Tim Herron and participant Duane Dickson spoke with The Tremonster when we stopped in on The Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists for their 20th anniversary during a regularly scheduled portrait artist and model break.
by Timothy Herron and Brian Pierce
In June/July we will be our 20th year, beginning in 2005 in the back of a small bar in the Tremont area of Cleveland called the Literary Café, which was run by Andy Timithy and Linda Baldizzi. Brian Pierce and I just wanted steady practice drawing portraits and offered the patrons our drawings in exchange for posing in order to save some money and not toss the drawing in the basement or closet. Overhearing a fellow patron explain to his friend in a private conversation that Tremont was filled with pretentious artists provided us with a name for our drawing group.
The early days were a challenge at the Literary as the bar was only open on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 9:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. I also worked on a larger format 32×40, so I had the model pose twice, once for the head and once for the hands. A year or so later the Juan Quirarte’s Murray Hill Drawing Group joined us, bringing artists Larry Zuzik, Howard Collier, Jack Flotte, and Jeff Suntala along with Jennifer Newyear and Jim Gerber. Now I had to work on smaller paper and had only one sitting per model, but the models were treated to something special. Some of the memorable models we were able to draw were authors Mary Doria Russell, Les Roberts, Interim director of the CMA Fred Bidwell, investigative reporter Scott Taylor, along with many of the poets of the day. After 10 years, Andy and Linda moved to Florida and sold the bar. We now had to expand and go on the road.
The group was now renamed the Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists, and we started drawing in different venues across Cleveland, settling with Forest City Brewery, Waterloo Arts, and Artful Cleveland. We only offered live drawing and at times had over 30 artists at Artful Cleveland like the time we drew Grafton Nunes. Joining us now were artists Janet Dodrill, Nancy Lick, Pat Phillips, John Troxell, Duane Dickson, Olga Weinstein, Maria Polk, Jesse Smith, David Heller, Steve Sens, Christine Wallis, John Scavnicky, Deni Ziganti, Lisa Hutson, Anthony J. Robinson and others.
Then COVID hit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
During the first week of COVID, the only thing we could do was offer self-portraits. Luckily, we were in touch with Roger and Beth Miller, a couple that produced their own show on Facebook Live called “Tues@7”. Roger was actually scheduled to pose for us on the second week of COVID. Roger suggested to Brian and me that he and Beth could videotape one member of their family at a time and post it on our group page” The Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists” thereby keeping us going until Brian and I could adapt. Unfortunately, many of the artists did not want to draw from a video (no photos were taken then but stills from the video), but karma stepped in and we found many artists that were fine working from the video and stills. We will forever be thankful to artists Louis Grasso, Bob Pauly, Dick Close, Eileen Rockwell, and Sarah Woehrman Lane who provided amazing portraits drawing online and willing to offer their portraits to the models in exchange for posing. Slowly our online presence increased, and we were adding artists across the states to join us – Chuck Freed from Connecticut, Jean Marcellino from New York, Deborah Masterson and Jack Kinkelaar from Hawaii along with local artists who could not attend live sessions like Karen Myers, Cherilyn Byers, Jack and Paula St. John, and more.
COVID lifted
After covid lifted, we were now not only live but continued the videotapes of the models and added photos. Models were now receiving another envelope of drawings from the online artists three to four months after they posed. Before long, Karen Myers reached out to Yuji Sakuma in Taiwan and told him about our group. Yuji joined us for a while and along came Lisa Nolan from Australia, Maria Gelverio in Malaysia, several artists from the UK, and soon our reach became broader. I have not pushed too hard for the international artists to send their portraits due to cost and hassle of international shipping but have been fortunate enough to receive some from Yuji, Lisa, Petra Wend and Andrew Butler from the UK.
Moving forward
Any artist (beginners and inexperienced ones are exempt) that would like to offer their portraits to a model in exchange for posing can send their work to me at 2490 Professor Ave, Cleveland, Ohio, 44113 (anyone mailing to my neighbor at 2488 Professor please now send to my address as my dear neighbor is entering hospice). If your work is pastel or charcoal, please tape a cover paper over your drawing to keep it from harming or being harmed by other drawings. Most artists send their drawings eight or so at a time to make it easier and less of a pain in the ass. I don’t know of another group like ours that exchanges our three hours with a community member’s three hours in order to get steady drawing in. I am very happy we are able to provide people with an amazing experience while promoting the arts.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
