Updates from the PAR-Projects blog...

Gabrielle Roach  was born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in Terre Haute, Indiana. She received her BFA in painting and printmaking from Indiana State University in 2014 and was awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree from Miami University in 2017. What does community mean to you? Community to me, extends beyond just where you live.  Communities can be elective and centered around one's interests. As a creative, one of my most precious communities is that of the art world.  I've forged professional networks and life long friendships with fellow artists that are some of my most enriching and rewarding relationships. Why are you interested in PAR-Education? I'm interested in PAR-Education not only because I love teaching but also because I truly believe in the transformative power of the arts.  I also enjoy working within my community because I like to feel connected to the place I live and work and the people who make Cincinnati neat! You're a new...

So "more" arts education , huh? This is a question we field from time to time when some learn we’re rolling out applied arts educational programming at PAR-Projects.  What we’re up to is not just “more” arts education; but if it were, just more arts education would be great. It's indeed needed ...throughout the city ...throughout the country for that matter. Few would argue we have an abundance of creative thinkers and creative problem solvers. Original & creative thought is simply becoming harder to find, especially outside of affluent communities. That said, and like most things we do, PAR- Education is a little different from the norm. Our biggest goal is to create and support career pathways in the visual arts. Therefore, instead of teaching more traditional classes (e.g. painting, drawing, and crafts), we’re focussing on applied arts education. And by definition, “applied arts are arts in which objects are designed or created in order to be u...

If you’re not familiar with us, hello, we’re Professional Artistic Research Projects Incorporated . We’re a 501(c)3, not-for-profit organization based in Cincinnati, Ohio. The cool kids, and everyone else for that matter, call us PAR-Projects — pronounced / pär ˈpräjˌekts /  — and we’ve been creating experimental art experiences throughout Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky since 2010.  If you're already familiar with PAR-, hello again! New to us or not, we hope you'll lend us a few moments to get through this post. Our goal is simple: We'd like to get reacquainted. A lot is going on with our growing organization so, as Executive Director, there's no better time to reintroduce ourselves. And if all goes well, this will become an annual address — a progress report of sorts. Back to the basics though: Our mission is to help empower community in the arts. As educators, we provide weekend workshops & multi-week classes, related to career development & ...

From time to time we're asked about our logo. It's straightforward. It's fairly simple. And rightfully so, a lot of people assume there's a bit of meaning behind the few marks representing our brand. So, for the curious, here's a bit about our marks. Starting with the basics, the "PAR-" which sometimes lives alone (mainly on social media) is more significant than just the first few letters in our identity. It's an acronym, representing Professional Artistic Research, but it also includes our important little hyphen. From a visual standpoint, the hyphen allows us to brand these three letters. It also allows us to incorporate our energy into future projects. In other words, "PAR- Education" is already under our organization's umbrella. But what about "PAR- Dinners" or "PAR- Portfolios" or even just Team PAR-? These examples are only mentioned for fun but, especially with the final example, the hyphen helps us t...

The Cincinnati Family Enrichment Center will be joining us at the Northside Summer Market this year - Saturday, August 5th.  They are reducing their inventory and have plenty of children's toys and clothing up for grabs!   If you are looking for these items, look no further!  Check out their selection and more during the yard sale. Their location is:  4244 Hamilton Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45223 There is still time to register for the yard sale too.  Click here to register:   http://bit.ly/nsm17yardsale

Headquarters for the Northside Summer Market is going to be hoppin!  The day will include live music, food trucks and a beer garden stocked by Urban Artifact.  Music begins at 3pm and lasts until 8pm.  Check out the set list as well as this video of The Tigerlilies - Live at MOTR Pub in Cincinnati. 3pm - James Meade 4pm - The Lovers 5pm - Me Or The Moon 6pm - Los Honchos 7pm - The Tigerlilies

When the responsibility of organizing + sustaining this event was passed to us a few years ago, we set two primary goals 1) Make sure it aligned with our mission to help empower community in the arts, and 2) Do our best to help grow the event to benefit our neighbors, businesses, and lovers of Northside! With those goals in mind, we added more elaborate house-mapping (and information) in 2014, the Art Fair component in 2015, plus we've continued to collect feedback from our neighbors and participants to help keep the needle moving forward. Related to the latter, it's been suggested that we tweak the overall timing of the event, so more people can participate AND so it can become more of a summer celebration. Below is the new schedule that will hopefully help more people have a great time, each and every August. THE OFFICIAL TIMING OF THINGS:  The Northside Summer Market will start at 9am, with individual yard sales at houses throughout Northside until (at lea...