History of the Valley Art Center
As told by Ann Over, co-founder
Here is the story, from my remembrances and bits and pages of yellowing papers, of the birth of the Valley Art Center.
My family’s first house, in Chagrin Falls, was an old Western Reserve style at 35 South Main. We moved in late October, 1961 from Indiana, and the valley was full of color, most especially beautiful maple trees. My oldest son found a buddy, Corky, who lived on the same street up the hill and soon his mother, Eleanor Over, and I became friends. I enrolled my three-year-old son in Alice Fitz’s preschool in her home just behind the Over’s house. East of the Over’s lived Dolly, the “puppet lady” whom I would later know as Lilly Criswell, knower of all thing pertaining to the Chagrin Falls Artists. Betty Solether, from across the street, dropped in to tell me how hard it was to become part of the town. Her mother-in-law owned the movie theater in this Western Reserve community and she said the old timers “felt more New England than New England”.
The village was going through a difficult adjustment. It was evolving from a small town into a bedroom community of Cleveland. The old timers felt threatened by the new.
In March, I attended a Chagrin Falls Artists meeting in the Old Town Hall and introduced myself to some members. In the spring, I would walk with my little boys to the donut shop, and with a sack of sweet circles, we would walk down broken stairs to the base of the large falls, sit on a rock and ponder. I knew I wanted to continue making art, and the side parlor was perfect studio space. No way could I have known that in two years it would become a gallery.
After Christmas I began some new paintings. One was of the Chagrin River seen as it swept away from the bridge and the large falls, and one was of a deserted Indiana one room schoolhouse. The annual exhibit of the Chagrin Falls Artists would open at the Old Town Hall in the fall. I was told it was enthusiastically enjoyed by residents, visitors to our picturesque town, and artists who submitted new pieces each year for prizes. Preparing for this show took lots of energy and work. Heavy flats, stored in the Old Town Hall basement, were pulled upstairs and placed in traffic patterns enabling the art to be properly viewed. The male members, with Bob Takatch leading, had constructed standing frames holding heavy composite board, 6 feet by 8 feet, on which to hang our paintings. Our local primitive artist, Max Barnard, would deliver his work with painted frames as part of the picture. It was more practical and cheaper, he explained, to paint a frame on his painting panel. There was always an argument as to how to handle rejected work. One year we held a “Salon de Refuse” in the balcony, but that was poor compensation and made several artists unhappy. The Old Town Hall Show was a great social time for all of us…working to hang the show, sit the show, and take down.
I won a blue ribbon, in my first year, for the Indiana schoolhouse. Someone came up at the opening of the show and said, “The only reason you won is that Joan is pregnant!” It took someone else to explain that Joan Kerber had been taking the blue ribbon for several years. Later, when I saw her wonderful abstracts, I knew why.
But I was happy and now getting to know the members of the organization, enjoying meetings in various homes and participating in potluck dinners. I remember an early controversy when the majority vote chose to open the required borders for exhibit applicants. We would now include much larger area for membership than our town and a small area outside. The minority felt threatened with a larger pool of new members, but we added some talented artists, some from Cleveland, Orange, Moreland Hills and Gates Mills.
In February of 1963 my family moved to 31 South Street. Before my move, Nancy Martt asked me to join her in teaching children’s art classes. We rented space over Chess’s Cracker Barrel next to the Popcorn Shop. The windows looked over the falls. It was a good space and had a closet with a large wash tub used by a former hairdresser. A small room with toilet was in the hall next to the stairs…a necessity for children’s classes. (This space is now used for law offices and is over the Fireside Bookstore.) Nancy named our “school” the Studio-Workshop. After several weeks we added adult classes, and among the first seven students was Jane Spock, the wife of Dr. Spock of baby book fame.
We also offered the Studio-Workshop for Chagrin Artists meetings. As president, Nancy managed to pass a resolution to rent the large side room at 35 Main for a gallery. We would staff it with volunteers from our group. The vote was very close; many members were afraid of any financial commitment. Soon, finding that members wanted to hang on the walls but not sit and sell, Lil Fueger and Del Gimmel took over the gallery and gave many shows. They called it Gallery 35 and painted the floor for each opening to go with the exhibit. How many coats of paint those old board experienced, I do not know, but I remember having a show with a new artist in town, George Roby.
An active little theater, an opera study group, a great books study group, and the Chagrin Valley Artists were already established, but many of the artists were dreaming of a permanent place to show and meet and paint together. In June of 1963, after a meeting agreeing to a larger vision, we applied and were granted incorporation of the Chagrin Valley Community Center. Jesse Hall, Dorothy Howard, Curtis Howard, Charles Day and I signed the document.
Then activity stalled. My marriage was in serious trouble, my friends, the Over’s, were moving to Charlotte, NC. Alan and Eleanor Over sold their home to Bob Takatch, who converted the barn into a wonderful studio space. Then Nancy Martt said she would no longer be able to continue with the classes. She suggested that I take them to my home and gave me the chairs, tables and supplies. The first semester in my basement included two children’s classes on Saturdays and five adult classes during the week. It was crowded, confusing and successful, but with students’ Christmas cards drying all over the house and up and down stairs, I knew I had to find rental space.
David Solether told me about the rehearsal space over the marquee of his mother’s movie theater. It was perfect with lots of windows, a small kitchenette with sink, and a toilet on the first floor. It even had an old bathtub for soaking paper and washing brushes. Friends helped clean it, paint all the folding chairs fire red, and make easels. Then I asked several artists if they would like to have a class in the space with rent on a pro-rated basis. Bob Takatch, Sam Scott, Alfred Howell, and Nancy Martt accepted the invitation. I was given the name of an art teacher who might be interested in taking over my children’s classes. Julie Weber was a really wonderful art teacher who eventually replaced George Roby at the high school. On the day of classes over the theater, a new reporter from the Herald came to do a story and to take pictures. It was Barbara Christian’s first assignment.
The Studio-Workshop became a busy place, growing with classes for children, teens and adults, scheduled for all the weekdays, Saturday, and some evenings. In January 1971, our third year at the theater, I received notice that the lease would not be extended. By now the work was filling all my time, so it seemed the dream needed to expand. I began talking to artists, students and others in the community about the dream. It began with many small conversations, small meetings, planning and letters with mass mailing and culminated in a large meeting at the library. Many Chagrin Valley Artists came as well as others from the community. The majority were interested in creating an art center for Chagrin Falls with music as well as art and including photography and pottery, a gallery, and a sales room. The income flow from the Studio-Workshop gave reality to our plan. Art centers, since the late ‘50s, had been springing up all over the country. The National Council for the Arts became a federal agency in 1965.
As summer weeks passed, I became concerned as to where we would hold classes with our large number of return students. If we went with the big plan presented at the Library meeting, which included a glorious architectural drawing of a new building, a HUGE fundraiser would be required. It would be several years before we could have our classes. We needed rental space NOW. We found it on Bell Street, a former small factory with a garage, bathroom, basement, two front rooms and a big room in back and downstairs. Lou Marino became our consulting architect, approved the space and we signed the lease. (This was only the south half of the building now occupied.) The Valley Art Center, now incorporated, opened its doors September 1971.
What made the dream come true was a good plan, a stream of income from the Studio-workshop classes, and with anticipated income from classes in pottery and photography. In seven months planning time, we opened The Valley Art Center, filling our classes and unaware of our many impending problems. We soon found the dust from the pottery area in the lower level sifted into the photo lab; and the potters found developer fumes unpleasant. During rainstorms, water poured down the front basement wall flooding the lower level floor.
In the Center’s first months, Julie Weber called me “mother of the art center” when she wanted me to “back off”. I knew the same kinds of frustrations a mother experiences when letting go, but Julie knew the group had to learn to work together to make an art center possible. Everyone had opinions and suggestions, but NO ONE wanted to clean the bathroom. Finally Bob Takatch organized Saturday work parties.
The place was really jumping! We had our art gallery, though a bit shabby, and evening openings with punch and wine. A music division was added under the leadership of Jim Moser with help from Eudice Rose. Some of the best parties were the annual cabarets…candles and wine on the tables and wonderful entertainment. (The singers in the beginning of The Gathering, the TV movie, are the Valley Art Center Chorus.)
Two years went by with growth and expanded classes and a kind of “topsy-turvy” routine. We had enthusiastic volunteers and eager students. Two men burst in one morning while I was teaching a class, and boldly announced they were going to buy our building and make office space out of it. They had already built a new office building next to us, so I knew they weren’t joking. We were still such a young group and doing so well. It would be hard to find new space and go through a move. So I started the circle of phone calls again…and meetings… and, like a miracle, we collected enough for a down payment. Our students were generous and community gifts were many. We now had an asset and a mortgage.
One evening during this time of solicitation, the members of the Chagrin Valley Artists met at the center to discuss their future. Rick McPeak, its president, asked for the group to officially vote to become affiliated with The Valley Art Center. A heated discussion finally resulted in a vote to cease as an organization. There were members who missed the Old Town Hall Annual Exhibit, and felt the VAC space wasn’t as good. Some members talked about the loss of intimacy that once existed when we met in each others homes and our occasional pot luck suppers. Some mentioned the costume balls that used to be and were no more. The core of the founding members of VAC were Chagrin Artist Members. We had found our friendships in Chagrin Valley Artists activities, but some members wanted only to create and exhibit. Added responsibilities, work, and classes were at issue. And money! I still have a paper from the Library meeting, with a plaintive little note at the bottom “What about the artists?”
The annual art exhibit at the Old Town Hall ceased. Many new artists came into the VAC membership, while some of the Chagrin Valley Artists chose not to join the new organization. Meanwhile Julie Weber built a group of enthusiastic members into a new venture. We were participating in Blossom Time activities, but Julie wanted to expand the effort…she was the “mother” of Art by the Falls.
Due to family illnesses, my son’s serious accident and then my second husband’s death, I truly had to let go. Bob Takatch helped me to acquire a teaching position at Cuyahoga Community College and I continued to teach a few courses at VAC. A few years later, the VAC would be the site of my wedding reception when I married Alan Over. My first Chagrin Falls friend, Eleanor, died after the family moved to North Carolina and Alan and I decided to “put the world together again.” We danced to the music of the dance band that rehearsed at the VAC and had a rollicking good time and farewell. Some were gone from Chagrin Falls, but many of the people, the artists, the students, the volunteers and patrons who made the Valley Art Center become a reality were there for my wedding.
Here are some of the people whom I remember:
Alfred Howell was the “Dean” of the Chagrin Valley Artists. I taped an interview with Alf about his life when I was in graduate school at Kent. His daughter gave it to Western Reserve Historical Society.
Joan Kerber was Alfred’s daughter, a graduate of Cranbrook Art Institute, and a painter of wonderful abstracts and cartoons, printed in the Plain Dealer. She worked many years for American Greetings.
Nancy Martt, my partner on many occasions and a good friend. Her enamel portraits are splendid, so are her landscapes and florals. Her husband, Ernie helped us, too.
Caroline and Urb Schwerzler…Caroline made beautiful jewelry and Urb was an architect. She gave me some advice on the fat times and the lean times of being an artist.
Lillian Criswell and her husband “Red” kept the memory book (where did it go?) and helped in many ways. She was known as “Dolly, the puppet lady,” and served in office for the CF Artists many years.
Sam Scott had a distinct line quality in his paintings and drawings and was an ad illustrator for Halle Bros department store. He painted murals for Cleveland Playhouse.
Dottie Gregg worked in many media…ceramics and all forms of weaving. Dr. Gregg was a founder of Hamlet Hills. We had some great potlucks at their home.
Betty Terry made delightful paper sculpture angels and made them for a large specialty store.
Dorothy, a very fine photographer, and her husband, Curt Howard were part of the artists’ group helping at the beginning of VAC before moving to Vermont.
Anne and Steve Warner…Anne was president and held other offices with CFAA, Steve was a land designer and worked on several highway projects, i.e. shaping of land and plantings on freeways.
Bob Takatch created joyful watercolors, always wanted to be a book illustrator, organized the Old Town Hall exhibit, taught commercial art at Orange High School…did whatever needed to be done. I took my teen classes to his studio as a field trip and watched him use the air brush with envy.
Louise and Jess Hall were active in every aspect of CFAA. Lil Fueger and Del Gimmel operated Gallery 35. Lil painted a comic critter for a visual at the Library meeting and worked for American Greetings, primarily in humor.
Sue Roby painted exquisite small watercolors of the village that I coveted and George’s pottery was wonderful. His help was greatly appreciated as we tried to build a pottery lab.
Ev Derthick, an Editor of The Plain Dealer and Chuck Day, ad agency officer helped me with advice and suggestions that were extremely valuable. They were not artists, but knew business and promotion techniques.
As the movement for an art center grew, many new people gathered to help it happen.
I remember Phyllis Leonetti and a beautiful small drawing of a bird’s nest, Dale Harsh and his strong watercolors, Eileen Ingalls and her one woman exhibit at the new center, Kaethe Koelkebeck, a fine abstract painter, pointing across Raintree restaurant and saying with her German accent, “There’s that wunderbar Russian photographer!” as she pointed out Nick Boris…and he was wonderful. Both Kaethe and Boris taught at VAC. Judy and Jerry Pinckard and Don and Kathy Smith gave enthusiastically to our beginnings. Leah Haddock, Jackie Pappalardo and many other young women spent hours helping. We attracted new artists: Agnes Brodie a fine painter and commercial artist (whose brother owned one of the US premier galleries), Bobbie Wheeler who had a show at VAC with life-sized soft sculpture figures (“W. C. Fields” scare the wits out of me one dark morning as I unlocked the VAC front door). I remember Rosemary Frescos’ beautiful enameled boxes and Rick McPeak’s photo of a mushroom. Clarence Perkins, Alan Peters, Virginia Willard all contributed to our schedule and Florian Lawton not only taught, exhibited, but also went on tour as we tried to reach out to other communities. Jo Learch, Ed Kagy, Cathie Christian, Joe Russell, Jane Flagg, Dorothy Claflin, Dick Shanklin (who dropped a press into his basement and claimed he could never move it out again), Maxine Masterfield (who taught her inventive techniques and went on to many national venues) …all were there at the beginning and provided energy to make things happen. There are many others as well, but I have asked Ann Tate to write the next chapter of this history. Nancy Martt knows about the Chagrin Valley Artists and its early years.
Today the Valley Art Center still thrives with many diverse classes, gallery exhibitions and thousands of members from all around the area. Thank you for your continued support and appreciation for this wonderful asset and educational source in the community.
My family’s first house, in Chagrin Falls, was an old Western Reserve style at 35 South Main. We moved in late October, 1961 from Indiana, and the valley was full of color, most especially beautiful maple trees. My oldest son found a buddy, Corky, who lived on the same street up the hill and soon his mother, Eleanor Over, and I became friends. I enrolled my three-year-old son in Alice Fitz’s preschool in her home just behind the Over’s house. East of the Over’s lived Dolly, the “puppet lady” whom I would later know as Lilly Criswell, knower of all thing pertaining to the Chagrin Falls Artists. Betty Solether, from across the street, dropped in to tell me how hard it was to become part of the town. Her mother-in-law owned the movie theater in this Western Reserve community and she said the old timers “felt more New England than New England”.
The village was going through a difficult adjustment. It was evolving from a small town into a bedroom community of Cleveland. The old timers felt threatened by the new.
In March, I attended a Chagrin Falls Artists meeting in the Old Town Hall and introduced myself to some members. In the spring, I would walk with my little boys to the donut shop, and with a sack of sweet circles, we would walk down broken stairs to the base of the large falls, sit on a rock and ponder. I knew I wanted to continue making art, and the side parlor was perfect studio space. No way could I have known that in two years it would become a gallery.
After Christmas I began some new paintings. One was of the Chagrin River seen as it swept away from the bridge and the large falls, and one was of a deserted Indiana one room schoolhouse. The annual exhibit of the Chagrin Falls Artists would open at the Old Town Hall in the fall. I was told it was enthusiastically enjoyed by residents, visitors to our picturesque town, and artists who submitted new pieces each year for prizes. Preparing for this show took lots of energy and work. Heavy flats, stored in the Old Town Hall basement, were pulled upstairs and placed in traffic patterns enabling the art to be properly viewed. The male members, with Bob Takatch leading, had constructed standing frames holding heavy composite board, 6 feet by 8 feet, on which to hang our paintings. Our local primitive artist, Max Barnard, would deliver his work with painted frames as part of the picture. It was more practical and cheaper, he explained, to paint a frame on his painting panel. There was always an argument as to how to handle rejected work. One year we held a “Salon de Refuse” in the balcony, but that was poor compensation and made several artists unhappy. The Old Town Hall Show was a great social time for all of us…working to hang the show, sit the show, and take down.
I won a blue ribbon, in my first year, for the Indiana schoolhouse. Someone came up at the opening of the show and said, “The only reason you won is that Joan is pregnant!” It took someone else to explain that Joan Kerber had been taking the blue ribbon for several years. Later, when I saw her wonderful abstracts, I knew why.
But I was happy and now getting to know the members of the organization, enjoying meetings in various homes and participating in potluck dinners. I remember an early controversy when the majority vote chose to open the required borders for exhibit applicants. We would now include much larger area for membership than our town and a small area outside. The minority felt threatened with a larger pool of new members, but we added some talented artists, some from Cleveland, Orange, Moreland Hills and Gates Mills.
In February of 1963 my family moved to 31 South Street. Before my move, Nancy Martt asked me to join her in teaching children’s art classes. We rented space over Chess’s Cracker Barrel next to the Popcorn Shop. The windows looked over the falls. It was a good space and had a closet with a large wash tub used by a former hairdresser. A small room with toilet was in the hall next to the stairs…a necessity for children’s classes. (This space is now used for law offices and is over the Fireside Bookstore.) Nancy named our “school” the Studio-Workshop. After several weeks we added adult classes, and among the first seven students was Jane Spock, the wife of Dr. Spock of baby book fame.
We also offered the Studio-Workshop for Chagrin Artists meetings. As president, Nancy managed to pass a resolution to rent the large side room at 35 Main for a gallery. We would staff it with volunteers from our group. The vote was very close; many members were afraid of any financial commitment. Soon, finding that members wanted to hang on the walls but not sit and sell, Lil Fueger and Del Gimmel took over the gallery and gave many shows. They called it Gallery 35 and painted the floor for each opening to go with the exhibit. How many coats of paint those old board experienced, I do not know, but I remember having a show with a new artist in town, George Roby.
An active little theater, an opera study group, a great books study group, and the Chagrin Valley Artists were already established, but many of the artists were dreaming of a permanent place to show and meet and paint together. In June of 1963, after a meeting agreeing to a larger vision, we applied and were granted incorporation of the Chagrin Valley Community Center. Jesse Hall, Dorothy Howard, Curtis Howard, Charles Day and I signed the document.
Then activity stalled. My marriage was in serious trouble, my friends, the Over’s, were moving to Charlotte, NC. Alan and Eleanor Over sold their home to Bob Takatch, who converted the barn into a wonderful studio space. Then Nancy Martt said she would no longer be able to continue with the classes. She suggested that I take them to my home and gave me the chairs, tables and supplies. The first semester in my basement included two children’s classes on Saturdays and five adult classes during the week. It was crowded, confusing and successful, but with students’ Christmas cards drying all over the house and up and down stairs, I knew I had to find rental space.
David Solether told me about the rehearsal space over the marquee of his mother’s movie theater. It was perfect with lots of windows, a small kitchenette with sink, and a toilet on the first floor. It even had an old bathtub for soaking paper and washing brushes. Friends helped clean it, paint all the folding chairs fire red, and make easels. Then I asked several artists if they would like to have a class in the space with rent on a pro-rated basis. Bob Takatch, Sam Scott, Alfred Howell, and Nancy Martt accepted the invitation. I was given the name of an art teacher who might be interested in taking over my children’s classes. Julie Weber was a really wonderful art teacher who eventually replaced George Roby at the high school. On the day of classes over the theater, a new reporter from the Herald came to do a story and to take pictures. It was Barbara Christian’s first assignment.
The Studio-Workshop became a busy place, growing with classes for children, teens and adults, scheduled for all the weekdays, Saturday, and some evenings. In January 1971, our third year at the theater, I received notice that the lease would not be extended. By now the work was filling all my time, so it seemed the dream needed to expand. I began talking to artists, students and others in the community about the dream. It began with many small conversations, small meetings, planning and letters with mass mailing and culminated in a large meeting at the library. Many Chagrin Valley Artists came as well as others from the community. The majority were interested in creating an art center for Chagrin Falls with music as well as art and including photography and pottery, a gallery, and a sales room. The income flow from the Studio-Workshop gave reality to our plan. Art centers, since the late ‘50s, had been springing up all over the country. The National Council for the Arts became a federal agency in 1965.
As summer weeks passed, I became concerned as to where we would hold classes with our large number of return students. If we went with the big plan presented at the Library meeting, which included a glorious architectural drawing of a new building, a HUGE fundraiser would be required. It would be several years before we could have our classes. We needed rental space NOW. We found it on Bell Street, a former small factory with a garage, bathroom, basement, two front rooms and a big room in back and downstairs. Lou Marino became our consulting architect, approved the space and we signed the lease. (This was only the south half of the building now occupied.) The Valley Art Center, now incorporated, opened its doors September 1971.
What made the dream come true was a good plan, a stream of income from the Studio-workshop classes, and with anticipated income from classes in pottery and photography. In seven months planning time, we opened The Valley Art Center, filling our classes and unaware of our many impending problems. We soon found the dust from the pottery area in the lower level sifted into the photo lab; and the potters found developer fumes unpleasant. During rainstorms, water poured down the front basement wall flooding the lower level floor.
In the Center’s first months, Julie Weber called me “mother of the art center” when she wanted me to “back off”. I knew the same kinds of frustrations a mother experiences when letting go, but Julie knew the group had to learn to work together to make an art center possible. Everyone had opinions and suggestions, but NO ONE wanted to clean the bathroom. Finally Bob Takatch organized Saturday work parties.
The place was really jumping! We had our art gallery, though a bit shabby, and evening openings with punch and wine. A music division was added under the leadership of Jim Moser with help from Eudice Rose. Some of the best parties were the annual cabarets…candles and wine on the tables and wonderful entertainment. (The singers in the beginning of The Gathering, the TV movie, are the Valley Art Center Chorus.)
Two years went by with growth and expanded classes and a kind of “topsy-turvy” routine. We had enthusiastic volunteers and eager students. Two men burst in one morning while I was teaching a class, and boldly announced they were going to buy our building and make office space out of it. They had already built a new office building next to us, so I knew they weren’t joking. We were still such a young group and doing so well. It would be hard to find new space and go through a move. So I started the circle of phone calls again…and meetings… and, like a miracle, we collected enough for a down payment. Our students were generous and community gifts were many. We now had an asset and a mortgage.
One evening during this time of solicitation, the members of the Chagrin Valley Artists met at the center to discuss their future. Rick McPeak, its president, asked for the group to officially vote to become affiliated with The Valley Art Center. A heated discussion finally resulted in a vote to cease as an organization. There were members who missed the Old Town Hall Annual Exhibit, and felt the VAC space wasn’t as good. Some members talked about the loss of intimacy that once existed when we met in each others homes and our occasional pot luck suppers. Some mentioned the costume balls that used to be and were no more. The core of the founding members of VAC were Chagrin Artist Members. We had found our friendships in Chagrin Valley Artists activities, but some members wanted only to create and exhibit. Added responsibilities, work, and classes were at issue. And money! I still have a paper from the Library meeting, with a plaintive little note at the bottom “What about the artists?”
The annual art exhibit at the Old Town Hall ceased. Many new artists came into the VAC membership, while some of the Chagrin Valley Artists chose not to join the new organization. Meanwhile Julie Weber built a group of enthusiastic members into a new venture. We were participating in Blossom Time activities, but Julie wanted to expand the effort…she was the “mother” of Art by the Falls.
Due to family illnesses, my son’s serious accident and then my second husband’s death, I truly had to let go. Bob Takatch helped me to acquire a teaching position at Cuyahoga Community College and I continued to teach a few courses at VAC. A few years later, the VAC would be the site of my wedding reception when I married Alan Over. My first Chagrin Falls friend, Eleanor, died after the family moved to North Carolina and Alan and I decided to “put the world together again.” We danced to the music of the dance band that rehearsed at the VAC and had a rollicking good time and farewell. Some were gone from Chagrin Falls, but many of the people, the artists, the students, the volunteers and patrons who made the Valley Art Center become a reality were there for my wedding.
Here are some of the people whom I remember:
Alfred Howell was the “Dean” of the Chagrin Valley Artists. I taped an interview with Alf about his life when I was in graduate school at Kent. His daughter gave it to Western Reserve Historical Society.
Joan Kerber was Alfred’s daughter, a graduate of Cranbrook Art Institute, and a painter of wonderful abstracts and cartoons, printed in the Plain Dealer. She worked many years for American Greetings.
Nancy Martt, my partner on many occasions and a good friend. Her enamel portraits are splendid, so are her landscapes and florals. Her husband, Ernie helped us, too.
Caroline and Urb Schwerzler…Caroline made beautiful jewelry and Urb was an architect. She gave me some advice on the fat times and the lean times of being an artist.
Lillian Criswell and her husband “Red” kept the memory book (where did it go?) and helped in many ways. She was known as “Dolly, the puppet lady,” and served in office for the CF Artists many years.
Sam Scott had a distinct line quality in his paintings and drawings and was an ad illustrator for Halle Bros department store. He painted murals for Cleveland Playhouse.
Dottie Gregg worked in many media…ceramics and all forms of weaving. Dr. Gregg was a founder of Hamlet Hills. We had some great potlucks at their home.
Betty Terry made delightful paper sculpture angels and made them for a large specialty store.
Dorothy, a very fine photographer, and her husband, Curt Howard were part of the artists’ group helping at the beginning of VAC before moving to Vermont.
Anne and Steve Warner…Anne was president and held other offices with CFAA, Steve was a land designer and worked on several highway projects, i.e. shaping of land and plantings on freeways.
Bob Takatch created joyful watercolors, always wanted to be a book illustrator, organized the Old Town Hall exhibit, taught commercial art at Orange High School…did whatever needed to be done. I took my teen classes to his studio as a field trip and watched him use the air brush with envy.
Louise and Jess Hall were active in every aspect of CFAA. Lil Fueger and Del Gimmel operated Gallery 35. Lil painted a comic critter for a visual at the Library meeting and worked for American Greetings, primarily in humor.
Sue Roby painted exquisite small watercolors of the village that I coveted and George’s pottery was wonderful. His help was greatly appreciated as we tried to build a pottery lab.
Ev Derthick, an Editor of The Plain Dealer and Chuck Day, ad agency officer helped me with advice and suggestions that were extremely valuable. They were not artists, but knew business and promotion techniques.
As the movement for an art center grew, many new people gathered to help it happen.
I remember Phyllis Leonetti and a beautiful small drawing of a bird’s nest, Dale Harsh and his strong watercolors, Eileen Ingalls and her one woman exhibit at the new center, Kaethe Koelkebeck, a fine abstract painter, pointing across Raintree restaurant and saying with her German accent, “There’s that wunderbar Russian photographer!” as she pointed out Nick Boris…and he was wonderful. Both Kaethe and Boris taught at VAC. Judy and Jerry Pinckard and Don and Kathy Smith gave enthusiastically to our beginnings. Leah Haddock, Jackie Pappalardo and many other young women spent hours helping. We attracted new artists: Agnes Brodie a fine painter and commercial artist (whose brother owned one of the US premier galleries), Bobbie Wheeler who had a show at VAC with life-sized soft sculpture figures (“W. C. Fields” scare the wits out of me one dark morning as I unlocked the VAC front door). I remember Rosemary Frescos’ beautiful enameled boxes and Rick McPeak’s photo of a mushroom. Clarence Perkins, Alan Peters, Virginia Willard all contributed to our schedule and Florian Lawton not only taught, exhibited, but also went on tour as we tried to reach out to other communities. Jo Learch, Ed Kagy, Cathie Christian, Joe Russell, Jane Flagg, Dorothy Claflin, Dick Shanklin (who dropped a press into his basement and claimed he could never move it out again), Maxine Masterfield (who taught her inventive techniques and went on to many national venues) …all were there at the beginning and provided energy to make things happen. There are many others as well, but I have asked Ann Tate to write the next chapter of this history. Nancy Martt knows about the Chagrin Valley Artists and its early years.
Today the Valley Art Center still thrives with many diverse classes, gallery exhibitions and thousands of members from all around the area. Thank you for your continued support and appreciation for this wonderful asset and educational source in the community.
