Cleveland Pushes For New Music Festival

On the day before the eclipse, about 40 local creatives gathered in Artful Cleveland to collaborate on a new creative project outside of their typical mediums. The room of painters, sculptors, fiber artists, installation artists, performing artists, gallery owners, art teachers, designers and others brainstormed about what kind of new art-focused event they would like to see in Northeast Ohio. 

Below rainbow-colored light fixtures and under the watchful eye of giant Day of the Dead skeleton sculptures, they discussed and, as you might expect, offered creative visions. Someone proposed three weeks of exhibits in rotating galleries, culminating in a final celebration; another suggestion was to showcase art in a five-story city building, with each floor dedicated to a different theme, and live music and performance art outside; one person offered the
prospect of an infinite experience that moves throughout venues in the city.

Liz Maugans, known by some fellow local artists as an “arts evangelist,” kicked off the meeting and took notes throughout, while another artist and art educator, David King, facilitated the conversation. With a Sharpie and a poster board, King notated the various ideas. At the end of the meeting, the board was filled with multicolored stickers indicating which suggestions were the most popular, although this was just one step in the ideation stage. 

“This might be messy work,” Maugans acknowledged at the outset of this meeting, the second of its kind, “but it’s going to be, hopefully, fun and joyful.”

Source: Cleveland Magazine