x 22.9 x 20.3 cm.

About the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes more than 63,000 artworks and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. The museum is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship and performing arts. One of the top comprehensive art museums in the nation and free of charge to all, the Cleveland Museum of Art is in the dynamic University Circle neighborhood.

The Cleveland Museum of Art receives funding from a broad range of individuals, foundations and businesses in Cleveland and northeast Ohio. The museum is supported in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture and made possible in part by the Ohio Arts Council (OAC), which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts. The OAC is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally and economically. For more information about the museum and its holdings, programs and events, call 888-CMA-0033 or visit cma.org.

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“Melissa Martin’s new picture book is making children giggle. Why? Because kids love to laugh about underpants stories. Most of us wear underwear, so let’s laugh along as we spend time with our children and books. Make reading fun.

“One morning, Bear Cub wakes up and finds underwear hanging on a tree limb. Who could they belong to? Ever inquisitive, he sets out on a quest through the forest to find the tighty whities’ rightful owner. Could the underpants belong to Squirrel? Moose? Snake, maybe? Salmon?! Each animal denies that the bloomers belong to them, but readers will surely be giggling every step on the way…especially when they find out who the underpants actually belong to.”

Published by Random House Books for Young Readers. www.penguinrandomhouse.com. 

Parents, teachers, and readers can find the picture book, “Those Are Not My Underpants!” at public libraries in Ohio. 

Martin, an advocate for early literacy, an Ohio University Alum, a native of Appalachia Ohio, and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, both National and Ohio chapters. Contact melissamartincounselor@live.com. 

Mayor Frank G. Jackson today issued a proclamation designating a weekend of celebration and addressed regulations for the 2022 NBA All Star Game. The regulations include vendor zones, badging and rules for approved vendor operators and regulations prohibiting items in certain zones. View the mayor’s proclamation here.

Vendor Regulations

These rules and regulations were developed for the safety and protection of those attending the All-Star Game events and for the authorized vendors.

Due to an expected increase in pedestrian and vehicular traffic during the All-Star Events, the following Regulations are in effect under the authority of Section 697A.04, Codified Ordinances of Cleveland, Ohio, 1976 (“C.O.”) and apply to all vendors in the Central Business District during the effective period.

Find the full set of vendor regulations and guidelines here.

Find the list of approved vendors here.

• Vendor Badging
  • Only vendors with “Special Event” credentials will be authorized to vend in the designated vending zones. Find a sample of approved vendor badges here.

Prohibited Items

The City of Cleveland, has adopted a list of prohibited items in certain zones. Find the list of the prohibited items and maps of the zones here.

Parking Restrictions and Road Closures 

“No Parking” locations to highlight, effective Friday, Feb. 18 – Monday, Feb. 21:

• Prospect Avenue between Ontario Street and E. 22^nd Street
• E. 9^th Street between Euclid Avenue and Carnegie Avenue
• E. 18^th Street between Euclid Avenue and Prospect Avenue
• E. 21^st Street between Euclid Avenue and Prospect Avenue
• Bolivar from E. 7 Street to E. 14 Street
• Normal Parking Restrictions within the Warehouse and Flats districts. 

Road Closures:

Click here to view the map of traffic restrictions.