ArtWorks Day

ArtWorks day commences at the Carnegie Center in Covington

Jake Speed of Jake Speed and the Freddies entertains an audience full of apprentices

Stage Crew enacts a day in the life on their project using massively realistic props

The Northside mural project prepares to perform a dance routine, dressed in hard hats and collars inspired by Raymond Thundersky.

Room by Room presents a variation on their earlier presentation to the ArtWorks Day audience with the additions of "Glue!" and "Lots of glue!" tagged on to the end.

From “Chase and Kate Plus Eight,” presented by O’Bryonville, to the musical stylings of Tapestry, ArtWorks Day was a whirlwind of celebration, insanity, and wild dance routines. All held together by the skillful and hilarious emceeing of Jake Speed (who only added to the impression that ArtWorks Day had somehow been transformed into a musical), the presentations flowed smoothly, each offering a special glimpse into the personality and progress of each project.

I also thought I'd post the summary I wrote of the summer that I shared yesterday, because it's for all of you:

It’s been a relatively cool summer. Breezes and clouds have kept mural apprentices at a comfortable temperature as they paint, while other projects have remained snug in their studios. But, literal weather aside, it’s undeniable—this summer was hot! The burning colors of murals spreading like lava over city walls, sparks flying from the brainstorming minds in Room by Room conversations, heat—absolutely not metaphorical—emanating from the Glass Canopy’s kilns… the connections are endless, and easy to see. So though some mural apprentices may be quite proud of the tans they’ve cultivated over these last five weeks, the fact of the matter is that ArtWorks has created its own little suns at the heart of communities throughout Cincinnati this summer, and each and every one of us is a shiny ArtWorks sunbeam.

Intelligent Designs

Screen printing at Tower Place

Though Tower Place Mall was eerily empty when the Documentary team went to visit the Tower Place project one morning last week, the room where the apprentices were working was bright and pleasant. Stretched across the buttery yellow wood of the floor and sketching as they searched through the books which were scattered across the room, the studio was a vision of artistry. Tower Place is creating panels that feature Cincinnati landmarks held within decorative frames. The panels will be hung later in Tower Place Mall. When we visited on the 23rd, the apprentices were working on these decorative frames, the assortment of books sprawled across the room serving as their inspiration. Some books were full of floral Victorian bouquets, others had image after image of henna designs within their pages, and still others offered up stylized Art Nouveau prints for the perusal of apprentices. Even with all of this inspiration before them, some apprentices decided to go it alone. One, Vincent, was working freehand. "I'm already kind of interested in this stuff," he said. "I've just got designs in my head."

Just a few days later, when we visited the team as they worked at the Clay Street Press, we saw the designs beginning to become a reality. Using a computer to make the designs crisp and flawless, the image of a decorative frame was then placed on a light board before being transferred onto transparent paper. I also saw the image designed to go inside this frame-- a light-filled picture of Cincinnati's iconic Museum Center. These images will later be screen printed together to form a finished product both historic and fun, drawing on the work Tower Place brainstormed earlier as well as real images from Cincinnati.