For the past few months, a couple of dozen mostly visual arts organizations have been meeting under the moniker SALT (Sustainable Arts Leaders Talks) to figure out ways to cooperate, save money and ensure that they last a long time.
Some of the participating groups include BAYarts, Zygote Press, Art House, Arts Collinwood, the Sculpture Center, SPACES, Cleveland Arts Prize, Kokoon Gallery, Chagrin Valley Art Center, Cleveland Boys Choir, the Lit, HeightsARTS, Cleveland Public Art and the Red Dot Project.
Among the ideas they've discussed are a visual-arts portal — a website that would open the door to a multitude of organizations throughout the region — and an e-mail listserv modeled after the regional-theater network NEOpal. Another idea: a possible collaboration with the Lit (formerly the Poets and Writers League of Greater Cleveland) to develop a critic-in-residence program.
The SALT participants are throwing a coming-out party of sorts this weekend at BAYarts. They've got the global neo-soul grooves of Moko Bovo and boxed picnic food available from Vento La Trattori. It's from 7-9:30 p.m. Sunday at BAYarts (28795 Lake Road, Bay Village, bayarts.net, 440.871.6543). It's free.
Lakewood-grown jazz saxophonist Joshua Smith returns this week from San Francisco, where he's now based, to play with some of his favorite local collaborators — drummer Carmen Castaldi and bassist Jeremy Bleich — at a CD-release party. They call themselves the Cleveland Trio, which is also the title of the CD. An unmastered preview of the disc is full of high-energy improvisational playing as the three musicians push and pull each other in all directions. Lakewood artist Ben Dewey provided the cover art. They'll release it during a performance from 9-11 p.m. Saturday at the Phoenix Café (15108 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, 216.226.4401, phoenixcoffee.com). The $12 cover includes food and a copy of the CD.
Fiber artist Carol Hummel is kicking off her August residency at Heights Arts Gallery in a public way, with Knitscape, a temporary community public-art project that will create a visual line of color and pattern in the Cedar Lee and Larchmere business districts by covering parking-meter poles and trees with knitted and crocheted sheaths. If you want to get your needles and hooks into this project as a participating knitter, e-mail [email protected].
