If there was any doubt in mind that Cuyahoga Falls residents love art, the Art Walk laid that to rest. On Thursday, April 21, despite overcast weather throughout the day, not to mention less than desirable winter weather earlier in the week, over 5,000 people attended the 2022 Cuyahoga Falls All-City Art Walk.
“We did not know what to expect,” explains Jennifer Schulman, Cuyahoga Falls High School art teacher and event organizer. “Our hope was to have almost the number of participants that we have had in the past. However, the evening’s turn out was astounding. Truly the highest attendance we have ever had!”
Consisting of six locations—Up Front Art Space, Cuyahoga Valley Art Center, the Riverfront pavilion, Cuyahoga Falls Library, city hall, and First Christian Church— containing displays with nearly 1,800 individual pieces of local students’ artwork– not including over 1,000 window designed by by students and printed by Central Graphics which decorated windows outside and inside downtown businesses, this year’s show theme of “Let the Art Flow” proved that the community was ready to get back in the water and swim back into the crowd.
As Schulman recalls, “My favorite part of the event is seeing students sharing their work with their families, smiling with pride. I love seeing the crowds making art in the make and take stations, jumping into the student built photo ops, cheering for our student musicians and talking with professional artists too!”
Such professional artists included Sarah Treanor, who presented the process of eco printing, using powdered ferrous sulfate–a common iron supplement– which when mixed with water and vinegar can create an easy way to print designs from nature on any type of canvas.
“For me personally, art classes were where I felt most at home in school. Those classes eventually led me into an exciting and fulfilling career as an artist now,” Treanor explains. “Art making stimulates focus, reduces anxiety, promotes problem-solving skills and often times collaboration. It also provides self esteem building for many kids who struggle with traditional academic or social aspects of school. When you’re making things, you’re engaging both cognitive and emotional parts of the brain all at once – another wonderful thing to foster in young people…
Had I not been exposed to many different kinds of art– especially in high school– I may have missed what I feel was my true calling entirely!”
Another highlight of this year’s festivities was a clay demonstration from Peter B. Jones, a potter and sculptor from the Onondaga Tribe in New York, who is famous in Cuyahoga Falls for his sculpture featuring a Native American man portaging his canoe, which currently resides at the corner of Merriman Road and Portage Path. Jones displayed a wax model of his upcoming bronze sculpture which is expected to be unveiled downtown as part of the River in the City project under a National Endowment of the Arts grant for public art next year.
No matter whether it was an experienced high school artist stenciling the members of the band The White Stripes, or a winning entry of dumpling soup with sushi made from paper, or grade school students cutting out and decorating their own designs of fish that reside in the Cuyahoga River; it is obvious from what was seen at the art walk that students and the community have embraced art and what it represents.
As Shulman remarks, “I hope that when the attendees leave the show they will have had found that they discovered something that made them smile. I hope they learned or made something new and saw something that gave them a different perspective and or respect for our youth’s art.”
