Though it’s not a perfect metaphor, this division of labor helps explains the newly split storefront of the former Anderson Creative studio in downtown Canton. While Anderson Creative remains the artistic workspace of Kevin Anderson, the north storefront has reopened as a gallery called Translations, operated by Anderson’s partner, Craig Joseph.

Translations will host monthly art exhibitions open to the public, while Anderson’s workspace next door will become both public and private. “The front part will be a permanent showroom where [Anderson] can display his furniture, fabrications and works in progress, like any big public sculptures or installations. People can see how that works,” said Joseph. “The back two-thirds, hidden from view, is his workshop.”

The goal has been to accomplish more by using the business partners’ talents to their fullest. Before the split, said Joseph, “Kevin and I had been working on everything under the roof together. We felt like having our hands in both places was starting to split our energies.”

Taking stock of the gallery’s development, “Kevin wanted to focus on his own artistic pursuits over there, and during the past few years we discovered that I really have a knack for the curatorial, conceptual part of the business,” Joseph said. “Kevin wanted the space so that the work didn’t take away from his personal artistic pursuits. We decided it would let us focus a little more. I’m still on hand to help Kevin with the things I’m good at, like marketing and promotion, and he’s on hand to help me with what he’s good at, which is the artistic side.”

The name, Translations, was chosen because of what Joseph believes is the purpose of the gallery: to encourage vastly different groups to communicate with one another. “The new name is to delineate the two spaces, yes, but even when we were still one gallery we’d seen it as our mission to facilitate conversations between populations that need a translator — between visual artists and performing artists, between artists and community, between nonprofits that have partnered with us on various projects,” he said. “We kind of see ourselves as ambassadors operating between disparate populations.” One of the gallery’s most popular shows was called “Blind Date,” in which visual artists received anonymous pieces of writing from authors and used the prose to inspire a work of original art.

To that end, Joseph said, one of Translations’s first objectives is to bridge the gap between local artists and area businesses. “One of the first areas we’re pushing into informally is that we have had offices or businesses come to us to do corporate art purchases,” he said. “Before we’d always done art for individuals, for home art collectors. Now we’re offering more formal consultations for businesses, offices and public spaces that want to purchase or rent collections, or even commission artists to do larger-scale works for their spaces. We can be the go-between with corporations or institutions and artists, or to even help offices and companies, ask them, ‘What is your personal company aesthetic, and can we help you find that art?’”

The February exhibition at Translations is titled “Revisionist Histories, America ReTold,” a solo show by illustrator Chad Hansen.

“He works in ink and paint, and over the past couple of years he has been working on a body of work that incorporates symbology from American history, mythology, folklore and legend, which basically retells American history, if you will. He puts his own spin on some of the American myths, like democracy, capitalism, a God-destined country — it’s a visual representation of its history,” Joseph said.

The gallery will be set up to resemble a log cabin, an homage to iconic figures like Abraham Lincoln who figure into Hansen’s mythology.

The show opens on First Friday, Feb. 3, from 6 to 10 p.m. and runs through the 25th. Hansen will present an artist talkback session at the gallery on Thursday, Feb. 23 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Later this year, Translations will dedicate a rare two months of its gallery space to “Stirring the Fire,” a national traveling exhibit of photography by Phil Borges, the official photographer for the United Nations. The show opens May 6 and will run through May 26.

“It’s all images of women around the world in Third World countries who have overcome [hardship]. We’re coming from a women’s rights perspective. Some of these women have survived sexual trafficking, tribal violence, genocide. It’s about their stories of overcoming that to fabricate a new life for themselves,” said Joseph. “The exhibit will have the images along with their stories and is intended to raise awareness of different missions and organizations around the country and world that work to stop some of these things.”

Translations is open Wednesday through Saturday, 12 to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.translationsart.com or www.andersoncreativestudio.com.

Hansberry’s best known work, A RAISIN IN THE SUN, (winner of The New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play) was the first play written by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway.

Director Carla Gipson is very excited to be able to bring this show to The Playhouse in this special event celebrating Black History Month. “The experiences that were inspirational in Lorraine Hansberry’s life and works, which came during the 50′s and 60′s, are also an American experience that we can all relate to. The messages and challenges are still relevant today.” says Gipson.

Performance dates are February 3, 4, 10 and 11 at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $15.00/adults, $12.00/seniors and students. The Moyer Room has limited seating and reservations are strongly recommended. Please call the box office at 330-788-8739, M-F, 10AM to 4PM.

Directed by Victoria Bussert, director of Music Theatre at Baldwin-Wallace College, Spring Awakening features Equity actors Scott Plate and Laura Perrotta as the adult male and female characters with a talented cast of 17 young actors from BW’s nationally recognized MT program. “I am thrilled about this initial collaboration between the Beck Center and Baldwin-Wallace,” exclaimed Bussert “especially on such a ground-breaking piece in American musical theater.”

Based on the controversial play by Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening explores with passion and poignancy the turbulent journey from adolescence to adulthood. This landmark musical swept the 2007 Tony Awards winning eight out of its eleven nominations, including Best Musical and Best Score. With book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik, Spring Awakening is an exhilarating mix of morality, sexuality, and rock & roll including hard-hitting songs like “Momma Who Bore Me,” “My Junk,” and “The Bitch of Living.”

Set against the backdrop of a repressive and provincial late 19th century Germany, Spring Awakening tells the timeless story of teenage self-discovery and budding sexuality as seen through the eyes of a group of school mates. Haunting and provocative, Spring Awakening examines a myriad of social issues including domestic violence, rape, incest, suicide, and teen pregnancy. This production includes adult language and nudity and is recommended for mature audiences ages 17 and older.

Tickets are $28 for adults and $25 for seniors (65 and older). An additional $3 service fee per ticket is applied at the time of purchase. A special discounted rate of $15 is available for students with valid ID. Preview Night on Thursday, February 2 is $10 with general admission seating. Group discounts are available for parties of 13 or more. Purchase tickets online at beckcenter.org or call Customer Service at 216.521.2540, ext. 10. Beck Center is located at 17801 Detroit Avenue in Lakewood, just ten minutes west of downtown Cleveland. Free onsite parking is available.

Beck Center’s production of Spring Awakening is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI) and is sponsored by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and the Ohio Arts Council.

Beck Center for the Arts is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization that offers professional theater productions, arts education programming in dance, music, theater, visual arts, early childhood, and creative arts therapies for special needs students, and gallery exhibits featuring regional artists.

Mac’s commanding presence in the art world has gained him unyielding exposure and well deserved respect. His dynamic expression in award winning wall sculptures, outdoor sculptures, tabletop sculptures and pop art paintings mediums creates excitement wherever shown. Many visitors to the downtown area are familiar with Mac’s sculpture “AdroIt Juggler” which graces the plaza on Market St at 2nd St N.

The Mac Worthington Gallery has been a main-stay of the Short North Arts District in Columbus, Ohio, since the 1970′s and continues to be voted as “Best Gallery” in many polls annually. Mac’s work is represented by one other gallery, Coloring The World Gallery, in Ft Myers, Florida. Journey Art Gallery is excited and honored to be named only the second gallery in the country representing Mac Worthington’s work. Mac’s work is in private collections in every state in the US, Hawaii, Canada, England, France, Germany, Spain & Italy.

Journey Art Gallery and Studios has been an active and exciting part of downtown Canton Arts District for the past 4 years. Journey’s owner, Su Nimon, is well known as an artist and designer. She is back home in Ohio after many successful years as a freelance artist, designer and musician in Denver CO.

Her gallery’s current location is on the 2nd level of 2nd April galerie, at 324 Cleveland Ave NW. The first hanging of of Mac’s work will be unveiled during February’s First Friday event. With this addition of the work of such a stellar talent, Su is exploring the possibilities for creating an independent gallery to serve this area as an arts destination. She’s hopeful that the move into a new location can be announced within the next few months.

The Tri-C Creative Arts Division and the Tri-C Presents Performing Arts Series are seeking artists to apply for inclusion in Project Gilgamesh Songbook Unbound: Part 2, the second installment of a year-long campus-wide exploration of poems, themes, songs and study of the world’s oldest story, “The Epic of Gilgamesh.”

Artists throughout Northeast Ohio are invited to submit work for consideration by Friday, February 24, 2012, including dance, music, theater, spoken word/poetry, art/photography, and video. Those selected will be professionally presented in an evening performance, hosted by New York City- based composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR).

Tri-C commissioned DBR to create the Songbook, a collection of contemporary songs inspired by the epic. DBR, a composer-in-residence at Tri-C throughout the current academic school year, worked with area professional musicians, Tri-C faculty, and students in various departments to record the songbook last fall at Tri-C’s Center for Creative Arts.

The Songbook sheet music and recordings are available for area artists to download for free to use as a base to create their own work. For more information, and to download music and entry guidelines, visit www.projectgilgamesh.com. Information is also available by calling 216-987-4444.

At the performance on April 5, three winners, chosen by a panel of judges and audience feedback, will be announced. In addition to cash prizes, winners will receive professional recording sessions, photo sessions and professional career counseling.

The first performance of the series, Project Gilgamesh Songbook Unbound: Part 1, took place on Saturday, September 17, 2011 at the Tri-C Metropolitan Campus Black Box Theatre to a packed house.

Project Gilgamesh is sponsored by Cuyahoga Community College and made possible in part by a grant from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Creative Campus Innovations Grant Program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council.

Tri-C Presents, a division of Tri-C Creative Arts, is a premier performing arts series in Northeast Ohio, showcasing arts and cultural performances including Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland, Showtime at High Noon, The Song is You!, and the Classical Piano Recital Series. Cuyahoga Community College Creative Arts presents significant contemporary artistic programs of the highest quality for its diverse multicultural audiences. These experiences are designed to stimulate, enlighten, educate and mutually enrich the artists and the community. A variety of free performances, workshops, and residencies are offered throughout the season to complement a wide array of Creative Arts programs held at the Tri-C campuses, PlayhouseSquare and other venues around Northeast Ohio.

Arts Presenters, or APAP, is the national service organization for the field of arts presenting. The organization is dedicated to developing and supporting a robust performing arts presenting field and the professionals who work in it. Arts Presenters has nearly 2,000 organizational members and brings nearly 4,000 performing arts professionals together from around the world at the annual APAP Conference NYC. Members range from the nation’s leading performing arts centers, civic and university performance facilities, culturally specific center and festivals, to the full spectrum of artist agencies, managers, producers, consultants and support organizations that service the field, and a growing roster of self presenting artists.

The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, wildlife conservation, medical research, and the prevention of child maltreatment, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s Properties. Established in 1996, the foundation supports four national grant making programs in the areas described above. It also oversees three properties that were owned by Doris Duke in Hillsborough, New Jersey; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Newport, Rhode Island.”

Season Sponsors: Association of Performing Arts Presenters Creative Campus Innovation Grant Program, The Performing Arts Fund of Arts Midwest, The Harry K. and Emma R. Fox Foundation, Kulas Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour

Media Sponsors: WCPN, Cleveland.com

“When I was about nine years old, I witness the collapse of the steel industry … The once prosperous steel valley region deteriorated and rusted away with it tens of thousands of good paying jobs and a way of life for so many people,” Desimone said. Growing up around boarded-up houses and buildings, he realized and learned to accept decay as a part of the cycle of life and turn it into an inspiration.

Now, his photographs of these places, along with the similarly inspired pieces by collage artist Copeland, are coming to Studio 2091 in an exhibition called, appropriately, “Temporary.”

Copeland and Desimone both lived in the area and met at a group show in 2009 at Desimone’s former gallery, Low Life. Over the last few years, the duo has been traveling and exploring every abandoned building they could find. They got their hands on nearly everything, from factories and warehouses, steel mills and schools, even a few churches located in what has become known as the Rust Belt.

Desimone works solely with photography, whereas Copeland creates collage pieces and installations using found objects. He has worked with many different materials in the past, such as vintage screen-printed posters and wallpaper.

With this show, they wanted to display how the Rust Belt region has so many reminders of greater times.

Still, none of it is to be taken as negative documentation, or as a political critique. The decay, say the artists, is part of an ongoing cycle that will soon signal new life.

“We hope people will come away with an acceptance that everything is temporary, including our own existence. We are at peace with who we are and proud of where we came from,” said Desimone. Perhaps tellingly, he considers himself as “a historian with a camera.”

“Temporary” will be at Studio 2091 in Cuyahoga Falls for the month of January, with the opening reception on Friday, January 13 starting at 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.studio2091.com.

William Sommer, U.S. Mail (diptych), 1938, watercolor on paper, 35 7/8” x 20 7/8”, purchased in memory of John Hemming Fry, 2011.18
American Modernist painter, William Sommer (1867-1949), was a leader of The Cleveland School – a group of Cleveland-based artists active through the 1940’s. Sommer was unemployed and near destitute, until his situation improved in the mid 1930’s with commissions from the Works Progress Administration. Sommer began using his modernist style to depict the simple country life he enjoyed in Brandywine, Ohio; a rural community midway between Cleveland and Akron. U.S. Mail is a large composition combining transparent and opaque watercolor techniques — a masterpiece of the medium, also demonstrating Sommer’s skill at adapting the aesthetic of WPA mural painting to the watercolor medium.

Lowell Tolstedt, Blue Table with Plate of Cherries, 2011, colored pencil on paper, 29” x 39”, purchased in memory of Edward A. and Rosa J. Langenbach, 2011.20
What Lowell Tolstedt achieves with colored pencil defies belief. Tolstedt (1939- ), a retired Columbus College of Art & Design professor, is known for his exquisite photo-realistic drawings of everyday objects. Given the association of realistic still life with old masters of the 17th or even mid 19th century, the very characteristics that make a work of art realistic in style and still life in genre are often the same characteristics that keep a work entrenched in tradition. But Tolstedt’s work is thoroughly modern – with the simple subject of placing fruit on a plate, he generates a playful tension with his realistic exploration of shape and texture.

Jim Dine – Untitled (Hearts), 1976, watercolor, 16” x 20”, purchased in memory of the Luntz family, 2011.17
American Pop Artist, Jim Dine, grew up in Cincinnati, attended Ohio University then moved to New York in 1959. Dine’s roots as a painter lie in Abstract Expressionism, reflected in his brushy and gestural finish. Working with Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein, Dine’s work moved from Abstract Expressionist towards Pop Art. In this genre he is an American icon and a great addition to the collection of the Canton Museum of Art.

Hughie Lee-Smith – Industrial Scene, 1953, watercolor, 15 ½” x 22 ¼”, purchased in memory of Austin Lynch and Mary K. Lynch
Hughie Lee-Smith is one of the most highly acclaimed African American artists to have begun his career in Cleveland. He painted the crumbling inner cities of Detroit and Cleveland.
Lee-Smith struggled against the tide of Abstract Expressionism while adhering to his distinctive style, hauntingly enigmatic and sometimes described as Romantic Realism.

It has been an on-going goal of Museum staff and the Museum Board of Trustees to build and diversify the Permanent Collection, which has a dual focus of works on paper and contemporary ceramics. Scott Trenton, Trustee in charge of Collections Management, was instrumental in securing these newest works, which he summarizes as follows:

“Each of these acquisitions is a coup for the CMA. The U.S.Mail diptych is a very important piece and easily in the top tier of William Sommer’s body of work. . The Hugh Lee Smith is a rare find and a significant boost to our growing collection by African American artists. The stunningly realistic Tolstedt is among his largest works. We are also fortunate to have found such a marvelous piece by Jim Dine, who is a major name in mid-century modern art.”

Current exhibits at the Canton Museum of Art, through March 4:
Focus: Fiber 2011
Evocations: the Art of Martin Bertman
A Moment in Time, Ted Lawson
Body Language, selections from the Permanent Collection

**
The Canton Museum of Art is located at 1001 Market Avenue North in the Cultural Center for the Arts, Canton, Ohio 44702.
www.cantonart.org
Phone: 330-453-7666.
Admission is $6/adult, $4/senior and student, children 12 and under are free
and Canton Museum of Art members are free.
Museum Hours:
Monday – closed
Tuesday, Wednesday – 10 am – 8 pm
Thursday – Friday – 10 am – 5 pm
Saturday – 10 am – 3 pm
Sunday – 1 pm to 5 pm

Enter the 2012 Ohio Tattooed Girls Calendar by local photographer Summer Lin. The Ohio Tattooed Girls Calendar is different. “I wanted it to be about the girls,” Lin said during our interview. Flipping through the pages makes that even more obvious.

The calendar has taken Lin nearly a year to complete because of her process: She met with dozens of women during her search for the 13 that would finally grace the pages. “I’ve visited just about every Starbucks in the area,” she said, “meeting the girls and getting to know them.” Her journey not only produced enough photogenic females for the project, but also introduced her to people she might otherwise never have met.

But it was a lot of work. At one point she had confirmed all of her models when she found out that one of the girls she wanted to work with had to back out of the project due to time constraints. The woman was getting swamped with work. “She had four kids and she was super-excited to be in it, but she ended up just not having time for it,” said Lin.

By that point the project was in full swing, and finding new girls would be time-consuming. Fortunately, the information age provides us with a lot of new avenues if you’re creative enough — and Lin is. “At that moment I had so much going on with the shoots and everything that I couldn’t even try to select another person, so I was trying to figure out how to let that process happen,” she said.

The answer came in the form of social media. She turned to Facebook, where she held a contest to find a replacement. “I decided to do the contest, and whoever would have the most likes and the most support from their friends would be in it,” she said. The turnout was more than she could hope for.

“The last two girls, Alicia and Ashley — it was neck-and-neck the entire time and they were really pushing. Alicia actually contacted radio stations and had Moe mention it on the Moe Show on 92.5 FM. She had sent an email to him but she didn’t really think he would say anything.” Fortunately, he did say something, as well as spending a little talking about how hot tattoos are — a truism we can almost all agree on.

The girls in the Ohio Tattooed Girls Calendar are certainly attractive, but Lin avoided grabbing a bunch of traditional models and throwing them on the page. Some of the girls in the calendar do have modeling experience — one was so good Lin festively reenacted her posing for me in a way that reminded me of fanboys reenacting their favorite Star Wars moves, replete with “swoosh” sound effects — but for the most part, they’re simply women who share a unifying love of art, especially body art. They are artists, mothers and businesswomen.

Lin came up with the idea while photographing the Tattoo Classic at the McKinley Grand last October. “I was photographing one of the girls that had come up on stage,” she said, “and I thought, ‘Hey, she’s a really pretty girl, she should be in a calendar.’ Then, I thought, ‘Hey, I should make a calendar.’ That’s literally how quickly the thought process went.”

It hasn’t been as easy to implement as it was to envision, however. “There’ve been at least two days during this process where I woke up just wondering ‘What was I thinking?’” she said. “It’s just been a really overwhelming experience with all the work that’s gone into it. But I’m really glad that I saw it through to the end. Well, to finish the calendar. I’m not really sure what the end is anymore.”

The hard work Lin put into the calendar can be seen on each page. She photographed all of the girls, traveling to their favorite places, talking to them about their favorite things and capturing them on film in a way that she thought was beautiful. She’ll be releasing it to the world on January 14 at Empire Ink in Akron, alongside a DJ, live painting, video projections and, most importantly, the Ohio Tattooed Girls.

“My dad was of the World War II generation. He flew a B26 bomber, and the people he rolled with were of that generation,” he said. “When those people chose to go to art school, schooling was about fundamentals. You learned fundamentals from teachers, who’d learned from their teachers, who’d learned from theirs.”

The technical precision Hess’s father, who later became the head of the industrial art department at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and his friends learned was crucial, in Hess’s opinion. During the war, sometimes it even had literal life-or-death consequences — Hess tells a story about Frank Myers, a friend of his father’s who spent three years in Germany as a prisoner of war. When the Allies’ liberation drew close, he used his drawing skills to create identifying pictures of the German officers who had fled, allowing officials to bring them to justice.

“And he was just one of them,” recalled Hess, who described art-and-martini parties his father hosted when he was a child. (“Real martinis,” he added. “None of that chocolate-martini bullshit. James Bond martinis.”) “It was all about learning the discipline.”

Dedication to discipline underpins all of Hess’s work, who admires the father who “could draw circles around me” even as he engineers his own repertoire of technically tight, emotionally fraught artwork.

That artwork is the subject of Hess’s most recent book, “Black Line White Lie,” which was released in December. The heavy tome — it’s over 300 pages — features hundreds of black-and-white pieces, created anytime from the early 1990s to the end of 2011. The pieces are loosely categorized by subject matter; chapters include “Cherubs,” “Animals” and “Venus.” The end of the book features portraits of dozens and dozens of the tattoos the bold black line drawings have inspired. In fact, the book was also published in a spiral-bound version, to accommodate tattoo artists who wish to copy pages for body art.

Hess has earned international acclaim for his art — pieces of his hang in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well as the Louvre in Paris — but his beginnings were about as inauspicious as they come. He took advantage of the CIA tuition break for the children of faculty members and enrolled in art school, but drugs, booze and other factors threatened to end it. “I blamed Cleveland for my problems,” said Hess, who left the city to spend a few years at Detroit’s Center for Creative Studies. There, he discovered a love of printmaking and returned to Cleveland to finish his education at the Institute’s strong printmaking program.

The return to Cleveland also allowed Hess to return to its music scene, of which he had been a supporter since his high-school years. “I was into it, very aware of what I really liked and what sucked. And of course, my taste was better than everyone else’s,” he laughed. His watering hole of choice was the Euclid Tavern, where he drank, partied, befriended the owners and eventually got a job chopping chicken wings.

The Euclid’s format of jam bands, covers and blues gave Hess the chance to insert his own opinion into the lineup. “I kept saying, ‘You should book this band and this band!’ and eventually they said, ‘You do it, if you know what you’re doing,’” he said.

The art student was soon designing posters for the bands he booked, which is how he met his current manager, Marty Geramita, then living in Texas. “My flyers made it from the Euc to Texas,” said Hess. “Marty contacted me and said, ‘If I fund one and we split it, would you wanna do that?’”

Since then, Hess’s work has expanded from concert posters to fine art and even a line of clothing, influenced by the technically accomplished, distinctive work of German caricaturist Heinrich Kley and comic-book artist Gil Kane.

His work is also informed by the very city he sought to blame his problems on in art school. “I love Cleveland,” said Hess, who gets impassioned when he talks about the Browns and the Indians. “I wasn’t aware of the posters [in Texas] Marty was working with, so I was able to develop untouched from concert-poster influences. I developed an actual Cleveland influence. It’s all about Cleveland and its culture and circumstances.”

Hess will appear at the Thirteenth Floor Gallery in Massillon on Friday, January 13 from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Expect to see Hess, gallery owner Billy Ludwig and Hess’s dog Jose. (Jose has a cameo in the book as the subject of a Plexiglass drawing by Hess, which was photographed progressively by Ken Barnes.) The book will be available for purchase there, as well as on Hess’s website, www.derekhess.com.

Now, the concept has returned in the name of a collaborative design studio run by both artists. The twist? It’s done across a distance of nearly 500 miles.

After graduating from Kent, the two had gone their separate ways, with Higgins in Cleveland and Rezabek in New York. Then, in 2006, they decided to go into the design business together despite the geographical difference.

“It has been a great time figuring out schedules, what works best for the both of us and so on. It can be a challenge, but the rewards are worth every penny,” said Rezabek.

“Even though our work starts and ends on paper, we have definitely taken full advantage of technology so we can work together easily,” said Higgins.
Though some might view the distance as a hindrance, the two actually credit the arrangement for being the source of their success. “We have a blast working this way,” said Rezabek. “We are far enough apart to not get on each other’s nerves, but close enough to stay in the loop.”

The flourishing partnership has led to The Bubble Process becoming well established in Northeast Ohio. The team has received a number of awards for their work, including an AIGA design award in 2009 and 2011 and four different awards at the Cleveland ADDY competition this past year.

Still, illustration and design wasn’t their first career choice, especially for Higgins. “I was really into music in high school and realized how much I liked the art that surrounded music, so I figured design was an okay place to start,” he said. “I actually kind of hated illustration at first. For some reason I had in my head that everything had to be perfectly drawn/drafted, and that really didn’t mesh with my personality. I was pretty lucky to have some great professors who got me to look past that and embrace my comforts as an artist and use those to develop my style.”

For those reasons, the studio’s work focuses on concert posters and band T-shirts, in addition to a line of Cleveland-centered prints and apparel. The studio specializes in gritty, almost hand-drawn effects and abstracted shapes to convey the feel of a city and the sound of music.

Higgins had a particularly golden opportunity to embrace his love of music and design when the studio worked with the Akron Art Museum on the Who Shot Rock exhibition last year. “Working with musicians is always an honor, but the opportunity to work with celebrated photography and music on such an important level was amazing,” said Higgins. “We approached the project in the same way we create our concert posters, creating something that speaks to both the event and a live music experience.”

The studio partners seek out events that cater to their blend of interests. They made an appearance last month at Cleveland’s Bazaar Bizarre with part of their Cleveland-themed line, and the studio is also an annual vendor at Flatstock, a combination poster convention and music festival hosted by the American Poster Institute.

They also participate in Made in the 216, a convention that hosts musicians and artists who have based their work in the Cleveland area.

“It’s great to participate in events in Cleveland that support local art and crafts and really be able to meet and talk to people about our work,” said Higgins.

Interested in The Bubble Process? Their portfolio of designs, along with posters and apparel available for purchase, can be viewed online at www.TheBubbleProcess.com.