The Art of Writing: Creative Collaborations with Literary Cleveland | by Cleveland Museum of Art | CMA Thinker | Feb, 2023
By Andrew Cappetta, Supervisor of Collection and Exhibition Plans
Literary Cleveland is a nonprofit business and resourceful creating center that empowers people today to discover other voices and explore their possess. Through an growing roster of multilevel lessons, workshops, and functions, Literary Cleveland helps writers and viewers at all phases of growth, encourages new and current literature of the highest high-quality, and advances Northeast Ohio as a important centre of diverse voices and visions. The Cleveland Museum of Art is fortuitous to have produced an evolving program partnership with Literary Cleveland, furnishing space at the CMA for Northeast Ohio writers when also connecting new audiences to each corporations.
In 2020, the exhibition Stories from Storage brought both equally organizations jointly for a sequence of digital Desktop Dialogue courses. With Matt Weinkam, Literary Cleveland’s government director, as the programs’ co-curator and co-host, we invited area writers and storytellers, which include playwright Eric Coble, meals historian Sarah Lohman, musical collective Mourning [A] BLKstar, and poet Kamden Hilliard, to build narratives from objects on view in the show. The resulting monologue, dialogue, effectiveness, and poem not only introduced new and unexpected interpretations to mild, but also foregrounded the plan that there are a number of methods to see a function of artwork.
In October 2020, the collaboration amongst Literary Cleveland and the CMA ongoing with an open up simply call for dim, amazing, and suspenseful writing inspired by the visionary art of French painter and printmaker Odilon Redon. A panel such as Weinkam and Michelle R. Smith, Literary Cleveland’s programming associate, chosen 10 writers from a pool of stellar submissions to existing at a general public reading through celebration perfectly timed for Halloween. Presented the achievements of this open up connect with, the two businesses collaborated on one more exhibition plan. Writers from across the United States wrote poems and small stories influenced by the works on view in Currents and Constellations: Black Art in Concentration 13 ended up picked to read at the occasion Depict: Writing Impressed by Black Art.
When organizations spouse on initiatives, the ensuing jobs need to be mutually useful, supporting each establishments fulfill their missions and provide their communities. As a nimble four-human being procedure, Literary Cleveland has normally been keen to do the job about the CMA’s plan. So, for our next collaboration, I felt that it was crucial to exhibit that the CMA could be an similarly supportive lover and answer to Literary Cleveland’s wants. On the lookout at our calendars, we discovered a level of synergy. In February 2023, their Flash Fiction Festival (committed to shorter form creating less than 1,000 phrases) playfully resonated with the subject matter of the CMA exhibition China as a result of the Magnifying Glass: Masterpieces in Miniature and Depth. An plan was born, which is now coming to fruition this weekend.
Literary Cleveland’s online Flash Fiction Festival has developed immensely in the previous a few decades, with the 2023 edition designed in collaboration with the new Norton anthology Flash Fiction The usa (out on February 14). From February 19 to 25, writers will be equipped to operate with some of the ideal flash fiction writers and editors in the state to draft new items, share their function, and find out in which and how to publish.
The pageant will be preceded on Saturday, February 18, by a free in-human being Flash Fiction Workshop at the CMA led by Literary Cleveland. All are invited. Members will understand about the exhibition China as a result of the Magnifying Glass, critique instance flash fiction texts, and write their very own micro fiction impressed by the Chinese miniatures in the gallery. On the very same day, Literary Cleveland will also host the drop-in function Artist in the Atrium: Pleasurable with Flash Fiction as portion of Play Day: Big and Little, an afternoon of relatives-helpful routines about the different means artists experiment with scale in their work. In addition to seeking their hand at producing flash fiction, Play Working day contributors will also have the probability to zoom in on actual artwork objects with microscopes from the CMA’s objects conservation lab, take a look at artworks from the CMA’s training artwork collection, make a own seal or stamp, create a mini ebook and zine, and collaborate on a giant drawing.
The partnership in between Literary Cleveland and the Cleveland Museum of Art has been amazingly fruitful. I am keen to see this collaboration mature even even more, serving the neighborhood of writers in Northeast Ohio whilst also inspiring audiences at the CMA to reflect and respond via producing.
