Waterloo Arts

ORDER YOUR TEE ONLINE! We're doing an online Pre-Order for the 2026 Waterloo Arts Fest T-Shirts! If you didn't get your order in at the Fest, that's ok - we're accepting Pre-Orders through Friday, October 2nd.

Click here to order: https://square.link/u/HTIV4CzD

Our official 2026 Waterloo Arts Fest T-Shirt was designed by the amazing Lindsey Krivenki - local artist, illustrator and radical plant expert. The shirt features our beloved leaning tower at the corner of Waterloo and 156th Street with plants and cats (of course). Go give Lindsey’s small business Variegate Design a follow, stop by her brick and mortar shop at 78th Street Studios, or visit shopvariegatedesign.com!

TOMORROW! That's Saturday, September 19th from 2-4pm join us for a Dog Collage Workshop with Artist Jamie Brinker .it.jb. It’s FREE!

Jamie Brinker, whose work is currently on view in the Waterloo Arts Cafe, will host a FREE dog collage workshop for our community. Participants will explore humor and anthropomorphism through image and text. Bring in some photos of a funny dog or pet, and get ready to cut and paste! Everyone will go home with their very own dog-themed collage.

Collage materials are provided, but participants are encouraged to bring in reference images and any additional desired supplies. All ages welcome!

LAST WEEKEND to see our current exhibitions:
In the Main Gallery: Violet Maimbourg, Your Love is My Favorite Carnival
In the Cafe: Jamie Brinker, Favorite Child: Four Legs and an Attitude

Gallery Hours: Thursday-Saturday 12-4pm

From ’s Artist Statement: “Your Love Is My Favorite Carnival serves as an episodic, illustrative journey, navigating interpersonal relationships with myself and others. These sculptural objects serve as physical embodiments of my emotional experiences – they exist as sculpture and self-portraiture. Using the visual language of carnival games, funhouse attractions, and retro amusement-park theatrics, the work examines how humor, spectacle and fun can mask the nightmare of intense emotional dysregulation that comes with having Borderline Personality Disorder.”

.it.jb is a printmaker and painter from Cleveland, Ohio, who received their BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. Her work is a social critique of misogynistic behaviors using humor and anthropomorphism. In her recent body of work, she paints and prints images of dogs getting into mischief with speech icons. Brinker examines how everyday relationships and cultural attitudes shape our understanding of gender, power, and identity, drawing from family experiences and contemporary life.

THANK YOU from all of us on the Waterloo Arts Team!

2026 was our biggest Fest yet: 50 bands on 9 stages, nearly 100 vendors, food trucks, and community resource booths, multiple street performers, free crafts, demos, and hundreds of smiling faces! It was so great to see our beloved neighborhood so full of life and energy even despite the weather.

What was your favorite part of the Fest? Post your answer in the comments.

Today is finally here! Just a reminder, the Waterloo Arts Fest is a Rain or Shine Event. The forecast keeps changing, but we are ready to celebrate with you no matter what the weather brings. Please dress appropriately for today and be prepared, whether that means bringing an umbrella or wearing sunscreen.

If you are worried about parking, don’t forget to use our FREE PARKING SHUTTLE! Head to the huge parking lot on the South side of the highway at 15700 South Waterloo Rd. (Jergens & the Cleveland Food Bank) to safely park and catch the shuttle. It drops you off at the festival’s West End (Calcutta & Waterloo) and runs continuously from 11:00am - 8:00pm.

There is also street parking throughout the surrounding neighborhood - but remember, Waterloo Road is closed from Calcutta Ave to E 161st St and E 156th is closed from Lucknow to Calcutta - so plan accordingly.

Big thanks to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank and Jergens for letting us use their lots!

We can’t wait to see all your smiling faces tomorrow! That’s right, the Waterloo Arts Fest is TOMORROW - Saturday, September 12 from noon-7pm. Over the past twenty four years the festival has grown, but one thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to our community. For seven hours each year, the Waterloo Arts Fest reminds residents and visitors of the many assets in the Waterloo Arts District, of the incredible potential still to be realized and how wonderful it is to live in an urban neighborhood with great people.

And remember, this year we’re asking everyone who attends the Fest to reserve a ticket. The suggested donation is $10, but we also have pay-what-you-can and free tickets available. Everyone is welcome at the Fest, regardless of what they are able to contribute.

Ticket Link:
https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/waterloo-arts-fest--2026

A $10 donation provides access to:
-TEN MUSIC STAGES featuring 40+ BANDS
-100+ CREATIVE VENDORS
-10 ART GALLERIES
-FOOD TRUCKS
-KIDS ACTIVITIES
-FREE PARKING SHUTTLE
And as always, our amazing vibrant community…

Thank you for helping us raise funds to make the Waterloo Arts Fest even better in 2027!

For full fest details, visit www.waterlooartsfest.org.

OPENING SOON! Familiar Strangers features work by local artists Cullen Houser, Josh Luboski and Will Wilson - Opening Reception during Walk All Over Waterloo on Friday, October 2, 6-9PM.

This group exhibition presents a collection of figurative pieces – each explores the absurdity of the characters and the worlds in which they exist. Including paintings, prints, and illustration, this exhibition showcases the ways in which these three artists engage in world building. Whether it’s the organized filing of yearbook photos, the hectic scroll of social media algorithms or the segmented compositions of exquisite corpses, their work is populated with characters that feel as familiar as they do strange.

Cullen Houser is a multidisciplinary artist based out of Cleveland. His recent work is based on a game called “Exquisite Corpse” which was popular with Surrealist artists in the 1920s (to play each person draws the part of a body, folding the paper to conceal their work, and at the end the paper is unfolded to reveal the often monstrous figures created by chance). Houser’s recent etchings of segmented bodies plays off this idea by pairing up absurdist tops and bottoms, creating his own special creatures.

Josh Luboski is a painter and illustrator currently based in Cleveland Heights. Using an airbrush machine Josh translates the low-form visual language that defines meme culture and contemporary internet humor into physical pieces. His work showcases the absurdist content shared throughout the internet in a traditionally painted context, while analyzing the effect digital spaces have on the collective population.

William Wilson is a Cleveland-based artist and high school art teacher who synthesizes a variety of traditional and non-traditional art forms. His recent work utilizes the framework of a yearbook, where many diverse students sit in front of the same backdrop, in the same position, etc. He then creates several “classes” that push the boundaries of how different we can be.

Don’t forget to stop by and say hello to Cleveland Water, Cleveland Public Power, and the City of Cleveland Water Pollution Control at the Waterloo Arts Fest. You can fill up your water bottle at their Water Buggy! Thanks to all these utility companies for supporting the festival and providing safe, clean water and power to our City.

Cleveland Water
City of Cleveland Water Pollution Control
Cleveland Public Power

See you at the Waterloo Arts Fest THIS SATURDAY from 12-7pm - visit www.waterlooartsfest.org for details!

Join us next Saturday, September 19th from 2-4pm for a Dog Collage Workshop with Cleveland Artist Jamie Brinker. It’s FREE!

Jamie Brinker, whose work is currently on view in the Waterloo Arts Cafe, will host a FREE dog collage workshop for our community. Participants will explore humor and anthropomorphism through image and text. Bring in some photos of a funny dog or pet, and get ready to cut and paste! Everyone will go home with their very own dog-themed collage.

Collage materials are provided, but participants are encouraged to bring in reference images and any additional desired supplies. All ages welcome!