Dayton937

Things to do in Dayton | Restaurants, Theatre, Music and More

Bill Franz

Dayton at Work and Play

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Here’s a Dayton neighborhood success story.

Driving down Burkhardt Avenue just before sunset I came across this soccer game. Everyone from grandparents to young children were playing.

This soccer field was once part of the city’s Burkhardt Community Center, which was shut down in 2009. When the center became vacant, neighbors say it was overrun with drug dealers and crime, and this field was filled with tall weeds. The city considered demolishing the building.

Audrey Starnes, a woman born and raised in this neighborhood, saved the day. She rented the community center from the city and turned it into a daycare facility for the neighborhood children. She also maintains this field so that kids of all ages can play there. Stepping Stones Learning Center, is located at 215 Burkhardt Avenue in Dayton.

This field will be the site of the Burkhardt Festival on August 10. I can’t wait to photograph the contestants in the Strongman Competition.

 

Dayton At Work and Play: Dayton National Cemetery

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Dayton National Military Cemetery is in Dayton’s Fairlane neighborhood, located at 4400 W 3rd St, Dayton, OH 45417.  Its 50,000 graves include veterans from every major conflict the United States has been involved in dating back to the American Revolutionary War.

The cemetery was established just after the Civil War, and a lot of nearby street names come from that era. Across the street from the cemetery is the corner of Gettysburg Avenue and Chicamauga Avenue, named after the Civil War’s two bloodiest battles.

The street name Chicamauga is a misspelling, as are a few other streets with names related to the Civil War. The battle was fought near the town of Chickamauga in northern Georgia.

Dayton National Cemetery dates to 1867 when it was established as a final resting place for veterans who died while living at the Central Branch National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Dayton, Ohio.  The Central Branch was one of the country’s first institutions developed to care for disabled Union veterans.  The innovative, village-like design of the branch inspired the layout and architecture of later National Homes.  The cemetery’s 98 acres, located on the north side of the home’s campus, contain the graves of veterans from every major U.S. military conflict from the Revolutionary War to the Persian Gulf War.

Statue at the base of the Soldiers Monument overlooking Dayton National Cemetery James Rosenthal, Historic American Buildings Survey Photographer

Near the cemetery’s contemporary administration building stands the Soldier’s Monument. Sited on a low hill surrounded by graves, the monument is a 30-foot-tall marble Corinthian column surmounted by a statue of a Union soldier at parade rest. The column is set on a granite base. At the corners of the base stand figures representing the Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, and the Navy. Two ornamental artillery cannons flank the monument. The column once stood at the front of Philadelphia’s Bank of Pennsylvania, designed by Benjamin H. Latrobe. Central Branch residents erected the monument, and President Rutherford B. Hayes dedicated it on September 12, 1877.

In 1936, the Ohio Society of the Daughters of the War of 1812 erected a monument honoring the heroes of the nation’s final war with Great Britain.  The memorial features a large boulder with a bronze plaque dedicated to the 33 veterans of the war buried at the cemetery.

Dayton National Cemetery is also the final resting place for five recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, given for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”

4400 W 3rd St, Dayton, OH 45417

Artist Of The Week: Kimberly Ceccarelli 

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK Kimberly Ceccarelli painting in her home studio.

This is the second time I have photographed Kim while she painted. The first was in a sunflower field near Yellow Springs. Kim was set up in the middle of the field with a table a chair and an easel.

“I do a lot of painting outdoors” she told me “and I’m constantly surprised by the people I meet. Folks watch me paint for a while and then they start telling me their life story. I almost feel like a therapist sometimes.”

I asked Kim how long she has been painting. “Well I’ve loved art for a long time but I’ve only been painting seriously for about ten years. I remember my high school art teacher saying she was disappointed I studied nursing in college instead of art. But now I’m retired from nursing and spend lots of time making art. I’ve also taken quite a few painting classes since I retired. Recently I’ve been working with Susan Porges in Cleveland.”

“I like to work on several pieces at the same time, so I have three separate painting places here in this studio. I do quite a few portraits on a commission basis, and I also enjoy still lifes and landscapes. I even do some abstract pieces, like the one I’m painting here. Ten of my pieces are currently on display at Basil’s On Market – Dayton, OH.”

Artist of the Week: Jen Perkins

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“My husband (artist Brian Mathus) and I moved here from Portland” Jen told me. “We had been trying to buy a house there, but it just wasn’t working out. Then one day I used Google Earth to look at the neighborhood in Dayton where I had lived as a small child and also the neighborhood where I had visited my grandfather. Looking at Dayton’s streets a feeling came over me and I heard, or thought I heard, a voice saying “Salmon go thousands of miles to the place they were born.”

“I went online and looked at property in Dayton. I couldn’t believe the prices. So we bought a house in Dayton’s Five Oaks neighborhood and we left Portland.”

“Moving wasn’t easy. We had to do some work on the house we bought and we had to find jobs here. I found a job teaching art, which I love. And then we had to find this studio. Brian and I paint here almost every weekend. We bring the kids and they work on their own projects in the room that adjoins this one.”

“Almost all of my pieces involve encaustic. It wasn’t part of my training in college, but as soon as I tried it I fell in love with it. You can see I have an array of encaustics on the hot plate. I love how you can move the color around and watch it flow. I love how you can do layers and layers and then start carving into it. You can put additives with it. You can collage with it. It’s just very versatile.”

“But my pieces aren’t juts encaustic. There’s oil paint, gold leaf, shellac, gesso, and more. Everything is done on birch panels.” 

Elemental Studios
in Dayton’s McCook Field neighborhood
901 N Keowee, Suite A
Dayton, OH 45404
elementalstudiodayton@gmail.com
Elemental Studio can help you create your vision:
whether it be in graphic design, Murals for business or home, commissioned or original fine art pieces.
Open every First Friday.

Dayton at Work and Play: Kossuth Colony

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These houses in the Old North Dayton neighborhood were part of the Kossuth Colony. I learned about them in a great book by Andrew Walsh called “Lost Dayton Ohio.”

In 1905, the Barney and Smith Car Company needed to add laborers. They recruited immigrants from Hungary and then built 40 double houses for them to rent. They also built the Clubhouse, where the workers were required to shop for all of their food and clothing. The Clubhouse was also the post office and incoming packages were inspected to make sure they didn’t contain items that could have been bought at the Clubhouse.

The Kossuth Colony was surrounded by a 12 foot fence. This was so unusual that it attracted visitors. People took the streetcar to “see for themselves the strange fenced-in settlement of North Dayton.”

The colony was short-lived because of the 1913 flood. Sections of the fence were lost and the Barney and Smith Car Company needed to close for a period. Many of the Hungarian immigrants found work elsewhere.

If you want to take a look at this nationally recognized historic district, the Kossuth Colony was in the area bounded by Baltimore, Mack Avenue and Notre Dame Avenue. A long time resident told me that the area looks a lot better today than it did ten years ago. He said a more recent immigrant group, Turkish refugees from Russia, is moving in and fixing up many of the double houses.

Dayton At Work And Play: Larry Watts

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I caught up with Larry Watts as he was working in the garden at House of Bread (9 Orth Avenue) in Dayton’s Old Dayton View neighborhood. Larry is the founder of Seeds of Peace Dayton Ohio-New Page.
Seeds of Peace gives children, primarily those from the Five Oaks neighborhood, the type of experiences most children take for granted. Watts and a handful of volunteers drive kids to the swimming pool, a karate class, a fishing lake or an arts program.

“Today we’re all getting lunch at the House of Bread” he explained “and then we’ll work in the garden plots that we maintain here. Next time we’ll do something fun, just to balance things out.”

Watts started Seeds of Peace ten years ago. “2009 was a bad time in our neighborhood” he said. “There was a string of shootings on the West side and I felt guilty. I felt that I wasn’t doing what I could to make things better.”

Watts told me he’s taken kids on more than 1,000 outings over the last ten years. He relies on donations from churches and some individuals to cover gas and admission costs. If you’d like to help, email him at larrywatts374@gmail.com

 

Dayton at Work and Play: Compost Dayton

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David Weickert was the farm manager at Mission of Mary Cooperative (619 Silver Lane) in Dayton’s Twin Towers neighborhood. They are an urban farming cooperative helping people on the city’s east side.

Now David has his own business, operating out of the same location. He runs Compost Dayton. He collects food scraps from people who pay a monthly fee and then composts those scraps. His customers can get the composted materials for their own use or donate the material to Mission of Mary or some other group.

“A lot of people don’t compost for one reason or other” he told me “but they want to be part of a sustainable food system. Those people are my customers. Over the last three years we’ve doubled our size each year.”

 

 

 

 


This service is a great way for you to reduce your waste and help the environment, along with helping out the local food and sustainable agriculture movement.

For more information contact David at info.compostdayton@gmail.com

Artist of the Week: Brian Mathus

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Brian Mathus working in his studio in Dayton’s McCook Field neighborhood.

“I have been drawing as long as I can remember” Brian told me. “Then at age 16 I started to paint. I remember that one of my earliest painting projects caused some problems. I did a large painting on the wall of our family’s apartment and then had to raise $500 to return the wall to its original condition.”

“When I lived in Oregon I got some excellent art training. I eventually joined with several friends who were painters and we started our own gallery. It gradually grew to be successful. We even had some shows in Los Angeles and in China.”

“In 2008, when the economy tanked, our gallery went out of business. I went into the National Guard then and was posted several different places. I fell away from painting and didn’t think I would ever be an artist again”

“After my wife (also a painter) and I moved to Dayton we spent some time getting jobs and working on our home in Dayton’s Five Oaks neighborhood. Then one day we visited some studios at The Front Street Building Co. and it made us remember how much we had enjoyed painting. We rented a studio at Front Street and later moved to our current studio at 901 North Keowee. We are here painting most weekends, and we’re always open on First Fridays.”

The best place to follow Brian’s work is on Instagram at @mathusb.

ARTIST OF THE WEEK:  Walter Murch

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK Walter Murch next to a self portrait and a Winnie the Pooh soap bar at his exhibition at K12 Gallery and TEJAS (314 S. Jefferson).

For 36 years Murch was Director of Product Design at Hewitt Soap (333 Linden) in Dayton’s Historic Inner East neighborhood. That plant was the country’s largest manufacturer of specialty soap bars, and Murch designed over 2,000 different soaps. 

The exhibition includes examples of soap bars made for such diverse customers as Avon, Disney and the Sultan of Brunei. For each product Murch would do design sketches and then carve one bar by hand. His carving was used to make molds that made thousands of soap bars.

Murch has retired from soap carving but he is still a working artist, and some of his abstract paintings are part of his exhibition at K12. These paintings show some of the same skill and precision evident in the carvings. Interestingly, the soaps and the abstract paintings also share similar color palettes.

The exhibition continues through April 27. It’s well worth a visit to see the art and to learn a bit of Dayton history.

Dayton At Work and Play: Partial To Pie Bakery

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Partial to Pie Bakery in Dayton’s Shroyer Park neighborhood is a Dayton success story.

This is the third time I’ve photographed Marie Clark. The first time she and her father were painting the outside of this building. They had decided to open a bakery and found an abandoned building that needed some work

The second photo was taken a few months after they opened, as I was buying a pie. It was amazing. Others must have liked the pies as much as I do, because a few months ago USA Today said Partial to Pie Bakery was the “Best Pie Shop in Ohio.”

Now, even though she’s added more capacity, Marie’s bakery is often completely sold out by mid afternoon. I suggest you do what I do. Drop by the store early in the day and try a piece of one of their pies, quiches, and other sweet treats. Then order a whole pie to be picked up later in the week

Partial to Pie Bakery

Pies,Quiche and other Sweet Treats!

200 Shroyer Rd.
Dayton, Ohio   45419
(937) 813-8851
Tuesday- Friday 7am – 3pm
Saturday 7am – noon
Closed Sun & Mon

Artist of the Week: Josh Merritt

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK Josh Merritt of JLM Glass Studio. I asked Josh how he became a glass blower.

“I started out as an apprentice to one of Ohio’s great glass artists – John Michael Kahle. I lived close enough to walk to his studio. I did all kinds of work for him and in return he taught me about his art. Then I went to Ohio State. They have a good glass blowing program that really expanded my horizons. A few months ago I moved back to Dayton and set up this studio where I give lessons and teach some classes.”

“Although I’m giving classes, I still feel like a student myself. There’s so much to learn. Last summer I was able to visit Murano, Italy – a place where people have been blowing glass for 700 years. Murano is an island near Venice that people call the Glass Island. The story I heard was that the glass blowers of Venice were sent to the Island of Murano in the 13th century because glass factories sometimes caught fire.”

To learn more about Josh and the classes he’s giving, go tohttps://jlmglass.studio/

Artist of the Week: Heather Jones

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Heather Jones of Heather Jones Studio working in her Front Street Studio. Front Street is in Dayton’s Springfield neighborhood.

As she worked, Heather told me how her current body of work came about. “I wrote a book called Quilt Local. I really like how the book turned out, but by late 2014 when the book was finished, I was burned out on quilting. I had to do something else for a while.”

“I tried painting, but didn’t find it satisfying. So I started doing these sewn works which are hung on the wall like a painting. They’ve been well received, both in the galleries that show my work and in various exhibitions.”

“I start with strips of cloth that I stick on the flannel wall. When I’m happy with how two of the pieces look side by side I iron them and sew them together. Then I place them back on the flannel wall and try to decide which piece of cloth should be added next. When I’m done sewing I put the finished cloth piece onto a structure so it can be hung. As I stretch the cloth some of lines that had looked straight become slightly curved.”

This is a busy month for Heather. She’s in three exhibitions. One is in Cincinnati and has an opening Thursday night from 6 to 9 pm at 1628 LTD (11 Garfield Place). It’s called “Just to be alive – an exhibition of the contemporary female artist.” Twenty artists are included in the show, including Mychaelyn Michalec, Artist.

It was obvious that Heather didn’t mind being photographed as she worked. When I mentioned that she explained that she’s done quite a few workshops and interviews on TV. So I googled her and found a great interview on Youtube on The Quilt Show. The interview referred to Heather as a modern quilter, teacher, author, and Martha Stewart American Made finalist. Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KMXUkseqkI

Dayton at Work and Play: Fazl-i-Umar Mosque

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The Fazl-i-Umar Mosque in Dayton’s Miami Chapel neighborhood.

This is one of Dayton’s most historic houses of worship. It is Ohio’s first mosque and the first mosque built in the United States by African American converts to Islam. The property was donated to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in 1949.

Although they are one of the smaller Muslim sects, Ahmadiyya Muslims are well known for their charitable work. When I visited the mosque one day I met a man who wore a baseball cap with the name Humanity First. That’s their agency that does a lot of disaster relief work. The Ahmadiyya Muslims have also built more than 30 hospitals around the world.

Every Wednesday at 6:30 pm the mosque has something it calls “Coffee, Cake & True Islam.” Everyone is welcome, and you can ask questions about the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community or about Islam in general. For more information, call them at (937) 901-2408.

Fazl-i-Umar Mosque
637 Randolph St
Dayton, Ohio 45417

 

Dars ul Quran after Fajr Prayer Daily

Wednesdays Cofee and Cake at 06:30 PM (Open for Public)

First Adhan for Jummah prayer:  01:30 pm

Artist of the Week: Tess Little

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK Tess Little working in her Fairborn studio.

Actually, Tess doesn’t have a Fairborn studio. She has two. One is a clay studio in a dairy barn that is over 150 years old. When I visited, two of her students were working there. Tess was working in her other studio, where she makes metal sculptures.

“This piece is called Healing Circle” she told me. “It was one of my earlier bronzes – done around 2005. We were moving it and two of the welds gave way so are repairing it today.”

Tess worked alongside her husband Jim. “Now that Jim is retired he helps me a lot. He does a lot of my set-up work. Jim was in the tool and die business, so that’s something he does really well.”

Tess’s home is filled with art, both hers and that of others. “There would be a lot more to show you, but so much is away right now. I have some large pieces rented in Chicago. Renting sculptures is becoming more popular. A location rents the piece for a year or two. Then you bring it home or take it to another site that wants to rent it. I also have a lot of work in two Dayton galleries, but you can see those pieces on Thursday at a progressive reception.”

The reception of “The Journey: Work by Bing Davis and Tess Little” starts today from 4:30 to 6 pm at the Burnell Roberts gallery at Sinclair and then continues from 6-8 pm at The Contemporary Dayton formerly Dayton Visual Arts Center (118 N Jefferson) . Both receptions are free and open to the public. The exhibitions are part of REACH across Dayton, which Tess Little and Bing Davis founded 27 years ago.

Artist of the Week: Erin Smith-Glenn

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK Erin Smith-Glenn working in the studio where she teaches at Central State University.

“I was once a college student working in this same studio,” she told me. “When I graduated from Central State l went to the University of Cincinnati to get a Masters in Fine Arts. I also studied in Italy, which was a wonderful experience. Now I am back in the same place but the roles are reversed. I’m doing the teaching and this summer I will be taking students to Italy.”

“I’m working in pastel chalk here, which I love. I often do portraits, but lately I have been obsessed with flowers. Maybe it has to do with the weather.”

I met Erin last November when she was in Art Off, the K12 Gallery and TEJAS fundraiser. After meeting her I started to see her work everywhere. You can do the same. You can see her work four times over the next four days.

Tonight Erin has a reception of her show at the Fifth Third Center from 5 to 7 pm. A jazz saxophone player will add some atmosphere to that event.

Tomorrow night, First Friday, she is showing her work at the studio of Mikee Michelle Huber (903 North Keowee).

Saturday you could see one of Erin’s pieces at the Dayton Society of Artists – DSA. She has a piece in their show about historic African American churches of Southwest Ohio.

Sunday Erin will be one of the panelists at the Dayton International Peace Museum “Women Strong Artists Panel” from 3 to 4:30 pm

Dayton at Work and Play: Wholly Grounds

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Visited South Park’s newest business recently –Wholly Grounds and
had a great cup of coffee and some excellent baked goods.

Wholly Grounds bills itself as a coffee house and a tea room, so I asked co-founder Amy about her tea. “I like a cup of tea instead of coffee sometimes myself,” she told me. “We try to have a broad selection of different teas, and if we don’t have something our customers are asking for, we get it.”

I also met Amy’s partner Tony, and told him how much I liked the atmosphere of the new coffee shop. “You should have seen it before,” he said. “The walls were painted bright orange. But painting the walls was easy. The hard part was the floor. I had to remove three levels of flooring before I got to the original wood floor. Repairing that and then refinishing was a chore.”

Tony also told me that he was planning to get a liquor license so he could offer Irish coffee to his patrons.

 

Wholly Grounds
825 Wayne Avenue
Dayton, OH 45410

(937) 349-5807

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Mon – Fri 6am – 6pm

Sat & Sun 7:30am – 5pm 

It is our mission to contribute to a more healthy, balanced, and sustainable life through good food and drink, and the arts.  We will strive to use organic, ethically produced and socially just ingredients, as price and availability allow.