Flashback

The Northside Mural team all dressed up for their last huzzah!

After an extended back-to-school hiatus, Writer Woman has returned to present some relics of the summer program. Though it may be hard to imagine, on these surprisingly cool final days of August, the summer program ended in a blaze of white hot sunshine. So put on your sun screen and take a trip down memory lane with me!

The last day of the summer program was a day of festivities. While many projects celebrated the end of the summer and the completion of their artwork, the Northside mural wins the award for best shindig, though they got some help from the wonderful artists of Visionaries and Voices. When I arrived at the mural, I was almost so distracted by the tantalizing tables set with grill-out fixings, watermelon, blueberry chocolate cake, chips, and cool drinks that I couldn't focus on the mural that was serving as backdrops. Almost. For no matter what stunning smorgasbords might be arrayed nearby, the Northside mural really takes the cake. Bold, colorful, and a celebration in its own right, the Visionaries and Voices wall, Northside, and Cincinnati as a whole are brighter for having this mural.

On Tour

A Clifton Heights apprentice works on painting in architectural details

Because of the incessant way the Documentary team tours the ArtWorks project circuit, one might think we would have had enough of driving from project to project and seeing what’s going on there. But not so! Today Alex and I had a new ArtWorks experience (for us, at least): we went on an ArtWorks tour! On the tour, we went to four murals—Northside, South Cumminsville, Over-the-Rhine, and Clifton Heights.

Each mural is making stunning and inspiring progress. South Cumminsville’s mural design showcases a surreal style, using architectural arches to frame scenes from the neighborhood. With a summery blue sky completely painted in, the apprentices at South Cumminsville are now moving on to filling in details, such as the flying hotdogs and glowing red crystal ball, which both make starring appearances in the mural.

Similarly, Clifton Heights has filled in the broad swaths of colors needed for their mural and are now doing detail work, working specifically on the many architectural landmarks of Clifton Heights that are featured in the mural, such as the old Fairview German Language School building and Old St. George church.

Even if you don’t have a chance to go on a tour with ArtWorks, you should certainly make a point to take a small tour yourself. The summer will be finished all too soon, and your time to catch a “before and after” is running out!

Primary Colors

An Evanston apprentice begins to paint with bold colors and shapes

Though different in almost every respect, including size, shape, and colors being used, the Covington and Evanston Murals have both made progress in a very exciting way—they’ve begun adding color to their murals as of July 2^nd.

Muted grays, tans, and blues are emerging from the creamy background of Covington’s wall in the shapes of trees with complicated ridges of leaves, flittering blue birds, and people with large noses and wide eyes. A whimsical mural, the subdued palette being used will help to emphasize the antics of the many colorful animals that will roam throughout the mural’s panels, leading the viewer on a virtual tour of Covington and its landmarks.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Evanston mural. Big, bright, and bold, its large geometric shapes and intense colors immediately catch the eye of passersby, who stop to stare for moments on end before moving on their way. On such dim, cool days as the ones we’ve been having this week just before the 4^th of July, the paints that Evanston is working with seem almost to jump from their buckets and into the surrounding air, warming the landscape of Evanston with pale pink, rich blue, and vibrant orange.

So a colorful congratulations to those murals who’ve broken into their paint buckets: Covington and Evanston to be sure, but also Columbia Tusculum, Northside, and Clifton Heights. Not just a promise of the great things these murals are bringing to both the apprentices working on them and the communities of Greater Cincinnati, there’s also the simple fact that these colorful new visions are, in the words of one Evanston apprentice, “Really pretty.”

Presentations, Continued

Enjoy this video of the Visionaries and Voices Mural presentation in Northside on June 19th! For more reading on this fabulous project, see the “Presenting…Presentations” entry, below.

Presenting...Presentations!

Northside apprentices present at their 6/19 presentation

Apprentice Ihsan looks at part of the Northside mural design

Since the Northside mural presentation last Friday, it’s been all presentations all the time for the ArtWorks documentary team. Besides getting the privilege of seeing all of the stunning mural designs, we also learned a little bit about each neighborhood, saw the apprentices dressed in their best, and sampled plenty of delicious food. I know I’m supposed to be a journalistic superhero, but it would be impossible to do each mural full justice here. Instead, I’ll just give some highlights.

Northside mural’s presentation in the Visionaries and Voices gallery was a fabulous way to kick off the summer. With a full audience and a practiced and effortless presentation, everyone in the room was utterly transported from the warm blue room and into a completely new land—one of circus tents and thunderbolts shining in the sky, both motifs that figured prominently in Northside’s mural. Designed by Antonio Adams in honor of Raymond Thundersky, the mural was eagerly accepted by the community and is sure to remain both an inspiring work of art and a profound memorial to a local artist for many years.

Columbia Tusculum’s presentation was transporting as well, sending each visitor into a different era as soon as they entered the studio. With soft classical music playing in the background and a smorgasbord of delicate sandwiches, delicious cookies, and whimsical teacups filled with sweet tea looking tempting against one wall, Columbia Tusculum outdid themselves in creating a very convincing Victorian High Tea for visitors to enjoy.

And then there was our own presentation, which, though we might be a little biased, we thought was wonderful. Presented to the ArtWorks staff at our headquarters on Race Street, Alex and I asked questions and answered questions, pitched our ideas for the three different documentaries we hope to complete, and showed off our lovely schedule for planning, filming, and editing. Inspired by all of the accomplished presentations we’ve been visiting lately, we also threw in a brief history of ArtWorks—just in case anyone didn’t know.