Waterloo Arts

Thank you to Lincoln Electric Young Professionals and Collinwood Better Streets for volunteering on Saturday morning to create a beautiful new pocket park in the Kaboom Lot at 15805 Waterloo Rd.

What an amazing transformation in two hours! There were over thirty volunteers working together to spread mulch, donated by the City of Cleveland Department of Urban Forestry, plant flowers, hang solar lights and create a lovely place to sit with a friend or hang with little ones.

Thanks also to Lincoln Electric for sponsoring the event which allowed us to purchase supplies and Paddy Greene for surprising us with a delicious lunch. There is still more to do so if you would like to help out during one of the next workdays, let us know.

Until then, enjoy!

Stop by the gallery today (Saturday, July 25) for the last day of Bbob Drake's amazing kinetic sound art workshop / installation! bbob and his collaborators have been building some amazing creations that are not to be missed. Gallery open 12pm-10pm.

TONIGHT! Closing Performance/Activation: Saturday evening 7:30-10pm | bbob has invited several local artist to activate / collaborate with the work including: Todd Masuda, Grace Harper, Torstein Johansen, olula negre, Laura Swedenborg, and Kristen Ban Drake. We'll have the bar open too!

Save the date! Join us on Saturday, August 8th at 4pm for a screening of "Shades of Violet" a short documentary about artist Violet Maimbourg by Sam Lasko.

Guests will have a chance to meet the artist and view her exhibition, Your Love is My Favorite Carnival, before and after the screening.

Shades of Violet
Directed by
Cinematography by Sam Lasko and Dawn Lu
Edited by Grain Wave Post
Starring:
Violet Maimbourg
Rita Maimbourg
Chuck Maimbourg
Babz Glines
Cady Renee
Special Thanks:
The Maimbourg Family
University Hospitals Urgent Care
Kent State University

Summary: “Masters of Fine Arts student Violet Maimbourg struggles to make her most ambitious sculptural project to date.”

Content Advisory: "Please be advised that this film includes themes of su***de and mental illness. If you or someone you know needs support, help is available. Dial 988 for the Su***de and Crisis Lifeline. You are never alone."

Sound Houses / Falling Apart: Sound Art Pop-Up Installation

Conceived and facilitated by Bbob Drake

Tuesday, July 21st – Saturday, July 25th: 12-9PM
Closing Performance: Saturday, July 25: 7:30-10PM

Help explore and build motorized sound-making contraptions to fill the Waterloo Arts Gallery space, and interact with them to create sonic environments and situations. We will value listening, space, slowly evolving sounds, gentleness, collaboration, and the unexpected. Emphasis will be on temporary and contingent objects that allow for failure (whatever failure means). Raw materials and motors will be provided and/or found onsite. No prior skills or experience needed, just curiosity and a willingness to try things out.

Imaginary scheme:
- Tuesday/Wednesday - creating sound objects and constructions
- Thursday/Friday – “controlling” sculptures with microcontrollers, programmed using AI
- Saturday – interactivity... listening, adjusting, composing.
- Saturday evening will conclude with a participatory “performance” including workshop participants and invited musicians/movement artists

Last chance to see Blooming Tides, a Group Show curated by Davon Brantley .brantley!!! 🌊 Gallery Hours: Thursday, Friday and Saturday (July 16, 17, 18) 12-4pm

Image: Ashton Burton, Rooted in Pride, 2025, Glazed Terracotta

From the Curator: “This exhibition features Black, AAPI and Latinx Artists and is intended to explore the interconnection, influence and/or impact of their cultures amongst each other through various media.”

Featuring the work of nine artists:
Nicole Alvarez .nicole._.a
Ashton Burton .l.burton
Liana Gonzalez
Yasmeen Kwan
Nick Lee
Younghyeon Ryu-Hurst
Sebastian Sosa
Lauren Sylvia .art
Jurnee Ta’Zion

Help our Green Wall Overhaul! 🌿 The Green Wall at Waterloo Arts needs a little TLC! We are asking for your support so we can replant our beloved Green Wall and maintain it well into the future. Click here to donate to our Zeffy campaign:

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/green-wall-overhaul

To show our appreciation, if you donate $20 or more we have some special thank you gifts:

- Donate $20 and receive a STICKER PACK with Variegate Design & Waterloo Arts stickers (stickers may vary).

- Donate $30 and you receive a RUBBER TREE cutting from our green wall planted in a lovely terracotta pot (first 40 donors). These Rubber Trees were watered with harvested rainwater :) + you get a STICKER PACK!

Waterloo Arts built the Green Wall in the cafe space of the art center back in 2021. The wall was part of a larger green infrastructure project funded by the Northeast Ohio Sewer District which included installation of a green roof, cistern and permeable pavers. Our Green Wall is watered by rainwater harvested from our green roof and for many years it provided some beautiful biophilic design for our building. But the plants have become leggy and there was significant plant loss due to a power outage that shut off the automatic watering system.

We also want to give a BIG THANK YOU to Lindsey Krivenki of Variegate Design! Lindsey has agreed to lead our Green Wall renovation and is donating her time to clean and replant the wall with healthy plants. With your help we can purchase all the supplies (even more plants, soil, watering equipment) necessary and compensate Lindsey to care for and regularly maintain our wall.

And as always, if you can't afford to donate, we get it - just give us a share! Thank you!

Save the Date! Two new shows are opening during August’s Walk All Over Waterloo!

Opening Reception: Friday, August 7, 6-9pm
In the Main Gallery: Violet Maimbourg, Your Love is My Favorite Carnival
In the Cafe: Jamie Brinker, Favorite Child: Four Legs and an Attitude

From Violet Maimbourg’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.”

Jamie Brinker 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.