Gallery
Primordial River
Amy Ankrom, age 16
Cleveland, Ohio USA
Speaking of the global rivers experience Amy Said: It is different. The music helps me concentrate more than if we were drawing in a silent room.
Editors Note: Amy studied the Hopewell Indians who where the earliest inhabitants (the mound dwellers ) of the Cuyahoga region. The border she chose was inspired by the artifacts found from these tribes.
Gallery
Portrait of the River Goddess
Deborah Carlson, adult
Cleveland, Ohio USA
Editors Note: Deborah teaches fiber arts at the Cleveland School of the Arts. She approached the project by visiting the Cuyahoga river in a pristine area.
She photographed the river many times with a digital camera manipulating the shots until she could sheen an image that reminded her of a guardian spirit. She also studied the river mythology of the world to inform her painting.
Gallery
The Underground Railroad and The Burning Cuyahoga
Jason Page, age 15
Cleveland, Ohio USA
I learned a lot which I did not know or pay attention to. I say thank you to all who helped. Bless this river.
Editors Note: While researching the Cuyahoga river i was thrilled to come across a very old library book documenting the paths of the underground railroads. A map in the book showed that about 12 different roots to freedom connected on the Cuyahoga river where the people fleeing slavery would be transported across Lake Erie into Canada.
We read the accounts of some of these harrowing experiences. One woman transported her self by mail in a wooden crate. She was still alive over a week later when the crate was opened in Canada. Jason’s painting illustrates these stories. He also shows the U shaped river in the colors representing the four races of man kind. Red, Black, Yellow and White.
Gallery
Faith, Hope and Charity
Ricardo E. Jackson, age ??
Cleveland, Ohio USA
Don’t make the same mistake we made over fishing, pollutants, and neglect.
Try to cherish what you have.
Gallery
The Shipyards
Lila Voss, adult
Cleveland, Ohio USA
Editors Note: Lila lives very close to the industrial end of the Cuyahoga River. She visited the sites of these industries and lectured to the kids about what she found out about what is being produced on the river. She brought in iron and steel fragment and shale and concrete as examples of her research to show the students. She cut her canvas and sewed it in a U shape to show the unique shape of this river.
Artist Gallery
Untitled
Seneca Bankston, age 17
Cleveland, Ohio USA
By any means necessary, open your heart to the problems of your river. We are struggling with the life of our river to save it from pollution. I hope that the people of the Volga and the Volta will protect their rivers so that they won’t have the serious problems that we have with the Cuyahoga.
Editors Note:When asked about this painting Seneca told me that he had drawn an angry angel part man and part fish rising out of the flaming Cuyahoga River. The scroll in the center part of the canvas symbolizes the unwritten future of the Cuyahoga. The Boy at the bottom is the youth who loves the environment shown with a sun mandala and his eyes suffused with light.
Artist Gallery
Industry Is Not Humane
Randolph S. Crider, age 17
Cleveland, Ohio USA
About 10 years ago the city fathers of Cleveland decided to make the river an entertainment zone. Randall’s painting shows the types of activities that go on along the banks of the Cuyahoga he shows people arguing, fighting, drinking and smoking hardly aware of the rivers beauty. Below the water are those who love the river going to battle for the sake of its future.
Artist Gallery
Untitled
Nikia M. Pollard, age 17
Cleveland, Ohio USA
Respect your river. Can you imagine what it would be like to take your children and grandchildren to the river and all that there would be to show them is a dry river bed?
Editors Note: Nikia shows two sides of the Cuyahoga river, the past and present. The
students learned that one early settler reported that the Cuyahoga was so gutted with fish in the early days that one could walk across the
river on the backs of the fish. The indian on the left speaks of this abundance while the woman on the right weeps at the state of the river
today.
Artist Gallery
Mutant Fish
Kevin Melicant, age 17
Cleveland Ohio
I live in Cleveland and cross the river every day to go to school.
Before this project I never thought much about the river. Now I watch
the water every day. When the river gets murky it makes me feel sick.
We invited an environmental scientist to come to the school to speak to the kids, the students learned that there where many deformed fish born in the Cuyahoga due to the extensive pollution caused by the industries (much of it steel ) along it’s banks. The students also learned that in the 1930’s when the Cuyahoga burned for the first time that the water turned red and green as a result of copious amounts of iron filings released into the water.
