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Dayton at Work and Play

Dayton at Work and Play Artist of the Week: Katie Clark Gabbard

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Artist of the Week Katie Clark Gabbard at the inviting entrance to her studio at Front Street.


Like many people, Katie’s life was changed by the pandemic. When large weddings and other events were cancelled in 2020 the floral shop she had owned for 15 years was forced to close. She decided to reinvent herself as an artist. She got a studio at Front Street and started painting. She also got a side job (like most artists) as the Exhibitions Director at the Dayton Society of Artists.

“The transition from florist to painter was easier than you might think” she told me. “As a florist I needed to think about color, scale and texture. Also, I had been doing some painting over the years to decorate my shop.”

You need to contact Katie on facebook and set a time to visit her studio. In addition to smaller pieces like you see in this photo she has some work on display that is 14 feet high. “I wanted some large pieces that would really make a statement” she told me “but shipping large pieces to shows across the country costs a lot of money. I decided to try painting on large pieces of canvas that hang loosely on walls. They are pretty unique and have been getting into shows, and I can just roll them up and mail them at a reasonable rate.”

Katie’s career shift from florist to artist seems to be working out. She’s had art on display at Roy G Biv gallery in Columbus and at Shrine Gallery in New York, and she has a solo show at the Neon Heater Gallery in Findlay.

Dayton 66 Neighborhoods Photography Exhibit Now On Display

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When I retired I picked up a camera, learned how to use it, and became a volunteer photographer.  My first project was taking photos of animals for the Humane Society.  I enjoyed that so much that I started doing projects for other nonprofits.  As I was doing these volunteer projects, and finding other places of interest with my camera, I felt like I was finally getting to know the area where I had lived all these years.  I decided to share photos of what I was discovering on a facebook page called “Dayton at Work and Play.” 

Greek Festival in Grafton Hill

At the start of 2019 I made a New Year’s Resolution to take and post at least one photo on my facebook page from each of Dayton’s 66 neighborhoods. 

After fifteen tornadoes hit Old North Dayton I photographed volunteers from all over the area helping in the cleanup efforts. A few months later, I again photographed people from all over the region as they gathered together in reaction to the mass shooting in the Oregon District.  Then I started to rethink this project.  I decided I didn’t want to go into a new neighborhood and take photos of buildings or some interesting landscape.  I just wanted to take photos of people from all 66 neighborhoods, people from every corner of Dayton.

Volunteers working in Old North Dayton

The reaction to this project idea was wonderful.  Mayor Whaley and her husband Sam posed for me one Saturday morning and then introduced me to the leaders of some of the Neighborhood Associations.  Bryan Taulbee and others on the city’s staff helped me understand when and where all of the city recreation activities were happening.  City planning division manager Tony Kroeger helped me understand the exact boundaries of the neighborhoods.  People invited me to block parties, to neighborhood events, and into their homes and their businesses.  It was great.

Playtime Nursery School in Residence Park

I remember driving around Dayton’s Pineview neighborhood and seeing a man watering his lawn.  I stopped and told him about my project.  He said he’d grown up on this block and then left to go to college.  After college he lived in Chicago and then New York.  He had recently moved back to Dayton.  

Shoes for the Shoeless Event at Mt Enon Church

“I like being around the people I grew up with, and I like the size of Dayton” he told me.  “In Chicago or New York you couldn’t get the whole community to come together the way Dayton did after the two tragedies we had this summer. This project of yours seems timely, Bill. Having an exhibition of photos of people from all corners of Dayton is a good thing for us to do now. I would be glad to have my photo up in your exhibition.”

Choir rehearsal at College Hill Community Church

The exhibition was being organized by Rebecca Sargent, then the Program Director at K12 Gallery.  The photos were printed, the promotional materials were prepared and everything was ready for an opening April 2, 2020.  Like many things that were planned in 2020, it never happened.  I’m glad the Dayton Metro Library has decided to exhibit these photos now.

Those 66 photos are now on display  through September 25 in the Dayton room of the Dayton Metro Library.

Dayton at Work and Play: Artist Patty Brown

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Patty Brown of P.Brown Art with three of her “colorfield florals.”

I first met Patty Brown years ago when I visited her husband, artist Daniel Brown, at his home in Troy. Recently a friend suggested I might like art that Patty was posting online. I loved her work and was glad that Patty agreed to invite me over and be my first post-pandemic ARTIST OF THE WEEK.
“I teach art at Tippecanoe Middle School” she told me. “We spend a lot of time in class on aspects of color theory. I have the students make different colors and then experiment with how a color changes as tit is placed next to other colors. One day the students were enjoying their work with colors so much that they inspired me to do some similar things myself when I got home.”
“I’ve always made art, but this is the first time I’ve created a body of work with a common theme. I feel like I can push this in a lot of directions, trying different ways of combining a geometric color design with my freehand floral drawings. The response to these pieces has been great. I am doing quite a few commissions and I sell on facebook and instagram. Some pieces are also available at a wonderful flower shop in Tipp City called Always Blooming .”

Dayton at Work and Play: Foremost Seafood

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This colorful store is Foremost Seafood LTD (1904 Woodman Center Drive). It’s a locally owned business that was started 35 years ago by Tom and Pam Patterson. Tom is a marine biologist who grew up in Dayton.
Their main business has always been supplying fresh seafood to Dayton’s better restaurants. They also sell a small amount to consumers, and we’ve bought our seafood there for years. Their restaurant business probably dropped sharply during Covid, but sales to consumers must be up because the store’s been busy whenever I stop by.
When you walk up to the front desk, they have a list of fresh fish with prices, and there’s a chalk board that shows what fish have already sold out. Then you order exactly what you want. You can choose skin-on or skin-off, and maybe a thick center cut. Only then do they pull the fish out of its refrigerated dark space and cut it for you.
I like the sign over their door that reads “May the World be Your Oyster.”

Dayton at Work and Play: Erin Smith-Glenn

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Erin Smith-Glenn is one of the artists participating in the exhibition “Unity: Creating a Better Tomorrow” sponsored by the United Way of the Greater Dayton Area. In this photo Erin is working in the studio where she teaches at Central State University. I asked Erin about the exhibition and about how she’s weathering the pandemic.

“I entered a painting in the exhibition inspired by my daughter. She’s a big fan of the Black Panther movie and her favorite character is Shuri, a princess of Wakanda. I started doing a painting of Shuri as a demonstration for my class, and fell in love with it.”

“The pandemic has been an interesting time for me as an artist. When I was told that Central State was shutting down, I saw that most people headed to the grocery store to stock up on food. I went to the art supply store and bought a lot. I went home and immediately went to work on a large piece and felt my stress going down as I worked. This has been a productive period for me, and a time of learning and growth.”

“Classes start again at Central State soon, and I’ve spent a lot of time getting ready. My art classes will be a combination of in person and online. When students are in the studio here I have things set up in a socially distanced way. Easels and supplies are labelled so we can keep track of which students use which items which can be important for contact tracing.”

You can bid on Erin’s work online starting August 26 at https://www.liveuniteddayton2020.org/.

Dayton at Work and Play: Bicycles For All

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We all know that Dayton is a bike friendly community. Bicycles For All may be the friendliest part of that bike community. They give bikes to kids and they sell reconditioned bikes to adults at reasonable prices.


Bicycles For All is a nonprofit – a good place to donate your old bike, or your helmets or other bike gear. Most of their bikes are fairly new, but Matthew is showing me a classic Huffy bike that was recently donated. It has a 1972 City of Dayton license plate. All of the workers at Bicycles For All are volunteers. When Matthew isn’t fixing bikes he’s making my favorite apple turnovers at Evans Bakery.

Bicycles For All is located in the basement of the red Armory building at 201 E. 6th Street, Dayton, Ohio 45402. Access to the entrance is off of Patterson in the parking lot behind The Armory Building. They are open on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6-9 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.

More Mural Art in Progress

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A group of volunteers from Synchrony Financial work on a new downtown mural under the supervision of Brittini Brill Long. Brittini is the Community Engagement Coordinator for Montgomery County Juvenile Court who facilitates the HAALO program. The mural is on Stone Street, near the Neon Movies. HAALO people will be doing the bulk of the painting this summer, with help from artists from K12 Gallery and TEJAS. HAALO stands for Helping Adolescents Achieve Long-Term Objectives.

Brittini showed me the design for this block long mural. The original idea, from artist Morris T. Howard, would have used only two panels on this long concrete wall. But that original idea has grown, and the mural will now fill all of the block’s 21 panels. The mural is called The Land of Funk, and will incorporate designs from several Dayton artists. I’ll be sure to share more photos as the project continues.

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Shelly Massey

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Shelly Massey Art in her Front Street studio.

Dayton at Work and Play:

Before moving to Dayton, Shelly taught at large art retreats around the country including Art is You in California and Connecticut, Artfest in Washington, Art Unraveled in Arizona and Art & Soul in Nevada. She said she was a little surprised by the popularity of her teaching but also a little worn out from the travel. For now she’s not teaching anywhere, only painting in her new Front Street studio (door BC, 2nd floor).

A great side effect of Shelly’s teaching has been the connections she’s made with people all over the country who love art. She recently visited one of those friends in Milwaukee and took a lot of art with her. Shelly’s friend arranged an exhibition where people could see and buy Shelly’s art.

As I visited Shelly she painted several pieces at once, sometimes with a brush but mostly with her fingers. Her hands got more and more colorful as time passed. I’ve got to return to her studio late in the day sometime to photograph her hands with all of the day’s colors.

You can see Shelly’s work at May’s First Friday celebration, or message her on her facebook page and arrange another time to visit her studio.

Flash Fiction- Novelist Challenged to Create Story From Photo

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I told novelist Molly Duncan Campbell about one of my favorite books.

In 1953 photographer Roy DeCarava took amazing photos of the people of Harlem, but he couldn’t get them published. He gave some of the photos to Langston Hughes, without telling him anything about the people in his photographs. Hughes wrote a story to go with the photos, and got “The Sweet Flypaper of Life” published.

Inspired, Molly asked me to send her a photo, and tell her nothing about the person. Then she wrote the following:

My name is Juniper Mary May. I am called Junie. I am the only person in the world who gets called by my whole name all the time. Junie May. When I started kindergarten, they kept saying, “Junie May who?” Like I didn’t remember my last name. I am in First grade now, and Mrs. Hapner did it again! I felt like telling her what the hell ask Miss Franklin it took her all last year to figure this out. I have asked my mom why on earth she named me this. I would prefer to be named a normal thing, like Kathleen. Then everyone would know to stop after just the Kathleen part.

I got this hula hoop for my fifth birthday. I could only jump rope before. Here is what you do: you grab it hard and lift it over your head and lean it against your belly button, and then you wiggle like hell. My mom said I shouldn’t say that. So I wiggle like the devil is after me, which is what Nana says, and that isn’t swearing. I got the dress with the goofy swan on it from Nana. She lives in the past. Mom said it reminds her of a poodle skirt, which makes absolutely no sense, because who has ever heard of a poodle skirt?

I have gotten really good on the hula hooping. I can go for exactly one minute and seventeen seconds. That is my record. I can also roller skate, but you can’t do that inside. So I hula all the time in my room, and I made a playlist. I put Stevie Wonder on it. All the songs from Cars. Yellow Submarine. And my most favorite of all, but my mom says it’s an ear worm: Mahna Mahna by the Muppets.

You might think that I am a girly-girl. That is because we took this picture to send to Nana in Cleveland. We put it in the cloud so she could look at it on her phone. Usually I wear jeans and my favorite tee shirts. I have two favorites: one has Bill Nye, the Science Guy on it. The other one has a wolf. And guess what? I have a pussy hat!

 

Dog Therapy Helps Kids Read

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Last week NPR released a story about “How Reading Aloud to Therapy Dogs Can Help Struggling Kids.”  It really resonated with me.  Here are the highlights of the story:

While many people are familiar with therapeutic pets and how they can help lift up people’s spirits, bringing them into the classroom might sound far-fetched. How can a therapy pet possibly teach children the life lessons of kindness and empathy? Can a pet really alter the way that students feel about learning?

Educational therapist Rebecca Barker Bridges believed that a dog could help students feel more confident about learning, and so she adopted Stanley, a golden retriever.

Pets are very nonjudgmental, and their calming presence distills stressful situations,” Bridges says. “For children who feel insecure about their capacity to do things like reading, therapy pets bolster their self-confidence, which reduces their anxiety.”

“Students feel self-conscious about reading because they’re afraid of being judged by students and teachers if they don’t do a ‘good job.’ But Stanley dismantles this fear for them. He makes learning joyful,” says Bridges.

After reading this I though wouldn’t this be great way to help our Dayton area students!  Then yesterday as I was scrolling through Facebook I find this post on Bill Franz’s Dayton at Work and Play and realize Dayton’s already got this going on.

 

At Wright Memorial Public Library recently I saw children reading aloud to Riley and another dog. I asked Riley’s owner Lesley Neufeld how Riley had gotten that job.

“Riley is a certified Animal Assisted Therapy dog trained at Dogtors Animal-assisted Therapy” Leslie said. “The training was 10 weeks during which time the professional trainers test the dog/handler teams for aptitude and temperament, instruct us on various topics, observe us in role playing exercises, and put each team through a practical test, plus a written exam for the handler. Dogs must already be obedience trained coming into the program.”

“Riley and I did some visiting at Hospice of Dayton and an assisted living residence, but he is such a natural with kids that we only do reading now. We go to Wright Library, Centerville Library and Parkwood School in Beavercreek. There is no scientific evidence on reading dogs, but there are theories about kids getting over their fear of reading aloud because of the calming, non-judgmental presence of a dog.”

Just one more of the many positive, cool things Dayton has going on.  So proud of our Region and all those who make a difference in such a caring way!

Dayton at Work And Play: Bonnett’s Book Store

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Bonnett’s Book Store (502 E. 5th Street) was opened in the 1930’s, which probably makes it the oldest business in The Oregon District. I dropped by recently to learn more about the store’s history from Kevin Bonnett.

“My grandfather made the money he used to start this store by writing crime stories. They were published in pulp magazines like Black Mask and Thrilling Detective. We found a letter he wrote saying that he had sold 5 stories for $50 each, so maybe that was what he used to start this store.”

“The original name of the store was Bonnett’s Back Issue Magazines. Pulp magazines often had long stories told in installments. So when you finished reading an installment you could sell your used magazine to my grandfather and buy one with the next installment of the story you were reading.”

“Most of the toys you see in the store date back to my father’s time. A customer who was moving out of town gave my Dad a toy to remember him by, and he placed it on a shelf in the store. My Dad thought that toy looked lonely and added a few. Then other customers started giving toys to the store and here we are. People are constantly asking about buying some of the toys, but they aren’t for sale. They’re part of the store’s history.”

Dayton at Work and Play: Bahar & Reza

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15369242_1119185484847246_6418798396159226927_oReza Masoudi recently took the time to tell me how he and his wife came to open their couture shop Bahar & Reza in Oakwood (2308 Far Hills Avenue).

“My wife and I first met when we were college students in Iran. Like many young Iranians – especially those interested in fashion – we dreamed of building a life outside of Iran. I left first, and studied at Wright State. Then Bahar joined me in Dayton and we were married eight years ago.

“Before the revolution Empress Farah, wife of the late Shah of Iran, was known for the fashions she wore. She had gowns made for her that were modern in design but used fabric decorated with ancient Persian motifs. We decided to try something similar.

“Our first venture was on Ebay, selling a few simple items like ties and scarves using fabric with Persian designs. We were amazed at how many we sold. So we tried a few more items and they also sold well. Next we put up a website and started taking part in some of the larger U.S. fashion shows. The business continued to grow. Our fashions have been worn on the red carpet in L.A. and Empress Farah, who now lives in exile in Washington D.C. and in Paris, is one of our customers.

“People in the fashion industry advised us that our next step should be a shop in L.A. but we drug our feet. The cost to rent space in L.A. was very high, and we had both grown to like living in Dayton. Then 10 months ago I saw a For Rent sign in the window of this store. I was the first person to call the landlord and I signed the lease immediately. Results have been good so far, and we hope to be able to continue to grow our business while staying here in Dayton.”

 Editors Note:  Bill Franz started a popular facebook page called Dayton at Work and Play.  In addition to showing Dayton people at work, his site introduces viewers to the beautiful places and interesting people of Dayton.  With Bill’s permission we’ll be sharing his work on MostMetro.com.