“Ready, Set, Relay,” a new, student-created program inspired by works featured in the Progressive Art Collection, is now on display through September at Progressive’s main campus.
A collaboration between two local institutions is now coming to fruition. “Ready, Set, Relay,” an initiative between the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) and Progressive Insurance, honors work by renowned artists on display at the Progressive Art Collection.
Seventeen students at CIA had the opportunity to research and meet with each artist whose work is in the Progressive Collection to develop an artistic concept that complements each piece. The hope is that these responses will bring fresh perspectives to Progressive’s historic collection.
The exhibit opened on April 19.
Students spent the spring semester in CIA’s “The Role of the Artist as Producer” class, a yearly session taught by professor of drawing Sarah Kabot and assistant professor of drawing Amber Kempthorn. In addition to doing the artwork assignments, students were solely responsible for promoting, curating and marketing the event.
“So, this year is unique because we’re partnered with Progressive,” Kempthorn said. “Then, we’ve built into the curriculum this opportunity for the students to respond directly to the artists’ work in the collection. Later, that became the theme of the exhibition. Students get their perspective from the Progressive Art Collection and create new artworks in response. The idea is for the responses to bring fresh perspectives to the historic works of art.”
Julissa Bruno and Nola Williams-Riseng are two students who participated in the program. Bruno, a drawing major, makes no apologies for oozing with enthusiasm speaking about her project on a recent visit to CIA’s campus in University Circle. She sees this as the ultimate creative challenge on her journey into the art world.
“The artwork I’m responding to is called Trophy Member,” Bruno said. “I worked with Todd Pavlisko, the artist behind the piece that hangs inside Progressive. The goal is for students to respond to the artist’s work in a way to celebrate it. And then have conversations with them to get more inspiration and insight on the artwork. Pavlisko’s piece is a case of trophies. The trophies have names of art patrons who supported either the artist’s practice or the Progressive Art Collection. So, as a person who draws, sculptural work was a different direction for me. Pavlisko helped keep my fears regarding sculptural art intact by further explaining its conceptual idea.”
The idea behind Pavlisko’s Trophy Member is to convey membership, such as membership to an institution. In this case, he wanted to make it a membership to an artist. Members who contributed money to Pavlisko or Progressive had their names on trophies.
Bruno’s response to “Trophy Member” is a website that didn’t make it into the collection, as well as a series of prints she’s calling “Certificate of Friendship.”
“We were asked to do two pieces,” she said. “So, besides the website, I went with something more physical. This one is more of a silly way of responding. It has the names of my friends at the bottom and describes something they may have done in the name of friendship. The colorful stamps are a way of honoring these friends if they have done what’s written.”
When Bruno is not working on her project, she participates in the project’s marketing team. Her duties include designing posters and table cards and reaching out to the community through email. She said this experience has been invaluable in developing her career path.
Nola Williams-Riseng, a double major in drawing and print, chose to respond to Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry, formerly a married couple with eight works at the Progressive gallery – all of which deal with the civil rights movements of the ’50s and ’60s.
“I’m working with an artist duo named McCallum and Tarry; they were a married couple who worked together for 15-20 years,” Williams-Riseng said. “They’re now working individually, but they did a lot of impactful work. They are specifically dealing with racial issues in society. They’re an interracial couple, so it was cool to talk to them. Their work is a series of layered paintings of people who were arrested during the Freedom Rides as protesters. They are mug shots of an oil painting. It’s cool. As you walk around them, they kind of shift. That’s because the chiffon stretches over the painting. It deals with history and professional rights. The photos are of some well-known, and not so well-known, civil rights protesters like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Williams-Riseng honors McCallum and Tarry’s work with “Carver 14.” The drawing was inspired by a photo of George Washington Carver High School’s basketball team taken in 2014. Williams-Riseng was also inspired by a civil rights activist and Alabama school teacher named Audrey Belle Langford, who is depicted in one of the arrest photos in the Progressive collection.
“I was looking for Audrey Belle Langford because I wanted to know more about her,” Williams-Riseng said. “Her photo intrigued me, and I wanted to know more about the individual. After looking at a photo of the basketball team after a win in 2014, I began to think about community and legacy. If the mugshot is a portrait of her, the basketball photo is a portrait of her that is not her, if that makes sense. I love this image because of its energy and exuberance. What better way to pay homage to Langford?”
It may come as a surprise, but the Progressive Art Collection dates back to 1974. The collection has more than 10,000 objects. The company uses that collection as an education outreach program for its employees.
“Progressive was blessed to be headed by a dynamic duo of Peter Lewis and Toby Lewis,” said H. Scott Westover, the Progressive Art Collection’s curator. “Peter was the CEO. He married Toby Lewis, an influential art professional in our region. She had many ties. She became responsible for a lot of arts programming. Peter selected her to become the collection’s first curator. And from the very beginning, they established the mission to display provocative artworks throughout the hallways of Progressive.”
According to Westover, there was initially some concern about the collaboration. Progressive is in the process of consolidating its real estate in the Cleveland area, and some in the company felt it was better to get involved in such an endeavor. The company is moving from its original space, Campus One, to Campus Two. After some thought, it was decided that they would ask CIA to modify the original plan of displaying artwork from students in their gallery.
Instead, they will celebrate the historic importance of Progressive’s art collection by having students respond to it with a fresh approach.
Williams-Riseng’s other contribution to this project was as a curator. Though at first she was intimidated by the task, she came around and looked upon it as a teaching moment. She hopes visitors to the exhibit will take time to really examine her work.
“I want people to think about the individuals and communities I’m depicting,” she said. “Because they haven’t – I don’t think – been thought about in a way that’s respectful, if we’re talking about mainstream white narratives. I hope that it’s just like a moment of quiet. Quiet recognition is what I’m hoping for.”
“Ready, Set, Relay!” will be on view through September 6 at Progressive’s Campus One, 6300 Wilson Mills Road, Mayfield Village, Ohio.
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