Failure to Communicate

Detail from #15

“What we have here is a failure to communicate…” ah yes, a famous line from a famous movie. Along that vein I want to bring to your attention a missed opportunity in the promotion of our local arts scene. 

Discover Ohio is a special advertising section, all glossy pages and pictures that is found in certain magazines. I came across one over the weekend in a recent issue of Midwest Living. The focus this time was “Art of Ohio: Creative escapes for every taste.”   Now I am thinking hmmmm….art, so there MUST be some mention of our locale right?  Wrong…except for the giant juicer (Football H of F) who has a quarter page ad with an 8pt type line, third in the list that says “discover arts around every turn!”, Stark County is not to be found in any way, shape, form, picture, listing, ad or mention.

Just to be sure, I read the whole insert several times. Under the Art of Learning section, the closest venue is Akron Glass Works (good for them as my friend Jack Baker owns that studio!!) Beachwood has a listing for something too so that is sort of close. 

The Art of Design section mentions a special show at Kent State but nothing else remotely close by. Cleveland has a R and R Hall of Fame picture however as the feature image on the page.

The Art of Beauty does list the Rocky River Public Library Cowan Potter Museum. Now I lived that way for 4 years and knew nothing about it so I guess that is good to know. Lots of other listings, but nothing around here.  On to the Art of Discovery (surely I will discover something about our area?)  Nope. An aerial silks class as the Czech Cultural Center in Cleveland is my best bet for a one hour drive. I define close by as an hour drive. If I were willing to go 2 to 4 hours, I would have tons to do in Toledo, Columbus and Cincy but evidently the glaciers wiped out all relevant arts stuff in our part of the state.  Did University Circle suddenly roll away when no one was looking? Did the Akron area pile on the new blimp (correction, it is officially a zeppelin) and float off someplace? Don’t even get me started on Canton…..

The Art of Living did mention the Wooster Food Tours, started by our own Barbara Abbott, but I think it came after her original successful venture in …shhhhh…Canton. I will say that the Shakespeare Festival at Stan Hywet did get top billing on that page. Close but no Stark County are the “visit Amish country” ad and the Hollywood tour of the Mansfield Reformatory ad.  Even Youngstown has several pages. What have they got that aint’ got?  Evidently a lot.

Inside the magazine, which I shall recall from memory as it was recycled, was a map like thingy of places to stop along I-90, I-80 and some other road.  Nobody stopped in Canton. Nobody stopped at the Cleveland Museum of Art either. I suppose most of the listings and mentions had to do with some type of kickback or purchase of space or some such exchange of funds. I am finding it rare that any press comes by the common sense of what is good for the locals to know. And how do I know this? You can ask me in person. Common sense rules out that not all locals need to know that information in my little corner of the print world. Thank goodness for my blogger buddy at Artwach, the tenacity of Craig Joseph and the support of social media or nobody would even know about…………

Oh, if you have read this far, please note that Hoard Couture is only on view four more days! (Wed – Sat noon – 5). If you live in Akron, well …we did try three press releases and emails and even a snail mail! Whatever. 

  

Hey magazine insert people, if anybody happens to connect you to this, I made a list….

Massillon Museum of Art, Lincoln Theater, and Springhill….

Canton Museum of Art, Palace Theater, Journey Gallery, 2^nd April, Translations Gallery…

Akron Art Museum, Don Drumm Studios, Akron Glass Works, Zeber-Martell…

Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance Hall, Botanical Gardens, Playhouse Square….

Anybody else out there, you can just drop a few bucks in an envelope and snail it my way, I’d be happy to add you to my list! I am pretty good at drawing maps too so, a little extra and I may even doddle your logo on it.