I live in my dreams—that’s what you sense.Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That’s the difference.– Herman Hesse, Demian, 1919 Cynthia Penter practices film and video production, making fine art and commercial work in Greater Cleveland for more than 40 years. She currently teaches filmmaking, photography, art history, and contemporary media at Hiram College, and Penter’s […]
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Jerome White, featured artist in the 2026 revival of Sankofa’s Black Art Expo September 18–20, remembers his own introduction to the Black Art Expo scene in late 1990s Baltimore: “I met Larry Poncho Brown, and he became a mentor to me,” remembers White. “I was trying to fit in as an artist at that time, to be accepted.” The two […]
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On a warm April evening, twenty or so people filled the studio at Praxis Fiber Workshop, on Waterloo Road in Collinwood. Community Craft Circle began at 6 pm and by 6:01 artist-crafters were quiet, their eyes glued to their projects. There were some knitters, a person who appeared to be spinning fibers into yarn, and a man in his thirties […]
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This year, Mary Urbas, long-time curator of From Woman, returned to Understory to mount part of her large-scale, annual exhibition, now in its 19th iteration. As in 2025, art is spread across multiple spaces. In chronological order of their openings, they were at the McDonough Museum at Youngstown State University (January 20–February 28) : Lake Erie College’s BK Smith Gallery […]
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From the early Shaker Heights roots of moCa Cleveland to newsense gallery in Lakewood; to the sunroom, formerly operated by SPACES curatorial associate Thea Spittle in a Cleveland Heights home; to 2602 (curated by Spittle with Deidre McPherson in another Cleveland Heights home, and other sites); to Akhsó Gallery, operated by M. Carmen Lane in the garage of a home […]
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“I am doll eyes, doll mouth, doll legsI am doll arms, big veins, dog begsI want to be the girl with the most cakeI fake it so real, I am beyond fake.”– Courtney Love/Hole, 1994 Power Exchange Rate (PER) examines how one’s bodily intimacies and understanding are shaped, regulated, and contested within the structures of capital and power. Through a feminist […]
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The Broommaker, a three-week residency with Cleveland native, now Kentucky-based artist Hunter Elliott, is centered on brooms, from cultivating the grassy broomcorn plant onsite at SHED Projects, to harvesting and processing it, and—currently, creating stunning works of art. Elliott’s artistic practice is rooted in sculpture and printmaking, as he earned a BFA at Kent State University more than 10 years […]
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“The mind of the man [sic] who dreams is fully satisfied by what happens to him. The agonizing question of possibility is no longer pertinent… fly faster, love to your heart’s content. And if you should die, are you not certain of reawaking among the dead?” – André Breton, Manifestos of Surrealism, 1924 Doubting Thomas Gallery turned 25 in October, […]
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“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt.” – Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781 “I hope that [the] painting has the impact of giving someone… the feeling […]
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“[Pat’s in the Flats] was a dive bar with a shitty sound system that no one seemed to be able to comprehend. It was a venue that offered an uninhibited space for creative expression, [and] Pat [herself] was the magic.” – Shawn Mishak[1] In 1987 Patricia Hanych took over her family’s restaurant-bar at the bottom of Literary Hill in Tremont, […]
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