curated by Liz Maugans and Scott Sherer

Troy Richards, Wesley Friedrich, Thu Tran, Kortney Niewierski, Dylan Collins

Opening Saturday, April 22, 6-9 p.m. through June 2

These new arrivals to the Cleveland scene and freshly-minted art school graduates feel the Zeitgeist of both wireless connection and iPod seclusion as they navigate through their over-extended schedules. They respond with a mix of organized energy and unsanctioned risk. The sweet smell of sampling culture and its amalgamations that are not-quite-this-and-not-quite- that are represented in Mix Machine. These hybrid approaches stretch across disciplines reflecting the potpourri of fractured landscapes, objects and inhabitants of today's visual stews.

Digital Print by Troy Richards: Rippon Farm

outgoing Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate For Art’s Sake Only

1.
we will learn to paint.
It will take years just to mix
the colors for clouds, water, milk,
and skin, which, you will find,
is very, very complicated.
In the studio, you will capture, in conté crayon
the mysteries of folded cloth,
skinny old men in codpieces,
and ample, gazing women.
You will learn perspective – a bag
of magic tricks that makes highways
and telephone poles vanish completely.
You will learn how, with a wand
of charcoal to set bowls on a table
and one foot in front of another.
Now we go outside!
In the plein air, you must forget
everything and remember all
as you paint children chasing their tails,
the bridge and the mound
of blankets sleeping under it,
the delicious roundness of fingertips.
You will bathe stones in both
morning and evening light.
You will discover all these
live their own lives, separate
from you, and forever unreachable.

2.
You’ll love dance!
It’s all about you! You alone,
bare feet together, pointing
east on a smooth wooden floor.
You stuffed into a freight elevator,
caught like a kite in a tree,
or swinging like a bell, down the street.
You listening, teaching your body
to listen – arm by hip, by heel.
Your body will become fluent
in a thousand languages – some thought
to be lost or dead –birds in the ivy,
a struck match, clean rags
ripped lengthwise for bandages,
a newspaper moved aside
like a theatre curtain, to reveal
a face with a story to tell,
stones shifting in the bed
of a fast-running brook.
Your body will translate everything.
Your body will do all
the thinking for you.

3.
Finally, we will learn to write,
beginning with fiction:
“Dear Aunt Trudy, I love
the argyle socks you sent.”

Eventually, you will mean it
And Aunt Trudy will believe you.
In this class, you will never stop reading.
One minute you’re lying on the floor
in the living room. It’s summer
and you are bored, or hiding,
or thinking about a root beer float
and you roll over and pick a book
off the pile next to you.
It’s The Last Flower by James Thurber.
You gulp it down, and the next one, too --
Islandia – then the Screwtape Letters
and “Snowbound,” and some 1945
Life magazines, and Green Mansions.
Soon you’ve devoured the whole stack,
and you’re still hungry.

Certain things will be painful
until you apply the cool compress of words:
the smooth, identical caves of coffee cups
hanging above the kitchen sink,
sudden rain, and the way your sister
stands, ankles kissing,
and peers into the refrigerator.
The minute you get the knack
of sitting down and writing every day,
your characters show up
at the front door with a lot of luggage.
They push past you and take over the house.
One night, very late,
you come downstairs for some hot milk.
They’re all sitting around the kitchen table,
playing cards, smoking, drinking Pernod,
reading Dashiell Hammett
aloud – and laughing.
You stand there in your pajamas,
feeling awkward, until one of them
stands up, scraping back the chair
and asks you to dance.

Meredith Holmes / February 2006

April is National Poetry Month


presented by Tri-C East

Cornelius Eady and Valzhyna Mort

April 21 at 7 p.m.
Gallery east-E1 Building

216.987.2047

We're so embarrassed. So many of you called last week, wondering how to donate $50,000. Our website has a secure link for a VISA or MasterCard donation, or if $50,000 is above your credit limit, simply send a check of any amount to:

Heights Arts
2163 Lee Road #104
Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118

Your contribution is completely tax-deductible, and supports the arts daily in your community.

pictured: an example of Heights Arts presenting the arts in your daily life: The Sentinels by Brinsley Tyrrell at Severance Town Centre

Heights Arts Annual Report

Perhaps your business would like to join the illustrious ranks of PARTY in the Heights sponsors (see last year's brochure). Please call the office this week at 216.371.3344 for details, or email heightsarts@sbcglobal.net.

Monday, April 17 at 7:30
Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Appointed
Cleveland Heights City Hall

Thursday, April 20 from 6:30-8 p.m.
Opening Reception Young Artists Exhibition
Cleveland Heights City Hall

Thursday, April 20 at 8 p.m.
110 in the Shade opens at Kalliope

Friday, April 21 at 7 p.m.
Heritag e Brass Quintet
Wiley Middle School
$5 adults/$3 under 18

Saturday, April 22 from 6 to 9 p.m.
Opening Reception
Heights Arts Gallery

Cedar Lee Theatre
CityMusic Cleveland
Grog Shop
Ground Floor Theater
Kalliope Stage
Nightto wn
Studio You

History of Cleveland Heights