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Want to know what is on our minds? Find blog posts written here, by the City Club staff, members, and partners. Every week you can find a new edition of #FreeSpeech in the News — a collection of related stories, commentary, and opinions on free speech in the 21st century that’s making the news. You’ll also find takes on current events, past forums, and issues surrounding Northeast Ohio. Read on for all things City Club.

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Monday, March 20, 2017

Call for Artists: The City Club of Cleveland Mural

Call for Artists: The City Club of Cleveland Mural

Artists and teams of artists are invited to submit their qualifications to produce artwork for a mural that will be placed on an exterior wall of the City Club of Cleveland Building, located at 850 Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland.

Click here for the Cleveland.com article about our mural project.

The mural artwork will be reproduced digitally on the exterior of the building. Because of this, artists from a wide range of disciplines are encouraged to submit. Previous mural experience is not required.

The City Club of Cleveland, now in its 105th year of existence as one of the nation’s great free speech forums, will commission an artist to design a mural for placement on the west-facing exterior wall of its building. The mural, the purposes of which will be to celebrate the principle of free speech and serve as a wayfinding device to the City Club’s second-floor location, will be inspired by an existing City Club mural, Elmer Brown’s “Freedom of Speech,” which graces a wall of the City Club’s main interior auditorium where forums are held.

Brown’s artwork, completed in 1942, represents the breaking of ties to oppression and exclusion, while compelling viewers and attendees at Forum events to ask questions, avoid making assumptions, and keep learning.

Call for Artists: The City Club of Cleveland Mural
Location of the City Club Building in downtown Cleveland

Three artists will be paid a stipend to produce conceptual designs for the project. Artists who are invited to produce designs will be expected to produce designs for two possible locations on the building wall, as illustrated below. Additionally, a scaled-down version of the mural will be required for indoor display. The artist whose work is chosen for implementation will be responsible for producing the artwork in a scalable electronic format that can be digitally reproduced for installation.

The City Club is partnering with LAND studio, a Cleveland-based nonprofit, to facilitate the call for artists, juried artist-selection, fabrication, and artwork installation processes.

Call for Artists: The City Club of Cleveland Mural
Potential mural locations on the City Club Building’s west-facing exterior wall

Eligibility
This call is open to all qualified artists or teams thereof, 18 and older and living or working in Ohio.

Budget
Artists selected as finalists will be paid a stipend to produce a conceptual design for a mural. The artist whose design is chosen for implementation will be paid an additional artist fee, which will cover their services during the design-development and later phases of the project. Though the artist will be expected to participate in the process of producing and installing the mural, fabrication and installation will not be a primary responsibility of the artist.

Call for Artists: The City Club of Cleveland Mural
Elmer Brown’s “Freedom of Speech” will serve as an inspiration for the outdoor mural.

Submission requirements
Interested artists are required to submit aone-page letter of interest concisely describing their qualifications and explaining why they would be interested in working on this project. Within the one-page letter of interest, artists should indicate what approach they would take to the project.

Additionally, artists should provide a link to an online portfolio or image sheet with no fewer than five and no more than 20 images of previous or relevant work.

An up-to-date résumé or CV must also be supplied.

All submission materials must be in a commonly accessible electronic format.

Process and timeline
Artists’ qualifications will be reviewed by a selection panel. Three artists will be chosen to produce mural designs which they would then present to the panel.

The selection-process timeline will be as follows:

March 2017 Release of Request for Qualifications (RFQ)
April 21, 2017 Submissions due
May 2017 Selection of finalists
July 2017 Selection of artwork to be implemented
August-September 2017 Design development and fabrication
October 2017 Installation

Submission instructions and deadline
Questions and submissions should be directed to Nora Romanoff at nromanoff@land-studio.org. Submission materials must meet the requirements set out above and submitted by 12 p.m., EDT, on Friday, April 21, 2017.

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