Cleveland

The day after attending IngenuityFest 2023: Biologies & Geologies (September 22 & 23, 2023), I left on a trip. Now that I have returned, I want to publicly express here how grateful I am to Ingenuity Cleveland leadership and their community partners for this year's gathering of creative people in Cleveland.

My son, Mike, and I enjoyed exploring the artistically lit caverns of Ingenuity Cleveland's 300,000-square-foot Hamilton Collaborative on the evening of Friday, September 22, 2023. There we found music, art, and much more!!

Then, on Saturday, September 23, 2023, Mike and I returned with our whole family to explore more. In addition to seeing more of the exhibitions I enjoyed Friday night, I spent time talking to people at the community organization booths in the upper part of the building. There is where I learned about the latest new happenings in Cleveland.

Since its founding in 2004, IngenuityFest has featured both technology and art. These are both areas that interest me greatly, so it is no surprise that I have been writing about IngenuityFest from the first year I started writing my blog in 2012.

I have been writing about IngenuityFest since 2012, but I have been taking my family to this great event for even longer. I look forward to attending again next year!

Starting with the 2012 Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival, I have created a blog post every year to capture some of the incredible chalk art created on the Fine Arts Garden's stone pathways in front of the Cleveland Museum of Art. This includes both 2020, when #CMAChalkFestival was online only -- "Social Distancing Style" -- due to COVID-19, and 2021, when "a spur-of-the-moment trip south to take care of some family business prevented me from attending," but my son, Kevin F. Smith, saved the day by attending and sharing photos on social media.

I enjoyed creating chalk drawings at the event in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, but have not participated as an artist in recent years.

I am so glad I was able to attend the 34th Annual Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival on Sunday, September 17, 2023 -- my 11th year taking photos and videos of the event. I hope you enjoy what I put together to capture the artwork and the atmosphere of the event.

Thank you, NASA Glenn Research Center, for the NASA Aviation Day which was a free, public event that took place on Wednesday, September 13, 2023, at the Cleveland IX Center. I enjoyed talking to NASA Aeronautics staff members. They shared their knowledge about new technology developments with great passion.

I am sharing my photos, videos, and comments about the day in this blog post, since I appreciated the opportunity to learn about the latest NASA developments for the aviation industry. I also want to thank Tom Kunsman for recommending that I attend this NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) event! I recommend following Tom on social media (on BlueSky), since he does an excellent job of promoting all things NASA happening in Cleveland.

I enjoyed the morning's panel discussions at NASA Aviation Day. I learned about very new technology and safety developments happening at NASA Aeronautics.

Four Transformations for Sustainability, Greater Mobility, and Economic Growth:

• ULTRA-EFFICIENT AIRLINERS
• FUTURE AIRSPACE AND SAFETY
• HIGH SPEED COMMERCIAL FLIGHT
• ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY

After the morning's NASA Aviation Day panel discussions, I toured the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) display area. People usually associate NASA with space travel, but at this event, the emphasis was on the first "A" in NASA -- Aeronautics.

I truly enjoyed talking to NASA Aeronautics staff — they have such incredible passion for what they do, and are willing to share their knowledge as I ask questions .

NASA events are always interesting. I look forward to attending more of them in the future.

I want to start off this blog post by first congratulating the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Federation leadership and the many volunteers who contributed their time and talent to make this year's One World Day a grand success! Not only did they break a record for the number of participants in the 2023 Parade of Flags, but the Northeast Ohio community came together to support their vision of "peace through mutual understanding" by having a record number of people attending on Sunday, August 27, 2023!

I always have a great time at Cleveland's One World Day, and this year, the 77th Annual, I was fortunate that my wife and co-blogger, Julie, was available to join me in the fun! Looking at my past "Cleveland Cultural Gardens" blog posts, I see that it was ten years ago that I attended this Cleveland muti-cultural event for the first time. Wow, ten years ago! I am particularly impressed by the number of new gardens that continue to be created.

I am grateful to have been able to attend One World Day for these past 10 years, and I appreciate the leadership of the organizers for their work to continue and expand this great Cleveland tradition into the future!

A year ago, I learned about and planned on attending the grand opening of the Cleveland Foundation's new headquarters building in 2023. I had learned that the building was going to be much more than the Foundation's home for their staff to work in -- it will also be a resource for the greater community to use! A new role in the community for the Foundation -- very exciting! I looked forward to the opening and to being part of the community celebration.

Next, in May 2023, it was announced that in addition to the new beginning with a new building, there would be a change in Cleveland Foundation professional leadership -- President & CEO Ronn Richard's retirement would lead to the installation of Lillian Kuri as the new leader of the Foundation on August 1, 2023.

Finally, as I attended the Cleveland Foundation 2023 Annual Meeting and open house/tour, I learned about more new beginnings -- a second building!!

In this blog post, I will share announcements that were made before the 2023 Annual Meeting and related festivities, and then write about my experiences at the following celebrations:

• Thursday, July 13, 2023 - Annual Meeting Celebrating Community Service

• Friday, July 14, 2023 - Cleveland City Club Meeting: Honoring Ronn Richard's History of Service

• Saturday, July 15, 2023 - New Headquarters Opening Dedication

• Saturday, July 15, 2023 - Exploring the New Cleveland Foundation Headquarters

• Saturday, July 15, 2023 - Celebratory Performances for the KeyBank Dance and Arts Studio

I learned about another reason to celebrate in the near future:

• THE FUTURE! - Another New Building To Come!!

For me, the timing of the Cleveland History Days 2023 was perfect, since it was two months after my septal myectomy open-heart surgery at University Hospitals, and I was finally able to be active again for the first time in 2023.

With over 50 events happening during Cleveland History Days 2023, I was grateful to the organizations that hosted so many interesting activities. I did elect to skip the the Cleveland "Take A Hike" tours, since I was unsure of myself doing a lot of walking, but near the end of the 10 days of activities, I felt well enough to attend the "Ohio Freedom Path Hike" on Saturday, July 1, 2023. I can highly recommend the Cleveland "Take A Hike" tours from attending them with my wife in the past. I have heard that in recent years they have developed new tour locations and updated old favorite tours.

I was so impressed with all that was happening during these 10 days, that I wanted to capture what I could in my blog post. I hope you enjoy the following and share with others. Remember that even though Cleveland History Days is only once a year, most of the the places it features are available to explore year round!

Please read about the following:

• Friday, June 23, 2023 - Cleveland History Days Opening Ceremony

• Friday, June 23, 2023 - Cuyahoga County – Rediscover The Detroit-Superior Bridge: Community Conversation

• Saturday, June 24, 2023 - Cuyahoga River Rally

• Sunday, June 25, 2023 - Open House at The Historic B&O Roundhouse

• Tuesday, June 27, 2023 - Buckeye Trail

• Saturday, July 1, 2023 - Ohio Freedom Path Hike

• Saturday, July 1, 2023 - Talk at Cleveland Public Library: “The Other Trails of Tears: The Removal of the Ohio Indians”

We want to share the fun we had on Monday, January 16, 2023, where the "City meets the Lake" (Cleveland's North Coast Harbor) on the day our nation honors the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you to the Great Lakes Science Center and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for opening their doors admission-free to the public on this special day!

Thank you to The City Club and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) for the Tuesday, October 11, 2022, "... unique tour inside NEORSD’s sewer system at Edgewater Beach." The following is about the sewer tour, along with additional information about NEORSD and its water outfall near Cleveland Metroparks Edgewater Beach.

I am so glad that I saw @TheCityClub's September 27th morning tweet, so I could sign up to be one of the 20 participants for the Tuesday, October 11, 2022, tour.

I was glad to read that so many people were interested in the 50 Years of Clean Water Investment event that The City Club had to create a waiting list! For years, I have been interested in seeing what was beyond the Edgewater entrance gate of the sewer. I was grateful to be one of the few fortunate people who were allowed to go on the tour.

I normally spend three full days at the annual IngenuityFest Weekend, but family commitments only allowed me to visit on Saturday, September 24, 2022, for three hours in the evening. I was so impressed with the event, I want to share in this blog post the photos/videos that I and others shared about the weekend. After 2020's IngenuityFest being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and last year being an outdoor event at the Cleveland Metroparks, it was good to be back at a more traditional IngenuityFest Weekend of creativity at the Hamilton Collaborative location.

I also want to mention that one of the highlights, in addition to the incredible displays and performances, was reconnecting with people that I have not seen in person the last few years. It has been a difficult time for many people, and I am grateful to the artists who are IngenuityFest, and the sponsors that support their work.

Chalk Festival

Saturday and Sunday, September 10 and 11, 12:00–5:00 p.m.
Fine Arts Garden

Children and adults enjoy this annual event where community members join professional artists in using the walkways around the Fine Arts Garden as a colorful canvas. Begun in 1990, our festival is a modern expression of a Renaissance tradition from 16th-century Italy in which beggars copied paintings of the Madonna by Raphael and his contemporaries using chalk on the plazas outside cathedrals. Watching the chalk artists and enjoying the entertainment is free.

I was so glad to be back in person after two years!! In 2020, for the 31st annual Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival, the event went virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, "I was very disappointed that a spur-of-the-moment trip south to take care of some family business prevented me from attending ... " but "I was rewarded greatly by the Cleveland Twitterverse," who posted their photos online so that I was able to share them in my blog post.

I was so pleased that the 33rd Annual Chalk Festival would take place in the Fine Arts Garden on Saturday/Sunday, September 10 and 11, 2022, rain or shine! These were dates I could attend!!

The following is my eleventh Cleveland Chalk Festival blog post. I really enjoy seeing the creativity each year (which is why I even wrote blog posts for the two years I enjoyed remotely). Please retweet any tweets that have photos of chalk artwork you enjoy to encourage more people to attend and participate in future years!