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In the1999 film American Beauty, teenage sage Rick Fitts bonds with future lover Jane Burnham by showing her a video he shot of a banal plastic shopping bag dancing in the wind. The poignant scene illustrates that there is beauty in all things, even in garbage that is thoughtlessly discarded. Artists seem to instinctively know this, and those who live in industrial regions like Greater Cleveland often embrace the smoke, soot, grime and proletarian brawn.
Terry Durst, one of the first artists to colonize Tremont in the 1980s, is also one of the city’s most prolific artists. His work — sculpture and installation made of found and altered materials — is closely connected with his neighborhood and his home, which overlooks the former LTV Steel plant. “I love the immense macho strength of Cleveland’s factories,” says Durst, “At various times in my career, I’ve tried to duplicate it in my work.” And, over the years, Tremont has provided a bazaar of art materials: “The houses in the neighborhood are undergoing constant rehab,” explains Durst, who selectively garbage-picks to find art-making materials. But what seems to be most inspirational for Durst is Cleveland’s dreary surroundings and climate: “The grayness, the industrial griminess sends me into myself.” The gloom fuels Durst’s creative energy, and he converts it into multi-layered, raw, beautifully complex works of art.
Artists Angela White of Akron and Alexandra Underhill of Cleveland excavate the environment for detritus and materials endemic to industry. White, who recently won a Northern Ohio Live Award of Achievement, takes the “beauty in all things” message to a new level. White creates wearable pieces out of blue grocery bags, garbage bags and found objects. Her blue -bag dress almost breathes, and is in a constant state of metamorphosis as the wearer moves. Ultimately, White is an alchemist; she transforms discarded materials into pieces that are fanciful, yet fit the body as if they were haute couture.
Underhill has spent
13 years as a working artist in Cleveland. “Cleveland is amazing
for its infinite material resources,” she says. “Because
of the factories, it is easy to work with suppliers to get anything
you want.” Some of her favorite materials are Styrofoam cording
and orange plastic industrial netting, which she’s used to create
urbanely primal costumes for the modern-dance company SAFMOD. “The
netting and cording are easy to weave and they embody meaning that’s
specific to urban living,” Underhill explains. “The orange
netting symbolizes utility, construction, service, caution — all
of these things come with urban evolution and decay.”
Desolation and decay are very much a part of life in Cleveland, but
this is something civic leaders want to downplay (as evidenced by Mayor
Campbell’s recent outcry over Harvey Pekar’s cartoon about
“down-and-out” Cleveland in the New York Times). But what
the Mayor rebuffs, filmmaker Robert Banks embraces. “Cleveland
is about getting dirty,” he says. “Despite this pervasive
sense of anxiety and self-loathing, we get things done;. But it’s
never pretty.” The edgy, anxious women in Banks’ films —
smearing on lipstick, strutting like agitated birds, staring defensively
or self-consciously at the camera — evoke an intensity, an honesty
that is totally gripping. He frequently employs women from Cleveland’s
art and music scenes; they are unrefined, “flawed,” which
makes them more compelling and human than the stereotypically beautiful
women often seen on screen.
Artist Blake Cook is relatively new to Cleveland, but not to the blight of industrial cities, since he’s lived in Erie, Pittsburgh, and Evansville, Indiana. Cook’s installations focus largely on construction, deconstruction, and decay. A recent work, Whenever I See the Moon I’ll Think of You, at the McDonough Museum in Youngstown, was a room filled with small-scale cardboard theater seats covered in gray dust. The piece was evocative of the moment after a demolition: the seats were disheveled, the space littered with debris. The haunting installation was inspired by the recent death of Cook’s mother. As is often the case with his work, this piece was not static — he changed it, tended to it every day, caring for it as one would care for a dying loved one. At the closing reception, Cook guided his children in a calculated destruction of the piece; it was oxymoronic, like staged anarchy. The symbolism of the children demolishing his installation was brilliantly sublime in its references to rebirth and the tearing down of structures to remake them for future generations.
In this age of corporate branding, plastic surgery and virtual reality, the most extraordinary gesture may be to openly acknowledge and embrace Cleveland’s bleakness, and its death as an industrial Mecca. Artists have been doing this for years: finding beauty, utility and meaning in the industrial rubble. By following their lead, our community may find a unique brand of American splendor.