Stater Home Page

Department of Communication

‘Traversing Erie’ display in library

“Stitched From Erie’s Maritime Past” is an art exhibit that is now open to the public in the special collection area of the Cleveland State University Library. The exhibit highlights a local artist Chris Pekoc and his original work, “Traversing Erie.”

Pekoc uses copies from the original logbooks of William G. Mather in his “Traversing Erie” piece. The logs used from the captain of the vessel described daily progress records in the logbook of the ship’s voyage. This piece is hanging on the walls, in the library’s special collections.

“Traversing Erie” required more than 400 hours of labor to complete and is constructed of 100 sheets of 8 ½” x 11” polyester film, fastened together with 400 brass rivets. Each sheet of film has a printed image of either the surface of Lake Erie, a page from lake freighter’s logbook or a combination of the two together.

“The mural is an abstract painting addressing the industrial energy of Cleveland’s steel mills and was inspired by my experiences as a laborer for Republic Steel,” said Pekoc.

The exhibit runs until Oct. 1 and is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed from noon to 1 p.m.) in the third floor special collections area of the library in Rhodes Tower, 1860 E. 22nd St.

For more information, contact Bill Barrow, special collections/ urban studies librarian, at (216) 687-2475.
Top of Page

Imagination Conference Set

In 1990, the Cleveland State University Poetry Center gave birth to the Imagination Conference. This July will be celebrating the eleventh year running for the program. CSU professor Doctor Neal Chandler, along with California novelist Karen Joy Fowler, put together the conference, which has remained a great success for over a decade. So, what makes the imagination conference so special compared to other summer workshop programs? Well, what has set the conference apart from all others is the unusual way it approaches teaching and learning within the workshops.

Chandler knew that that he wanted to begin a summer workshop series, but was having problems coming up with a method of teaching that would satisfy all who attended. He decided to ask for Fowler’s opinion on the matter, and in return she proposed two common problems associated with summer workshop programs, the first of them being the “star system dismay.”

According to Chandler, this is when “most of the applicants want to work with one or two most famous authors and are disappointed when assigned to the workshop of someone less well known; second, [is] ‘ perceived reality correction, which participants conclude during the week that no matter whose workshop they’ve been assigned to, some other faculty member would have been the better…in fact the perfect teacher.”

It wasn’t until Chandler and Fowler but their heads together that they found a solution and the perfect mix: a workshop where the students meet in smaller groups each day taught by a different faculty member.

Even more unique to the program is how the workshop groups are assembled. Each group is put together with a combination of different writer’s styles (nonfiction, fiction and poetry), that introduces each group member into a new genre, and hopefully, some new ideas.

“We have a terrific faculty coming this year,” assures Chandler. “The workshops are rapidly coming together.”

Only a couple of spots are remaining, so if you would like to join the conference this summer, beginning on July 10-15, contact Chandler at (216) 687-4522 or e-mail at imagination@csuohio.edu.
written by Jennifer Britton


Top of Page