Rising real estate prices aren’t just tough on would-be homeowners. They’re squeezing Cleveland’s artists, too.
Take Robin VanLear, for example, a well-known artist in Cleveland Heights.
No matter that VanLear launched Parade the Circle, one of the city’s most popular public art events, or that she won a prestigious Cleveland Arts prize. She’s about to lose her studio and maybe her foothold in Cleveland, all because she has to move and can’t afford the space she needs.
“Everybody wants the moon, even though their place is just sitting there empty,” said VanLear, in a temporary studio she’s been asked to vacate. “There are a lot of people who like the work I’m doing. But I might just have to pick up and move to Maine.”
Since 2019, VanLear has thrived in a spacious studio in the PEACE Campus, a former school at the corner of Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard that once housed a diverse clutch of nonprofits including Family Connections, the Singers Club of Cleveland and Lake Erie Ink.
There, VanLear has been able not only to fabricate the iconic puppets, costumes, and other elements that make Parade the Circle the blockbuster it is but also to organize community events like the Cleveland Heights Lantern Festival and run a variety of educational programs.
A recent retiree from the Cleveland Museum of Art – which brought her to Cleveland from Santa Barbara – she still loves nothing more than training new artists and using art to teach other skills. At the moment, she’s preparing an owl-themed installation for Cleveland Public Theatre.
VanLear “is one of the most important community-minded artists in Ohio,” said Matt Moore, executive director of Coventry Village. “[H]aving her create the Lantern Fest and procession here in Coventry to celebrate light amidst the dark cold winter…I’m not sure I can quantify how much that means.”
VanLear’s PEACE studio, a bright, high-ceilinged room of 2,500 square feet, has been her command center. It has afforded space for her to bring her whimsical creations to life and to store those creations for future parades.
Working in the heart of Cleveland Heights, near her home of 36 years, has been “marvelous,” VanLear said. “I couldn’t believe it when I got the space. It was like my dream thing…I thought that this was going to be my home until I wasn’t making art anymore.”
Sadly, that dream may soon be ending. After years of being promised a 10-year lease by the building’s owner, Cleveland Heights Public Library, and moving into a smaller, temporary studio on the PEACE campus at the library’s request, VanLear learned recently that she and other tenants are now expected to vacate entirely, by the end of September. Why? VanLear said she wasn’t sure.
Nancy Levin, executive director of Cleveland Heights Public Library, shared a press release stating that the PEACE building has been “mothballed” and needs to close “for safety and financial reasons.” The estimated cost of renovating the facility is $14 million, it said.
The release also said that VanLear has secured a new space, on Euclid Ave. in East Cleveland. VanLear, however, said that location is merely a placeholder and does not meet her needs, which include high ceilings, ample storage space, security, and proximity to her home and partner institutions.
Shannon Morris, executive director of Artful, an east-side nonprofit that connects artists to affordable space, called the decision to clear out the PEACE building “a terrible blow to the neighborhood” and a hard hit to VanLear in particular.
“Robin has an ideal space…that is virtually impossible to replicate,” Morris said. “It is safe, with tall ceilings, and nestled among the community that she has dedicated her life to entertaining and educating.”
For VanLear, though, the real problem isn’t scarcity of suitable locations. It’s their cost.
Like many would-be homeowners (and renters) entering the market these days, VanLear said she can’t afford the kind of place she needs, not even after earning grants from both the Assembly for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. That, or what might be suitable won’t be ready to occupy for several months or even years.
For his part, Moore said it is his “dream” for VanLear to remain in Coventry, where she is a vital element in the “tapestry” of the neighborhood. “Her work embodies so much of the spirit of this place,” he said. “If she can remain [here] it would be a big win for our cultural and artistic pursuits.”
But what VanLear needs is space, not dreams – and soon. Relentlessly creative, her talent in steady demand, she doesn’t have the option of pausing, of setting aside her art and her teaching to scour the market and haggle with landlords. She has to keep making art.
As she sees it, her only option, aside from leaving Cleveland and setting up shop elsewhere, is to quickly find a new space (or work out a deal to stay put) and keep on working.
“I have to keep producing,” VanLear said. “I feel like I just can’t stop.”
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