By Marilyn Bauer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Art Academy of Cincinnati has arrived at a critical point in its capital fund-raising campaign. As you probably know, the academy hopes to move to a choice corner at Jackson and 12th streets in Over-the-Rhine in 2005.

The current building in Eden Park, as beautiful and historic as it may be, is just not cutting it for the nearly 200 students entering the school each year.

Why? Well there's virtually no air conditioning and no elevator to bring in supplies or carry out artwork. There are no loading docks, and Gregory Smith, the academy's president, says he fears the delivery men of Cincinnati have begun to hate the school after hauling hundreds of pounds of clay, office supplies and 10,000 catalogs up the steps.

The lack of an elevator also prevents the building from being handicapped accessible and makes it difficult for many seniors to attend continuing ed classes.

But there's more to it. There's no opportunity for future expansion at either current location. In Eden Park, the Cincinnati Museum Association controls the site for the benefit of the Cincinnati Art Museum. The high cost of Mount Adams real estate makes building an expanded facility impossible. So the academy is looking to the new building to solve its long-term facilities issues.

The new building is actually two buildings because of an innovative trade between Cincinnati Art Museum and the Art Academy. The academy will use the museum's deep storage space adjacent to the Jackson Street building in exchange for the use of its former Eden Park facility. The new building would also unite two of the academy's three locations (River City Works will remain where it is for now) into a single campus.

Preliminary plans drawn up in 2000 call for sculpture, plaster, clay and kiln rooms; three areas for communication arts; six rooms for drawing, painting and illustration; five general studios, a large space for printmaking; one letterpress; two photography studios plus dark rooms and storage for the students' work. There will also be a main "student union" area next to a large gallery, administrative offices on the second floor and a sculpture garden on the roof.

The loading docks will be so big a truck can drive into the basement where the sculpture area will be.

The building is a gem - great windows, industrial-high ceilings and views that provide a unique look at the "bowl" of the city.

The academy has done an admirable job raising $4.2 million since March 2001. There were a few stumbling blocks - the riots, the economy, that sort of thing. But fund-raisers brought in roughly half of their $8.5 million goal. Now they need some help.

(The project will come in at $10.5 million. The trade of the Eden Park building to CAM came with a $2 million donation.)

Mr. Smith hopes alumni, philanthropists, instructors, artists and others will help make the academy's new home a reality. City funding and several grants are pending.

Mr. Smith's vision goes beyond building a new school to the revitalization of an arts environment that includes School for Creative and Performing Arts, Ensemble Theater, Uptown Arts and Music Hall.

It's a noble cause. The school is part of our history and it's the first time in 133 years the academy has asked for money. It's a good thing: for the students, the city and a neighborhood in transition.

If you're interested in donating or touring the new building, contact Mr. Smith at 562-8743.

More space: At street level on the upper level of the Weston Art Gallery, Cleveland artist Don Harvey has created a book lover's, city dweller's, walker's, urbanite's paradise. His site-specific installation, Theories of Public Space, is simply marvelous. Mr. Harvey is a multi-talented artist who is as adept at writing and poetry as he is at making books and creating installations.

As one would expect, his installation is multi-dimensional. Part is located on the windows - 15-inch square color photo transparencies are featured above a row of corresponding 48-inch transparencies that depict abstracted images of pedestrians moving through a city. Superimposed on each of these images are block letters that sequentially spell: Each One, Someone, Anyone, No One and Everyone.

Inside a giant book with shapes cut out is open for closer inspection and the cut-outs have been turned into stools to encourage visitors to linger. A second oversized book work includes accordion sheets of paper extending out from a main board with bits of literature by Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams and others.

The final portion of the exhibit and one that will leave you feeling somehow elevated is a display of several of Mr. Harvey's books including one that transforms into a cityscape. There is a foldout of photos including text, a piece with a poetic travelogue of city smells and a beautiful book compiled of the walking images on the windows.

Mr. Harvey's inspiration for the show is his desire that a new generation of city-dwellers restore walking to the social life of the city.

"For me walking is like drawing," he says. "You make lines, lines turn into understandings, understandings shape new images. I work in public space; I work on public space."

If Mr. Harvey's show isn't reason enough to visit the Weston, the Ohio Arts Council's gang of 13 is exhibiting in the lower level gallery. "It's a chance to see what's being done across the state," says Dennis Harrington, the Weston's director.

The exhibition is a presentation of the work created by Ohio artists who participated in the OAC's international residency program in 2002. Through Jan. 18.

Wide-open spaces: The decision to scrap the Crystalline Tower has been put on hold for 90 days after artists, art educators and arts administrators spoke before a meeting of the Cincinnati Park's Board. During the hour and a half of protest, one member of the audience pledged $55,000 toward the project; money needed to complete engineering plans to prove the project can proceed on budget. The $55,000 brought the money artist Susan Ewing personally raised toward the tower to $138,800. The budget is $200,000.

(Cincinnati Art Academy professor Gary Gaffney wondered aloud if an artist should be expected to raise the budget for a piece of art commissioned by the city.)

The reverberations of the park board's desire to use money dedicated to public art to cover overages in construction costs inevitably will have other consequences.

Vratislav Novak, the Czech sculptor who is working in collaboration with Ms. Ewing on the tower, is considered the most important sculptor in Czechoslovakia - his giant pendulum dominates the sky over Prague.

He doesn't know the park board wants to 86 his work. In fact, he came to Cincinnati on Nov. 23 to meet with Ms. Ewing.

"How do I explain and translate this image of art in America to him?" Ms. Ewing asked just before his arrival.

It took a while.

Mr. Novak's response was: "It reminds me of the Communist regime I lived under in Czechoslovakia where the bureaucracy attempts to subvert the art and the bureaucracy has the power."

Ms. Ewing had to explain that democracy was demonstrated by her ability to speak up against a government entity and that the story appeared in the press.

The group met several times in the last week or so, working on faÁade details.

Space experts: The Enquirer has convened a panel of architects and educators who will comment in 2003 on new buildings in Cincinnati. Panelists include Carlos Rojas, Don Beck and Greg Tilsey. There's room for one more and I'd love to see a specialist in environmental architecture join the group.

Comments of those participating may be made by e-mail, so the only face time required is the time it takes to have your photo taken in our studio. If you're interested, e-mail me at mbauer@enquirer.com.

New space = new artwork: A little more than a year ago, Broadwing, the parent company of Cincinnati Bell, commissioned a mosaic from the visual arts students at SCPA. More than 100 students, grades 4 through 12, worked on "Boundless Flight" which depicts change, time, communication, potential and technology. The piece is on display in the Atrium 1 lobby in the Cincinnati Bell downtown building.

Sacred space: The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, located on the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College, has received a collection of advertisements and notices, originating in the United States from 1942-1948 and speaking to the plight of European Jews during the Holocaust. The collection, donated by Robert Thum, a retired English teacher from Dayton, will enable scholars to systematically review the efforts to inform the U.S. about the Holocaust

People: Keith Benjamin's Warsaw Project Space has been invited to participate in The Stray Show Dec. 12-16 in Chicago. The gallery was one of 50 alternative spaces, emerging galleries and art collectives to be chosen. Abby S. Schwartz, curator of education for the Taft Museum of Art since 1990, won the National Art Education Association's 2003 Art Educator Award. Also at the Taft, Anita Cory Weimer was named development director. Thomas R. Schiff will be at the Mercantile Library on Dec. 12 to talk about Panoramic Ohio, a book featuring 75 of his photographs taken around the state. Hamilton fiber and quilt artist, Alyson Annette Eshelman will have a quilt from her Roots of Racism: Ignorance and Fear collection installed in the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Pakistan. Doug McDonald of the Cincinnati Museum Center received the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Midwest Museums. Over-the-Rhine's St. Francis Seraph Church is in the final phase of restoring two large wall murals depicting biblical themes of St. Francis, two paintings and a crucifix. The family of architect Carl Strauss Sr. received the George Rieveschl Medal for Distinguished Service in the Arts in his honor. Mr. Strauss died in January at age 89.

E-mail mbauer@enquirer.com