"There's a dictum in art that says paint what you see, not what you know," says architect Ted Kurz, who first arrived Cleveland via Chicago in 1961 to help design the Federal Building. "There was one instance when a little boy had drawn a wheel on a bicycle, and he tried to draw a spoke in the rear wheel and, of course, it was too fat, it looked like an old spinning wheel."
The little boy was among 42 students from Cleveland and East Cleveland tasked with creating Kurz' design for a 48 foot long, 10 foot wide mural that captures the spirit of the Larchmere neighborhood, with scenes from the historic district and surrounding community.
"I went though this exercise," says Kurz, thinking back to his mentoring of the young boy. "We know the spokes are there, but when the wheel is turning, can we really see them? The boy said, 'no'. We're going to paint what we see, not what we know. We're going to forget about the spokes and paint a white wash in a curved manner around that rim."
After viewing numerous artists' sketches and renderings for a proposed mural on Larchmere Boulevard, a committee of Larchmere merchants and community members selected Kurz' design. The Building Bridges Arts Collaborative, a nonprofit community-based arts organization that fosters youth development and supports emerging artists, was chosen to translate Kurz' design into the large-scale mural.
Under the leadership of artist Katharine Chilcote and Cleveland School of the Arts teacher Danny Carver, the group of students worked as the Summer Mural Institute, meeting in the basement of the West Side United Church of Christ in Ohio City. Students traced the outlines of Kurz' design, then spent months adding the details. "I was amazed when I walked into the basement of the church that Katherine was able to acquire for this work," says Kurz, who lived in Larchmere when he first came to Cleveland, and offices there for more than 16 years. "There were all these young kids busy at work, very quiet, very earnest, very diligent. Working with the students turned out to be a very gratifying, soul satisfying experience."
The long, undulating mural, which was unveiled to the public on September 23 and is installed at the Life Skills Center of Northeast Ohio at 12201 Larchmere Boulevard, features a brightly colored, vivid scene that captures the façade of the street without abstraction, bookended by two residential homes. That center strip is surrounded by two sketches that not only form a mat board or frame to the work, but also depict the dynamics of the surrounding neighborhood that support the Larchmere thoroughfare.
"There's no allegory or polemic," says Kurz. "I'm just delighting in the architecture, color and how people create a street.
"I wanted something to attract passersby, and I thought the undulating surface would take the onus out of the composition and deflect some interest into the surfaces themselves, with various angels of the sun... and shadows and the brickwork." By the time the mural was completed, more than 500 hours had been invested in the project.
"We are thrilled to unveil the new Larchmere mural, a project that has brought the neighborhood together and beautified an empty brick wall on Larchmere with a beautiful, colorful piece of art," says Pam George-Merrill, executive director of the Shaker Square Area Development Corporation, the nonprofit that spearheaded the mural project in partnership with community members.
"As I look back now, I realize that I'm an old architect having a little fun," says Kurz. "I'm not an artist, though I think that the wall and the mural like each other."
