The city and the artist are like the sailor and the sea: the person is driven by the setting, and the setting is driven into by the person. Except through the artist — lucky for us — we get a glimpse of their journey through the works they create for us to see.

For Erie-born, Cleveland painter Amy Casey, this journey in large part documents how we as Rust Belters make sense of the post-industry life around us: the plywood windows—the black and still factories—the aged material that can look both firm and fragile, warm and rough.

If a suburb in Florida aesthetically serves to take the edge off, Cleveland cuts you into corners. The Rust Belt landscape shoves you. And depending on your poison, this can be a good thing, especially if you are an artist.

Take Cleveland painter Amy Casey. Much of her work is fueled by structural vulnerability, particularly related to the amount of vacancy that gives Cleveland its surreal yet still-present look. Houses strung together by rope. Industrial scenes uprooted. It’s obvious her outside comes through her. Speaking to San Francisco Chronicle, Casey states:

No one can deny the awe-inspiring scenic beauty of Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, or Salt Lake City. But, often overlooked are the splendid topographic and geographic settings where a number of Rust Belt cities are situated. Beautiful city settings of the Rust Belt may not get the national notoriety and ink of their western competitors, but some are equally endowed with great scenery. Here’s a list of 15 Rust Belt cities that I feel are a visual delight:

It was love at first sight.

Sunday, June 5, 2011 in Columbus, Ohio. I parked around the corner on Lucas Street, and Adam Tensen walked up to meet me, with drill in hand, to unscrew the boarded-up doors inside. The front of the warehouse was a maze of newly subdivided rooms – new artist studios. But the rest of the building was still in an organic state, being rescued from years of disuse and ruin.

Greater Lansing has an amazing music scene, but it is seldom heard about it outside a 100 mile or so radius from the State Capital. Probably the best known band to hail from this area is The Verve Pipe, with its memorable #1 hit single “The Freshman.” Frontier Ruckus, The Hard Lessons, and Autumn Lull (among others) have also made a decent amount of buzz outside of their Greater Lansing roots.

Recently, a new album entitled Ghost Town Lullabies was released by a Greater Lansing area alternative rock band called Elliot Street Lunatic. Ghost Town Lullabies is simply superb! I cannot give it a high enough rating – it is literally off the charts for those of us who like alternative rock or indie music.

For the next few months—until May 18th 2012, you will likely notice people hugging buildings, trees, statues, signs and other objects of their affection. No, the residents of the city are not scouring the streets for pots of gold; they are simply showing their love for the great city of Cleveland with a Group Hug.
Group Hug is a three month long event, sponsored by Saving Cities, that culminates into a mega-regional party on May 26th 2012 at the Key Bank Building on Waterloo Rd. Residents are encouraged to hug what …

This pilot, produced by a Northeast Ohio filmmaker, is making the rounds on the interwebs, trying to attract funding for a series. The story would revolve around organized crime in Youngstown, Ohio — a town that was once so notorious for mafia activity it won the nickname Bomb Town USA.
The idea isn’t sitting so well with some folks involved with refocusing the city on tech development and downtown living. Youngstown celebrity Phil Kidd had this to say on Facebook: “Is this what we want?”
Meanwhile, local photographer Sean Posey comes …

Pretty cool video about Cincinnati’s 1970s-era “Urban Walls Movement,” when more than half a dozen large murals were painted on downtown buildings. Murals really dress up a city and give it life.

Urban Walls Cincinnati from Jacob Fox on Vimeo.
I would love to see something like this in downtown Cleveland.
H/t Urban Cincy

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I could have continued living in Erie, maybe; I quickly became used to assuming I’d be among the minority. But I couldn’t live there with a different brain. I don’t mean to imply that Erie is full of stupid people; quite the contrary. It’s home to smart business people and attorneys and nurses. I am awake to the difficulties of making a life in the Rust Belt, and awake to the wonderful lives smart, funny people do make there. But while the businesspeople may stay, the poets, by and large, leave. I eat differently, love differently, worship differently…most most importantly, I tend to value differently. I left twelve years ago not because I didn’t think I could get a job; I left because I didn’t feel welcome. That still saddens me: Gertrude Stein said famously that America was her country and Paris her hometown, which is the way it is for me with Erie and Ithaca.

Source: lonelyplanet.com

Michigan State University in East Lansing has been a steady leader among public universities in the United States for sending its students abroad for a portion of their academic studies. On the flipside, the university along with seven other Big Ten universities has been the lucky recipients of a growing influx of international students, particularly undergraduates from China in the past five years. According to the Open Doors 2011 report from the Institute of International Education, of the 25 universities in the United States with the largest international student population, …