I am really appreciative, this morning. After posting what was certainly the saddest news I can imagine, about the hardship my staff has suffered as a result of a lack of appreciation from my former business associate, Peter Holmes, I opened up this week's CoolCleveland and found that their crew had featured TWO postings from REALNEO. I am very touched and thankful to Thomas and his team for noticing REALNEO and taking an interest in the thoughts posted here - thank you. Please show appreciation back to CoolCleveland... if you are not a member, see what you've been missing... subscribe at CoolCleveland - all free - this is a real NEO must,  and send feedback to CoolCleveland letters at the links below, and supporting the upcoming CoolCleveland/Tech/Ingenuity party at Fat Fish Blue, July 13, and the Ingenuity Festival, as described below... but first, here's the nice write-up about REALNEO from CoolCleveland today, July 5, 2006:

Rafala Green's labyrinths are a good follow up to the art of the Shaman. I first met Rafala Green and saw her labyrinths this past winter at an open house at the Hodge School artists's community. Her labyrinths are absolutely magical! They transcend the boundaries of typical painting and drawing. As your eye follows the path, the labyrinth takes you on a spiritual journey.  See Rafala Green's website to learn more about her labyrinths and community art projects.

Robert Banks: local filmmaker, photographer, CIA professor/film instructor, one of the cool residents of the Tower Press Building. I tend to think of film as a less artistic medium than painting or sculpture. It may be wrong of me to make such a generalization about a medium, but I have never questioned the level of artistic merit in Robert's films -- his films are like painterly collages.  I know I forgot to post an "Art of the Day" for Sunday, so Robert can be the "Art of the Day" artist for Sunday and Monday.

Spaces Gallery is having an exhibition of this artist's work.

I found out about this on Brewed Fresh Daily: last year, when I saw Natalie Lanese's work for the first time at her one-woman show at Buzz Gallery (formerly on W. 25th) -- my favorite gallery in Cleveland while it existed. I immediately loved Natalie's collages and sculptures (not all of her collages are so racy). I even bought one of her cakes (sculptures). Then, she was a young CIA grad and Buzz intern with a lot of talent and promise. This morning I was just wondering what she's doing now and by chance it happens there is an exhibition of her work opening July 6th at Bridget Ginley's new gallery, AIV. Natalie is now a grad student at Pratt. The show opens on Thursday b/c that's the only day she can appear in person. Check out her website -- it has a great look.

Prehistoric monoliths in Cleveland? Almost -- made of quarried sandstone with concrete and an earth mound, this sculpture has become one with its natural environment since it was installed in 1982. Located at the top of a hill, in a secluded spot with many large old trees, on a site that was once a grand estate; this environmental sculpture is a peaceful place to escape where you can escape from the city., rest and reflect. Do you know where this work is located and who estate this once was? Check back tomorrow.

Pamela Dodds recently moved to Cleveland and has become very active in the arts community here. Her paintings, drawings, prints and photographs often depict figures and convey a powerful emotional energy. Though PRICKLY PEAR NOCTURNE is more a landscape, or a still-life within a landscape, the way Pamela situates herself in the scene, holding the jewel-like fruit before the mountain the viewer feels initiated in some  supernatural  occurrence. Please visit Pamela Dodds's website to see more of her work. 

You may know him better as the most famous architect to ever come out of Cleveland, but in the 90s he enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to create a sculpture for Cleveland and the Putnam Sculpture Collection of Case Western Reserve University. TURNING POINT has a great visual dialog going with the Peter B. Lewis Building by Frank Gehry (just a few hundred feet away). It is also an incredibly accessible sculpture. It is located in the center of Case campus, just south of CIA's Gund building, in a spot where paths intersect that has historically been called "the turning point." Whether you like abstract sculpture or not, this work has become an icon for Case and the Putnam Collection. If you have never walked through TURNING POINT put it on your "to-do-list" for this summer!

Location

Tue Jun 27 , 7 pm
Gallery talk and slide presentation

SPACES World Artists Program artist-in-residence Pavel Kopriva will be giving a gallery talk and slide presentation of life in the Czech Republic, and its impact on his work.

Location

Are you a sculptor or do you know one? The following is a great opportunity for NEO sculptors -- but you need to act fast! Please pass this information on to anyone you know who may be interested in submitting their work.

This work is in the Putnam Sculpture Collection at Case Western Reserve University. It was purchased recently from a show at the Sculpture Center but It is not on display yet -- so very few people have seen it. This work is only a few inches tall but it has a monumental quality. The color of the stone is very beautiful. The form, which is similar in shape to a human heart, is very sensuous and organic. I Believe it is one of Kiderman's best works. She creates both abstract and figurative sculptures. Visit Alice Kiderman's website to see more of her sculptures.

Each of Keri Mortimer's paintings presents a simple story. In it the present is more important than the past, but the lonely, iconic elements (the house, the factory) do allude to a human presence and activity that took place in the past. Mortimer's paintings are also about her fears, though she says "growing up in the comfortable Midwest, my subconscious had to go out of its way to find things to be afraid of."

Architect, painter, sculptor -- Tony Smith was all three. Sometimes his sculptures are grouped with Minimalism, though they don't really belong in that stylistic catagory. As the title suggests, there is some humor to this piece, and, if you could walk around it and see it from all sides, you would notice it has an anthropomorphic quality. As a child, Tony Smith contracted TB and was quarantined in a tiny building in his family's backyard.  During this lonely time he developed an interest in the geometric elements of architecture -- an interest that remained with him throughout his life.

Larchmere is probably the most fun place in NEO to go antiqueing. A variety of interesting stores on a almost quaint street with great restaurants. The annual antiques fair brings the cool stuff from the stores out on the street. While you are their, stop for a bite to eat at my favorite -- Cafe Limbo -- the entres always taste very fresh and there are many vegetarian options, coffee and desserts are good too.

Location

Three great exhibitions opened at MOCA this past Friday: "Sarah Kabot: On the Flip Side," "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art," and "Transitions: Linda Butler and Philip Brutz Photography." "On the Flip Side" is the 2006 edition of the Wendy L. Moore Emerging Artist Series.  This annual exhibition of the work of a very talented, young (under 30), female artist who has yet not had a major gallery show never fails to generate a lot of excitement. "The Persistence of Geometry," curated by Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims of the Studio Museum in Harlem featured many works -- paintings, drawings, prints, textiles, sculptures and decorative arts -- from the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. Visitors may have expected this exhibition to be just another highlights tour of the CMA only in a new location, but the result was something totally new and surprising. "Transitions" gives the viewer a peek at what it looks like inside the museum now. Brutz's color stereoscopic transparencies were especially popular with children.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is difficult to recognize these days as it forges ahead with its major expansion and renovation project. One thing is certain, when the CMA reopens it will be a very different place. Will you miss the old museum and what are your hopes for the new, bigger and better CMA? What is the role of the CMA in Cleveland? and what does the CMA mean to you? Did you visit regularly before it closed last winter? Did you pay to go to the big special exhibitions? Do you visit art museums in other cities? If these are issues that interest you, you should read Museum Skepticism, a new book by Prof. David Carrier who teaches art history at Case. The following is a review that appeared on Case's homepage today.

 The following story with its links ran in CASE Daily (Case's online newpaper) today. Do feel like you have entrepreneurial genes? I think I do! Please post your thoughts
"Do genes influence who will be entrepreneurs?"

ABC News (Reuters), June 5, 2006
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2041245

Have you seen any of the dogs around the St. Clair/Superior neighborhood? I went looking for them on a Tuesday evening shortly after they were installed in their summer locations. I won't tell you where these two are, but they are probably the easiest to find.

Location

Most of the NEO residents I know are animal lovers and most have at least one pet. What is your favorite pet? For many NEO residents its the Chihuahua! I don't have a Chihuahua, but I was invited to my first Chihuahua meet up yesterday afternoon.

Season Finale!

Opera-in-concert, sung in Italian with English surtitles.

Join The Cleveland Orchestra, Music Director Franz Welser-Most, and an internationally renonwned cast of singers led by Renato Bruson in the title role of Verdi's comic opera Falstaff. Based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and King Henry IV, this opera was a huge success when it was first heard in Milan in 1893 and has been acclaimed by many to be Verdi's greatest opera.

Location

Season Finale!

Opera-in-concert, sung in Italian with English surtitles.

Join The Cleveland Orchestra, Music Director Franz Welser-Most, and an internationally renonwned cast of singers led by Renato Bruson in the title role of Verdi's comic opera Falstaff. Based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and King Henry IV, this opera was a huge success when it was first heard in Milan in 1893 and has been acclaimed by many to be Verdi's greatest opera.

Location

When a woman in the audience asked Christo and Jeanne-Claude how they define art, Jeanne-Claude  said they don't define art they make art. She went on to say that they make art because "it is our life" and all their works are works of "joy and beauty."