SmArts

July 21-27, 2014

Art community: Cincinnati

By Molly Rector

Just before the end of my road trip, I met a music organizer based in New York City, who seemed to think it was strange that all of her bands tour through Ohio, and who seemed surprised that my sister and I would choose to conclude our road trip with a visit to Cincinnati. I’m not sure if she had trouble believing that the reach of Cincinnati’s culture goes beyond baseball and strange chili, or if she simply hasn’t paid much attention to the arts culture in the areas these bands visit, but either way she’s missing something in her assessment of Ohio.

Cincinnati happens to be almost exactly at the halfway mark on the drive between Little Rock and New York, and I happen to have a cousin who has lived there for many years – in college, when I would travel back and forth between home and school, I would always stay with this cousin, and therefore have had many opportunities to come into brief contact with this city’s truly fabulous arts and music scenes. My cousin, Beth Harris, is a musician and actress. She moved to Cincinnati in her early twenties to do theatre work, and in the years that have passed since she has become a part of what I would say can truly be called an art community

She lives in a neighborhood known as Northside, where she and her partner own a craft beer and wine store that doubles as one of the area’s many venues for local music. When she lost her father a little more than a year ago, the neighborhood (most of them other artists and musicians) came together and not only volunteered at the shop, but pitched in money to pay the rent while she stayed in Little Rock, sorting things out. While I do believe that New York has something of an arts community (there’s certainly a lot of art there), I’m not sure something like that could happen in such a tough (and expensive) environment.

And if we’re keeping with the comparison, there’s a lot of good art going on Cincinnati, too. In addition to the extensive list of performance spaces, galleries and museums in the city, many restaurants and bars double as music venues and gallery space for visual artists; there are several independent theatres and troupes of actors; artists of all kinds work to support one another in their work, however they can. And that independent spirit is what really makes visiting Cincinnati (Northside in particular) such a special experience – it begins to seem like it really is possible for artists to make their way by pulling each other up. I think this is part of what seemed strange to that organizer in New York (whether she knew it or not): that this type of community may be an ideal that in New York isn’t quite attainable.