Junction View gets Fused

Though not along High Street, Junctionview across the river and tracks in Grandview Heights is one of the few artist studio settlements available. It is threatened by Nationwide developing the industrial area into a mixed use project. And, the dirt is flying.
For now, a bunch of artists have nice clean studios in the above one story building. There is enough common area to put one shows like the Fuse Factory's "Ignition 2.0" on April 18th & 19th. Out in front were the famed BonoPizza and Rad Dog vendors (plus a Crepes stand as well). BonoPizza does outstanding unique pizzas while Rad Dog does vegetarian hot dogs and chili.
The Fuse factory group is about artists using electronics of their own design. There were lots of sculpture with speakers sending out various noise like the one above where viewers could click swithces and turn dials to change the noise.
One of the tenents seemed to make colorful glass and provided a projection TV show of close-ups of the glass. Projects TVs and computers were also everywhere. Mostly they were interactive pieces, like the Wii controller you could draw with.
A favorite was Thomas Winningham's "Give Me Pop Art" (above) that allowed you to type in a name of an object to be drawn. People, somewhere on the Internet would then draw whatever you typed in. A large poster by Jane Ries called "The Man Project" included 300 color profile pictures of men from Yahoo personal ads.

But alas, development is at Junctionviews doorstep. Try to visit a show there before it is changed into something else.

Opening Day New Huntington Ball Park

April 18th, 2009 was opening day at the new Huntington Park baseball stadium, the latest state of the art in minor league baseball stadium design. 10,000 seats and virtually no extra parking in the neighborhood west of the arena district known as Pen West (the State Pen was torn-down in 1998). Things get jammed as far north as the Short North when both the arena, the new stadium, and the various bars and restaurants have something going on. Then you throw in the convention center events and a parking nightmare develops.

Oh, but it is a beautiful new ball park. There are a lot of seating options from skyboxes to picnic areas to even looking in from the sidewalk (above).

Oh, but that Pen West/ Arena district of former industrial buildings have been spruced-up tremendously. You can see a big outfielder on the Belmont Casket Company Building (above) stopping flyballs from hitting the new North bank condo tower at Niel and Spring Streets. Many of these old buildings are now occupied by future leaning businesses from Yoga to Information Technology.


The older 3 story building in the above two pictures has been incorporated into the stadium. Known as the AEP Power Pavillion it has a section of bleachers and night club seating on the third floor that is cut away to the sky facing Huntington Park. More pictures can be had at http://www.huntingtonparkcolumbus.com.
The building just to the West of the new ball park is known as the Buggyworks and has been a site of art studios, Katz and Dawgs art gallery, FATS art transportation services, haunted houses, and one of the first industrial dance clubs in the 1990's known as Mekka. The sprawling building was built as the home of the Columbus Buggy Company just as the auto age began. Recently they have busted throw the center of the building and created Firestone Alley leaving steel girders exposed. Condos are the new feature of this old industrial building. Yet, artists are not that far removed. As you can see above, a large painting of figure hiding behind a beam in a similar brick industrial building has been put on one wall along the new Firestone Alley. This style of renovation has lots of surprises like the whole Pen West district. It has even been tagged to have a future casino if and when casinos are legal in Ohio.

Building a new Short North

The construction crain for the new "Jackson" condo mid-rise tower is piercing through the northern Short North skyline. It puts on a different character depending on which angle and what time you see it.


The Bollinger Tower public housing complex is encased in scaffolding like some art installation. With the sun just right, it glows over gallery row.

April Gallery Hop 2009: Spring Has Sprung

As the flowers at the Greek Cathedral and the courtyard off Lincoln Avenue attest, Spring has come to the Short North Gallery Hop.
Many musical groups lined High Street with their instrument cases opened, so much so that good spots were all taken. But then construction sites line the street and the construction/ destruction extends north past campus and south past the statehouse.
Not to be outdone, artists also grab spots to paint while the daylight gallery hoppers pass by.
Lindsay Gallery (left) had a show of paintings of famous rock stars done by Robert Falcone with a guitar made of metal by Kendall Polster to continue the musical theme. The Mahan Gallery (right) actually got a rockstar, Ric Ocasek of The Cars showing lots of drawing, paintings, and photographs. His abstracts look good when displayed dozens at a time.
Roman Czech has been a fixture on the edge of the Gallery Hop for decades now. In recent years his Elements of Art Gallery has been in the North Market area. He's pictured above with artist Farida Hassanali who was showing her abstract phtographs and installation pieces among Czech's sculptures as well as work by artists around the world. One of Roman's sculptures was on the sidewalk across from the Convention Center.A large cheerleading conference was at the Convention Center during the gallery hop. Some cheerleaders were throwing each other up in the air infront of diners in the Short North
New businesses are springing up, though slowly. The Sandbox has taken over the old 853 Photography Studio in Prescott Alley. It is an shared office for people who don't have an office. Off of Russell St. is a new clothing store called Mary's Boutique that was trying to open by displaying a dress and a potted plant. Mary joins other new fashion boutiques recently opened, but much farther north along High Street. Someone has already nabbed the space emptied by Cameo Glass Art Gallery that just closed in the Body Shop.
RoyGBiv had photographer Montana Torrey with painter and constructionist Jessica Brandl doing complimentary exhibits. Jessica dealt with the home (above) in good and bad condition kind of suggesting our housing situation today. The photographer brought pictures of natural settings of rocks and trees where every scene included an artist setup painting the scene. It suggested the love/hate relationship between photographers and traditional artists.

Norka Futon had some nice lamps and furnishings in the window along with the normal musical group.
A Japanese artist pasted his own display on the brick wall of the Yoga on High Building.
Behind some of the new development on the Restaurant scene is Design Collective Inc. who is completely redoing the building at Lincoln and High as well as the interior of the above space on The Cap. Click on the above picture to blow-up. You'll see that something called Sushi Rock will be opening there soon.

Concrete Jungle of Bakers Acres has taken over as the garden flower shop of the Short North.