Projects in Process–2011

Creating A Sense of Place: University Circle–Where the Arts Have Created a Life-Enhancing Environment
Project Director: Nina Freedlander Gibans
With Videographer Jesse Epstein
Fiscal Agent: University Circle Inc.

VIDEO PRODUCTION CONCEPT and SCRIPT
Purposes:

• The Video Production is to put in accessible form (used as Internet link and DVD in book) the History, Public Art and Architecture at University Circle for use at public events, in classrooms, in living rooms or at one's personal computer.
• The video will be based on personal interviews. archival maps and photographs, a discussion/walk and talk about the public art, a walk and talk about architecture and current photography.
• It will be 1 ½ hour in length when completed.
• It will first be shown in conjunction with a public event on the subject of University Circle as a core of Cleveland's heritage and future. (late 2011)
• The goal is for it to be viewed on PBS and for CDs to be available to schools and institutions.

EXHIBIT: Chief Curator Don Hisaka: The Cleveland Years  produced by Cleveland Artists Foundation. The exhibit will be shown at the Beck Center for the Arts, Cleveland Clinic and Mansfield Art Center March 2011 - Spring 2012.

PUBLICATIONS:

With James D. Gibans
Cleveland Goes Modern: Design for the Home: 1930-1970, Kent State University Press, in process.

 

Recent Projects

From the INTRODUCTION of a book, Silver Apples of the Moon: Art and Poetry that resulted from a project that partnered works of fine art with poetry describing the project co-directed by Nina Freedlander Gibans and Sollace Hotze. The book is co-produced by the Shaker Heights Public Library and Cleveland State University.

This was a complex project that included poetry readings and presentations by nationally known as well as Ohio poets and artists who both read and explicated the ways in which a specific work of art relates to a particular poem; and inter-related poetry and art workshops presented by local artists and poets who jointly modeled the overarching concept of the project.

The project title Silver Apples of the Moon is a line from William Butler Yeats' poem “The Song of the Wandering Aengus.” The line and the poem express the spirit of the project by combining powerful visual imagery with equally compelling language wherein the poet's connection to a concrete, present-time world gradually expands into a less definable, less time-bound realm and perception. The primary mission was to foster a community-wide appreciation of poetry and fine art by emphasizing their symbiotic relationship. The participants were poets, homemakers, senior center residents, delivery truck drivers, videographers, teachers, book store managers, caregivers, community relations staff, artists. The project involved all age groups and all segments of the Greater Cleveland community in selecting and combining art works on permanent public display in Cleveland with a variety of published poems. Each participant juxtaposed a favorite poem with a piece of visual art and then explained the personal appeal of these works and the ways in which they seemed related. The process encouraged participants to become more aware of the nature of art and poetry and of the aesthetic principals at work in them. We hoped that all participants would come to recognize both that and why art and poetry enrich their lives and touch them in personal, powerful ways.

From epilogue… 

“I went out to the hazel wood 
Because a fire was in my head 
And cut and peeled a hazel wand 
And hooked a berry to a thread….”

The thread took this project in many directions: 

At the Cleveland Museum of Art, Silver Apples was the theme for the Chalk Festival, the Family Festival of African Drum and Dance and the Parade the Circle Celebration. There were other workshops. During a visit, an attorney felt that his disassociation from the world of poetry had somehow left a void in his life. He had never been comfortable with poetry and wanted to rectify that loss by taking the time to search out poetry and immerse himself in it until he, too, could feel its beauty and power. 

At 12 branches of the Cleveland Public Library and at the Shaker Heights libraries there were Poetry Corners to entice readers to look at poetry that resonated with a work of art. There were workshops with poets, and people wrote their own poetry. At the Langston Hughes Branch, Juan, fresh from a stint in prison, gave us his reasons for being transfixed by the Jackson Pollock painting at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Victoria at the Carnegie-West Branch went from the workshop to find all of Mary Oliver's poetry because she had heard “The Journey.” The Security Guard about to take his shift at the Harvard Branch came into the workshop and laid his handkerchief on the table with his favorite Langston Hughes poem, “This Bitter River,” on it.

At the Cleveland Museum of Art, two Distance Learning Sessions were based on the poetry that twelve people in the community thought connected them to the painting Lot's Wife by Anselm Kiefer and on the process that the residents of Homestead Community used to select their poem and painting. At the Shaker Heights Public Library, grandmothers, students, and teachers performed words and ideas at two experiential workshop sessions. A high school student from Nordonia High School, in a small town miles east of the Shaker library, did his own poem, then performed Yeats' entire “Song of the Wandering Aengus”. That Robert Pinsky got here was almost a miracle. His message of reflection as he thought about the meaning of “Silver Apples of the Moon” just five days after the tragedy of September 11, 2001 seemed totally fitting. Naomi Shihab Nye, whose presentations completing the project were warm and beautiful, told us family stories and left us all intending to read a poem to our families daily. 

As leverage for discussion of the Silver Apples project, five bookstores used POETRY SPEAKS, a book plus audio cassettes of 40 poets from Walt Whitman to Sylvia Plath reading their own works. Open mikes followed; people made requests to hear specific poems. 75 people came to Borders; a man sat and read the entire book as he listened at Appletree Books. WVIZ Ideastream's Applause program focused on the poems and stories around the Anselm Kiefer painting. The thread stretched as the entries came in. From accountants, PhDs, teachers, dispatchers, caregivers, bookstore managers, students, data administrators, film editors, Seniors in Assisted Living, traffic engineers, security guards, house workers, and more. They lived in Cleveland, Parma, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, South Russell, Willoughby, Chagrin Falls, Euclid, East Cleveland, Garfield Heights, Fairview Park, Akron, Sagamore Hills, Euclid and everywhere.

“And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon
The golden apples of the sun”

 

Cleveland Goes Modern Exhibit Project 

The Cleveland Goes Modern exhibit project. Coordinating ideas, institutions and people around big ideas has been the characteristic of Nina Freedlander Gibans’ projects. They include Forums sponsored by the City and Cleveland State University into the early 80s, discussions on children and prejudice emanating from the Children’s Museum to 11 colleges using WVIZ and participation on the curatorial team for developing an exhibit on BRIDGES. Experience in the staff, academic and consulting the role is small organizational arenas has been her career. As a cultural consultant, it has been unusual and has had many spurs. Architecture is one. She coordinated a project for the AIA pulling together the four Ohio schools of architecture in a charrette for designing areas of Cleveland. She has been a consultant to Kent State School of Architecture working with the student projects. There is a full chapter on our architectural (Man-Made Environment) history in her book: Creative Essence: Cleveland’s Sense of Place (Kent State University 2005). Most recently she interviewed two-dozen Cleveland architects for Cleveland State University’s Euclid Avenue Corridor oral history project. Under a grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, she developed a website for use by the schools and community www.architectureofcleveland.com, completed for the Cleveland Goes Modern exhibit. 

She has headed the curatorial team for the Cleveland Artists Foundation 2007 exhibit Cleveland Goes Modern.

INTRODUCTION TO CLEVELAND GOES MODERN

See Cleveland Artist Foundation Website www.architectureofcleveland.com.

The Cleveland Artists Foundation (CAF) in collaboration with the Cleveland Chapter of the American Institute of Architects organized an exhibit and programs on mid-century modern residential architecture of northeast Ohio from 1930-1970. The exhibit and programming for Cleveland Goes Modern: Mid-century residential architecture celebrated both the 150th anniversary of American Institute of Architects and the modern architectural pioneers of this area.

“Mid-century modern” architecture, especially homes, has become a hot topic nationwide. In this exhibit and programs, we discovered the little-known examples of the movement in the Cleveland area, and explored their development and relationship to the furnishings, fine and decorative arts of the period.

The architects, living and dead, whose residential work was considered, have all been honored widely during their careers. They included J. Byers Hays, winner of national competitions in 1935 and 1955, Don Hisaka whose residence is the only regional winner of a national AIA Honor Award in the area, John Terence Kelly, whose first house was recognized in a 1959 Architectural Record, Robert A. Little, visionary architect of the modern community of Pepper Ridge Rd., Robert Madison who worked with him and mentored so many young architects, William Morris whose home was the only residence included in the 1964 Cleveland Museum of Art exhibit, Ernst Payer, whose more than two dozen modern residential designs transformed the landscape of modern architecture, as well as Fred Toguchi, William Koster, Phil Hart and Jerry Weiss whose owners treasure their homes. The architects’ own homes were important starting points for a young Stephen Bucchieri , Richard Fleischman and Carl Droppers. Most of these homes have not been seen before but they are all around you. 

The exhibit ran from September to November 2007. Programming included house tours, forums in the galleries, and an interactive website featuring educational curricula about architecture in Northeast Ohio made possible through a grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation. Interviews of 26 architects and their perspective of Euclid Avenue were made possible with the assistance of the Euclid Corridor Oral History project under the supervision of the History Department of Cleveland State University.

Currently a Task Force of the AIA Cleveland Historic Resources Committee is working to create a traveling exhibit to other cities where the finest of their local mid-century modern architecture can be added. The exhibit was honored in four ways over 2008: An award from the AIA Cleveland-Historic Resources Committee and the Cleveland Restoration Society; an invitation by national AIA to be an exemplar of projects honoring the 150th anniversary of AIA; and an award by the Preservation Office of the Ohio Historical Society. The AIA Ohio Convention in Akron remounted the Cleveland Goes Modern exhibition in full to allow discussion with the attending architects. A catalog, take-home essay, resource booklet, bibliography, video program examining the life and vision of Robert Little, and website www.architectureofcleveland.com developed under a MH Jennings grant specifically so that teachers would have the resources they need to teach from this material have accompanied this exhibit. The exhibit has spawned two publications: a monograph written by several authors on Don Hisaka and a book by Gibans that the Kent State University Press will publish on this subject. Architects and individuals, corporations and foundations funded this exhibit.

We interviewed our city’s talent, asked them for their genealogies, education and career materials and in some cases received memoirs and in almost all cases original plans, drawings and photographs –literally the last moment we could do that from the original architects and homeowners. Some of those people have passed away and some houses have been demolished just in the past year. These documents appear in the images and in the resource materials that accompany the exhibit.

The Task Force wishes to present this legacy so that the region’s work is maximized, appreciated and preserved. After the exhibit came down, A Task Force of the AIA explored the future travel of the exhibit under a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council. They designed units for traveling the exhibit to community venues (museums, galleries, colleges) and to schools. Initial discussions find enthusiasm in Columbus, Akron, Cincinnati, Oberlin, Toledo and Dayton for bringing an extended Going Modern exhibit to those cities. Leadership is likely to come from AIA members, preservation offices, and university faculty in those cities.

Cleveland-based artists, patrons and collectors founded the Cleveland Artists Foundation in 1984 to preserve, research, collect and exhibit the most significant visual art of the Northeast Ohio region.

Curatorial Team: Nina Gibans (Chair) James D. Gibans, FAIA Anthony Hiti, AIA William Busta (Curator of Exhibitions, Cleveland Artists Foundation). Advisory Team: Robert Blatchford, George Dalton, AIA, Professor Christopher Diehl, Richard Fleischman, FAIA, Robert Gaede, FAIA, Professor John Harwood, Gerald Herschman, AIA, Judson Kline, AIA, Robert Madison, FAIA, Norman Perttula, FAIA, Theodore A Sande, AIA, Peter vanDijk, FAIA, family of Robert A. Little.