and changes people,” she says, “but the
system of providing access and build-
ing capacity for an audience in a com-
munity? That’s as important.”
She envisions ROMAC and the
109-year-old Regal Theater building
as the focal point for starting a new
arts system in the local Black com-
munity, built in the mold of her late
father’s Arts Consortium. The proj-
ect earned a $1 million capital grant
from the state of Ohio last year, but
it requires matching funds and then
some. A capital campaign, helped by
the experts at Ignite Philanthropy, is
underway with a goal of raising $2
million by April.
“We’re really starting from scratch
because the Arts Consortium has
been gone since 1972 and this build-
ing (the Regal) has been vacant for
more than 30 years,” says Turner. “But
when I go in there, I see it from my
childhood lens, where my spot was.
It’s got so many possibilities. But I
need a friend.”
Turner has a friend in ArtsWave,
which contributed $15,000 for RO-
MAC programming this year—a
part of its $100,000 grant package
annually awarded since 2015 to pro-
mote Black-led arts and culture. But
Kintner, Beaulieu, and Turner agree
that the corporate and philanthropic
community needs to think about ex-
panding its commitment to the arts
by supporting what Turner calls “the
mom-and-pop art shops.”
It’s the smaller neighborhood
arts organizations with the thinner
budgets that can directly impact the
communities in need, she says. Mom-
and-pop groups succeed via word of
mouth, friend-to-friend connections,
and participating organizations such
as local churches and ArtsWave itself.
“More than 300 people came to
our Sanaa Festival this year (Sanaa is
P H O T O G R A P H C O U R T E SY M I C H A E L T H O M P S O N
‘art’ in Swahili) from all over the city,”
says Turner. “We had no billboards, no
marketing, nothing. We do a lot with
so little. Imagine what we could do
with just a few more resources.”
O
N THE CANVAS AT THE
entrance to Michael Thomp-
son’s Mt. Washinton studio,
your eyes are drawn to a single tear
beginning its steady roll down the
right side of a man’s brown nose.
Another rivulet has formed from the
opposite corner, rolling down the side
of his face. It seems like the tears your
eyes expel when suddenly introduced
to a blast of cold air. You see just his
eyes and bushy eyebrows. Are these
tears of joy? Grief ? Despair? Or is he
just cold?
Thompson chuckles at my ques-
tion, and the answer is the answer any
artist might give: It depends on your
perspective. What you see is what it
is to you.
“The Tear” will be part of Thomp-
OPEN TO
INTERPRETATION
Michael
Thompson’s
“The Tear” is on
display at Mount
St. Joseph Uni-
versity through
mid-February.
son’s art exhibition, entitled The
Kool-Aid Wino, from mid-January to
mid-February at Mount St. Joseph
University. This multimedia collection
is his first gallery show as a profes-
sional. It won’t be his last.
His work is not political, says
Thompson. Art is allowed to be mere-
ly aesthetic, offering beauty, joy, and
mystery to the viewer. It’s a story told
on canvas. If “The Tear,” to you, tells
the joyful story of an enslaved man
gaining his freedom, that’s a political
message you as a viewer built.
Thompson keeps his thoughts
about “The Tear” to himself, saying
only that he rejects the Black artist
archetype of “creating a certain kind
of art we’re supposed to create.”
I give “The Tear” another long
look, and I’m still not sure. “That’s
good,’’ he laughs. “It means I’ve done
my job.”
WINTER 2023 REALM 43