Tag: arts

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Arts & Entertainment Business Development News

SpringBoard Cincinnati merges art and business

Right brain vs. left brain; canvas vs. spreadsheet; the dreamers vs. the driven. In a world that becomes more connected every day, who says art and business are mutually exclusive? This attitude drives local nonprofit ArtWorks’ newest creative enterprise program. SpringBoard Cincinnati is a business development program for artists and creative entrepreneurs.

SpringBoard is more than a classroom with a packet of information and a “good luck” at the end. It’s the most effective way for creative entrepreneurs to see their ideas turn into action, and action into results. The $250 fee includes an 8-week course convening three hours each week, personal consulting from experts in accountancy, finance, law and branding, and a comprehensive business plan. Graduates will also be connected to potential storefront spaces in Over-the-Rhine and downtown.


Vine Street image by Thadd Fiala for UrbanCincy.

“The course is tailored so you aren’t sitting in a room with thirty people just listening to someone speak, only to walk out confused. Students gain applicable, real world information about running their own business,” said SpringBoard Coordinator Sarah Corlett.

Professionals donate their time each week to giving direction to the entrepreneurs’ ideas. Students will be working with the likes of Keating, Meuthing & Klemkamp, P.P.L., Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, Burke and Schindler, P.L.L., Rockfish Interactive, and PNC Bank.

“The first week may be an attorney who will instruct the class on the legal structure of starting a business. They will lecture for one hour and the remaining time is dedicated to the class asking questions specific to their future business,” said Corlett.

Nothing short of innovative, SpringBoard is just the next logical step for ArtWorks, an award winning non-profit based in Over-the-Rhine that has been connecting artists with apprenticeships, job opportunities and community partnerships since 1996.  SpringBoard is licensing the curriculum from a program of the same name founded by the Chattanooga-based non-profit Create Here. The SpringBoard in the South has been in operation for three years and already boasts 325 graduates.

“Walking down Main Street in the south side of Chattanooga it seems like every storefront is a product of SpringBoard,” said Corlett. “In Cincinnati we are losing a lot of our young, creative population to other cities – Chicago, New York, and the West Coast. SpringBoard is helping to create an environment of locally, handcrafted ideas here in Cincinnati,” she added.

Funded by the Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile Jr./ U.S. Bank Foundation, SpringBoard’s first course is set to begin June 7th. Interested creative entrepreneurs – from metal sculptors to musicians, and everything in between – can sign up on the website. space is limited but sessions will be ongoing. For more information regarding class registration or to volunteer your professional expertise contact Sarah Corlett at 513-333-0388 or Sarah@ArtWorksCincinnati.org.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Go OTR 5k and Summer Celebration take place this Saturday

This Saturday the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce is hosting its annual GO OTR 5k and Summer Celebration. This year marks the first year for the Cincinnati Triple Crown, which encourages cross promotion between three urban races, and includes the Hyde Park Blast, Downtown Dash 5k and GO OTR 5k.

Race registration can be done online for the GO OTR 5K, and is $20  in advance and $25 the day of the race. All participants receive an official race t-shirt, designed by Nati Evolvement, and top finishers will receive specially designed Rookwood Pottery awards. This year’s race will feature chip-timing to more quickly and accurately publish race results.


2010 GO OTR 5k race photograph by 5chw4r7z for UrbanCincy.

The race begins at 10am (with sign-in starting at 8:30am). Awards will be given to the top five male and female finishers, first-place runner with dog, first-place runner with stroller, first-place walker, and the first-place boy and girl finishers.

Following the race, the OTR Summer Celebration will be held at the corner of 12th and Vine streets in the Gateway Quarter of Over-the-Rhine. Organizers say that the all-day celebration will highlight the artistic character of the historic neighborhood.

Over 30 local artists and craftspeople will display and sell their one-of-a-kind work alongside the independent shop owners in the Gateway Quarter. Local bands including The Hiders, Cincy Brass, Faux Frenchmen, Comet Bluegrass Allstars, and The Cliftones will perform live music all day.

Over-the-Rhine restaurants Lavomatic, Senate, and the new A Tavola Trattoria, as well as a variety of mobile food vendors, will be open for lunch. This year there will be a kids activity tent where children can participate in simple craft projects. You can also follow Saturday’s events on Twitter and Facebook.

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Arts & Entertainment News

43rd Annual Duveneck Art Show displays local artist works

This Mother’s Day, over 50 local artists will be represented at the 43rd Duveneck Memorial Art Show in Covington. The free show will take place from 12pm to 5pm, Sunday at the George Rogers Clark Park on Riverside Drive, near the foot of the Roebling Suspension Bridge.

Live banjo music will be played throughout the afternoon, and food will be available through the Twin Bistro of Covington. Attendees can browse, listen to music, purchase art, and vote for their favorite artists.


2010 Duveneck Award winner Joe Stewart, with event chairs Jon Moeller and Lisa Sauer. Photo provided.

Original artists in the fields of painting, sculpture, graphics and fine crafts will display and sell their work, and compete for awards totaling $3,000. Judges include gallery owners, teachers and other art professionals. This year’s winner is Joe Stewart

The art show is the largest annual project of the Northern Kentucky Heritage League, which reconstructed and beautified the park in 1969. “It’s a beautiful little setting,” said NKHL’s president Dick Murgatroyd.

The annual event honors Frank Duveneck (1848-1919), a Covington-born painter who studied and worked in Europe before returning to the area, where he taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. His work can be seen in museums worldwide, and at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

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Arts & Entertainment Development News

Framester takes event photography to the next level

Chances are, if you have a Facebook account, you’ve seen the pictures floating around your friends’ feeds. High quality photo booth style pictures, perfectly capturing the essence of an event or party. This phenomenon is the brainchild of local entrepreneurs David Dewitt and Adam Kleshinski. It’s called Framester.

The philosophy behind the event photography company is that, given the circumstances, every person wants the chance to show their creative, spontaneous selves… and to take the perfect picture. The self-timed setup – a camera, a backdrop, and a little red button – allows party goers to create their own portraits in a way that traditional event photographers can’t.

DeWitt, a former DAAP student at the University of Cincinnati, set up his camera one night at a friend’s party in 2008, and was taken aback at the response it received. “It took a lot of trust, to leave my lighting and camera equipment up all night, but no one messed with it,” David explained. “My friends loved it, and it turned into something bigger.”

Through various connections around town, DeWitt took his setup to local philanthropic events over the next year, experimenting with props, backdrops and photography techniques. Bars and parties began to hire him as a special addition to their shindigs- tagging and sharing the pictures on Facebook helped gather name recognition for the venues, as well as give everyone kick-ass profile pictures.

DeWitt and Kleshinski connected near the end of 2010, where the Xavier MBA graduate saw a business opportunity that couldn’t be passed up. “I couldn’t believe it was just [DeWitt],” said Kleshinski. “I knew it could be something bigger.” The two worked through a business plan, and launched the Framester brand in the beginning of May.

“The goal now is to expand through the Cincinnati area,” explained Adam. “We want it to expand organically, and with 2.5 million people in the region, there’s a lot of room for growth here. Things are changing and moving in the right direction. Cincinnati is a base of ingenuity and entrepreneurship and good business – it’s a great market.”

The duo feels that Cincinnati is a perfect test market – a microcosm with enough diversity to try out different things as they tweak the business model and prepare to grow.

The difference between Framester’s services and any huckster with a camera is the professional level of quality and attention to detail for each event – no two are alike. The service naturally offers a distinctive brand marketing advantage to event sponsors and venues by levering advances in social media technologies, and former clients have seen immediate results in collecting contact information from their attendees along with targeted brand exposure.

Ultimately, Framester is helping to celebrate and showcase the momentum that is driving Cincinnati forward. Kleshinski and DeWitt both say it’s been incredible watching the amount of energy building in Cincinnati’s urban core.

“For too long there’s been this theory that Cincinnati is boring – there’s nothing fun to do here,” said DeWitt. “We know that’s not true – and we’ve got the pictures to prove it.”

CityBeat Best of Cincinnati Party photo provided by Framester.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Circus poster exhibit at Cincinnati Art Museum brings lithographic prints to life

Before the appearance of movies, television, and zoos, the circus was all of those things bundled into a single great traveling show. Advertisement of that product took the form of large lithograph prints, many of them produced here in Cincinnati by the Strobridge Lithographing Company. The Amazing American Circus Poster exhibit, on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) now through July 10, features 80 posters taken from the collection the company gave the museum upon its dissolution in 1971.

Produced between 1878 and 1939, the posters reflect a progression of artistic styles, advances in printing techniques, and the evolution of the circuses themselves. The character of the posters and the acts they advertised were not random – they are the product of the earliest marketing studies, creating the blueprint for mass marketing by 20th-century corporations. Conspicuous is the rise of star women performers: female acrobats, lion tamers, weight lifters, etc., captured the public’s interest, and therefore its disposable income, more than men performing the same acts.

This presents several dilemmas: should the circus operators be applauded for empowering women (and also foreigners, Siamese twins, and other outsiders on their payrolls), or should they be admonished for giving the appearance of empowerment while simply exploiting these individuals? And to what extent did the circus posters themselves shape exoticism?

The cultural complexities created and reflected by the circuses and how they were advertised will be the subject of the Circus Poster Symposium this Sunday, May 1, at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Admission to the symposium is $10 general public; $5 students, seniors, Enjoy the Arts members; free Art Museum members. Reservations recommended.

The Amazing American Circus Poster exhibit is on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum through July 10. The Cincinnati Art Museum, at 953 Eden Park Drive, is open 11am to 5pm Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is free to the public; parking is $4 for non-members. The Terrace Café, located in the museum, is open 11am to 3pm Tuesday through Sunday.

Emily Schneider contributed to this story.