The Chicago production of a play written and directed by Dr. Matt Foss and designed by Stephen Sakowski, both associate professors of theatre at The University of Toledo, has won six out of the seven nominations it received for the prestigious 2020 Non-Equity Jeff Awards.

Similar to the Tony Awards in New York, the Jeff Awards recognize Chicago’s top theater each year.

“This is the first time a production that began in this department has ever gone on to a professional version and several professional awards,” said Dr. Edmund Lingan, professor and chair of UToledo’s Department of Theatre and Film. “We are extremely proud of Matt Foss and his team.”

“All Quiet on the Western Front” won for Best Production of a Play and for Best Ensemble —two of the top awards in Chicago theater each year. Two UToledo alumni, Austin Rambo (Theatre 2019) and Bianca Caniglia (Environmental Science and Women’s Studies 2018), were part of the Chicago production’s ensemble cast.

The production also was won awards for Best Choreography (Leah Urzendowski) and Sound Design (Dan Poppen).

Sakowski received the award for Best Lighting Design of the year, and Foss the prize for Best New Work.

Dr. Matt Foss, associate professor of theatre at The University of Toledo

Foss adapted Erich Maria Remarque’s historic novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” for the stage, and it premiered at The University of Toledo with a student cast in fall 2018 in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, the war in which the novel is set.

The professional premiere of the play featured a unique collaboration between The University of Toledo co-producing the production with Red Tape Theatre and the Greenhouse Theatre Center — two professional companies in Chicago. UToledo’s support resulted in an extension of classroom learning in a professional setting, with Sakowski and a number of former students also participating in the project. The opening of the production culminated in a showcase event highlighting the UToledo College of Arts and Letters’ commitment to the arts, student experiences and innovation.

In 2019, the play received the Kennedy Center’s David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award, recognizing the year’s outstanding new work premiered at a college or university.

More information about the 47th Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards can be found at jeffawards.org.

Dr. Matt Foss, and cast members from his play, “Faithful Friends” (left to right) Sarah West as Julia, Erik Pearson as Valentine, Emily Hawkins as Silvia, and Crabbe as Himself

Dr. Matt Foss, an assistant professor of theatre with The University of Toledo Department of Theatre and Film, wrote and directed a play that was originally intended to be performed live and taken on the road to elementary schools. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic shutting down performances, he had to successfully translate the production to the online performance space and lesson plan to help those learners now at home. The play premiered online today.

Foss originally created the play, “Faithful Friends: An Adaptation of the Two Gentlemen of Verona,” in late January and has been working with the company’s staff and leadership to build the interactive modules and workshops that accompany it over the past week. The work was created for PreK-6 grade students and to tour to elementary schools. It was created in partnership with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks (MSIP), a theatre he has worked with in the past, and its Montana Shakes! program, an elementary school outreach tour seeks to make Shakespeare and other classic works accessible to young people.

Scene from the online production of “Faithful Friends” by Dr. Matt Foss, assistant professor of theatre at The University of Toledo

“Working with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks was a foundational experience early in my career. They provide free and public art across the mountain west and their mission relates closely to what I have found and seek to do here in Toledo” says Foss.

Four of Montana Shakespeare in the Parks’ teaching artists, who are safely quarantined together, filmed the play and created lesson plans through the interactive learning platform FlipGrid. To convert the project to online, Foss enlisted the help of UToledo film student, Jarrett Cunningham.

“I’ve been teaching myself to edit as fast as I can the past week, but Jarrett was able to work remotely and close my learning and ability gap to help get the performance out to students and their families as quickly as possible”

The play and lessons will be available on Montana Shakespeare in the Parks’ YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBdb7l5OuPc. Teachers who want to use the Flipgrid materials at https://flipgrid.com/montanashakes will need to have an account on the app. More information can be found on the MSIP website: https://www.shakespeareintheparks.org/

Cast and Production Crew

• Samual Cheeseman……………Proteus
• Emily Hawkins……………………..Silvia
• Erik Pearson………………………..Valentine
• Sarah West…………………………..Julia
• Crabbe……………………………….…Himself

Written and Directed By Matt Foss

Special Thanks to: Our Student Volunteers who submitted videos -Paul Heitt-Rennie and Montana PBS -Christus Collegium

PRODUCTION TEAM

• Claudia Boddy…………….Costume Designer
• Stacy Hostetter……………Properties Designer
• Matthew Foss……………..Sound Designer
• Gordon Carpenter…………Technical Director
• Anna Neikirk……………….Production Manager
• Jesse Mooney-Bullock……Puppet Designer
• Jarrett Cunningham……….Video Editor
• Katherine Norman…………Education Director
• Sarah Stanek………………Stage Manager
• Emily Cowles………………Stitcher

University of Toledo Art Department faculty Eric Zeigler (assistant professor of art, Art Print Center coordinator) and Brian Carpenter (assistant professor of art, gallery director) received international recognition for a course they designed for the department. Their paper “Engaging Tools” was published this week by the international research organization, Architecture_Media_Politics_Society (AMPS) in its conference publication, “AMPS Proceedings Series 17.1. Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World.”

Students working with tools in the Foundations of Art Studio Technologies at UToledo

Zeigler and Carpenter’s paper covers the development and implementation of a course they designed for The University of Toledo Department of Art – Foundations of Art Studio Technologies (FAST). The purpose of the course is to enhance a student’s understanding of themselves as “tool-users” and to reinforce the importance of agency that is developed through the process of “making.”

Brian Carpenter, Gallery Director and Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Toledo

The paper’s introduction states, “The paper examines…our approach for creating an environment where students understand the physical, historical, and philosophical relationships between tools; can operate and discern the components of tools, and begin to create a foundation to become a manually competent knowledge worker.”

Eric Zeigler, UToledo Assistant Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Art Print Center

“I would add that the course is a foundational component in a college career where an understanding of the components of the systems we live within needs more scrutiny and analysis than ever before,” Zeigler said.

The FAST course has been offered at UToledo since 2016 and is greatly appreciated by the students who have taken it. One remarked anonymously in a course evaluation, “I love that we are able to learn something conceptually, and then immediately apply it hands-on. This isn’t common in most classes, and I really appreciate this.”

The paper was presented last June at the AMPS conference. A compilation of all the papers presented was published this week and back dated to the date of the conference. https://architecturemps.com/proceedings/

Citation:
Zeigler, Eric; Carpenter, Brian. “Engaging Tools.” In: Ellyn Lester (ed.), AMPS Proceedings Series 17.1. Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World. Stevens Institute of Technology, USA. 17 – 19 June (2019). pp. 160-165

Deborah Orloff, Associate Chair, Photography Coordinator, Professor of Art, New Media Studies – Photography

Deborah Orloff, professor of photography and associate chair of The University of Toledo Department of Art, has received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council for her body of work, “Elusive Memory.”

According to the Ohio Arts Council website, the excellence awards “are peer recognition of artists for the exceptional merit of a body of their work that advances or exemplifies the discipline and the larger artistic community. These awards support artists’ growth and development and recognize their work in Ohio and beyond.”

Orloff said the $5,000 grant will be used to expand her “Elusive Memory” series and to exhibit it nationally.

The work was inspired by an experience she had following the death of her father in 2007 when she was preparing a eulogy for his funeral. While drawing upon specific memories, she realized all of them were directly connected to photographs, causing her to wonder if she remembered the moments, or if the pictures had created false memories.

“I wanted to make work about this phenomenon, but the project didn’t actually take form until many years later,” Orloff said.

“About five years ago, I inherited thousands of neglected prints and slides that had been in my father’s basement, where they were damaged by flooding. I started photographing them in the studio, not knowing what I would do with the images, but hoping to salvage some of the family pictures for posterity,” she said. “It wasn’t until I saw them enlarged on a computer screen that I recognized their poignancy and greater relevance: I saw metaphors for loss and the fragmentary, ephemeral nature of memory.”

Her new work utilizes the severely damage photos.

“‘Elusive Memory’ explores the significance of vernacular photographs as aesthetic objects and cultural artifacts. The resulting large-scale photographs make commonplace objects monumental and emphasize their unique details,” Orloff said.

The exhibition is on display at Workspace Gallery in Lincoln, Neb. Upcoming exhibitions include Youngstown State University’s Solomon Gallery, Vincennes University’s Shircliff Gallery in Indiana, and Anna Maria College’s Art Center Gallery in Massachusetts.

In addition, Orloff’s project was featured recently online at “Aint — Bad,” an independent publisher of new photographic art.

Samples of Orloff’s work can be seen on her website at deborahorloff.com.

Congratulations to CAL/SVPA faculty, Dan Hernandez, Thor Mednick, Denise Ritter-Bernardini, Stephen Sakowski, and Matt Yockey on being recognized in 2018 as faculty making Outstanding Contributions in Scholarly and Creative Activity. President Sharon Gaber and Provost Andrew Hsu sponsor the special recognition and the arts faculty received 20% of the University-wide awards.

Daniel Hernandez, MFA, Art Studio

Daniel Hernandez is represented by Kim Foster Gallery in New York, New York. Dan’s work is also found in Private and gallery collections nationally and internationally, including: Private Collection, Beth Rudin DeWoody, New York, Florida; Coleccion SOLO, Madrid, Spain – Colección SOLO is a dynamic and passionate quest to champion contemporary art. It is a vibrant, international collection, driven by a genuine commitment to creativity and the desire to bring inspirational artworks to the widest possible audience; Private Collection, Pierre Donnersberg, Paris, France; Gary Snyder Fine Art, New York; Private Collection, Phillippe Escaravage and Charlotte Forbes, New Jersey; Private Collection, Richard and Nadine Woldenberg, Chicago; Private Collection, Eric & Staci Flatt, New York; and Private Collection, Joseph & Beth DiProspero, London.

Hernandez’s paintings explore the visual dialog between religion, mythology, and pop culture. He is represented by Kim Foster Gallery in New York City. His work is exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and has been written about in a number of publications including ARTnews, HyperAllergic, Artillery Magazine, Arte Fuse, Gizmodo, Der Spiegel. Dan was selected for an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellency Award in 2011 and in 2015.  Dan Hernandez creates intricate tableaux that blend religious iconography with the contemporary visual language of video games, two genres which somehow collapse seamlessly together in farcical send-ups of culture and society.

Thor Mednick, PhD, Art History

Thor Mednick specializes in the art of nineteenth-century Denmark, he has published on painters such as P.S. Krøyer and Vilhelm Hammershøi, and on the relationship of agricultural reform to nineteenth-century Danish landscape painting. He is the co-curator of From the Golden Age to the Modern Breakthrough: Danish Paintings from the Collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr. (New York, 2013) and Jorforbindelser: Dansk maleri 1780-1920 og det antropocene landskab (Denmark, 2017-2019).He is a former Fellow of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the Ambassador John L Loeb, Jr Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society, and a legatee of the Danish Ministry of Culture. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Copenhagen and the University of California at Los Angeles, and a Visiting Professor at Fuglsang Museum and Faaborg Museum, in Denmark.

In 2017, Mednick was invited by Dr. Karina Lykke Grand, Assistant Professor of Art History at Aarhus University, to be the international consultant on a major research project on art and national identity in nineteenth-century Denmark. The project has been given a grant of more than $1,000,000 (US) to support Dr. Grand, a doctoral student, a post-doc, and travel and research expenses for Mednick and another scholar from the University of Copenhagen. The grant comes from The Independent Research Fund, within the Danish Ministry for Higher Education and Science.

Dr. Denise Ritter Bernardini, PhD, Voice

Denise appears on both the concert and opera stage in music of many periods.  She is known for her ability to sing a variety of styles, her brilliant high notes, pure tone, communicative warmth and musical intelligence.  She has been a performer throughout the US with extensive Oratorio experience under the batons of world renowned conductors such as Robert Shaw and John Rutter. Her recent oratorio performances have included Verdi’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Pergolesi’s Magnificat, Bach’s Missa in A Major, Dvorak’s Te Deum, and Mozart’s Requiem.

In addition, she has performed with orchestras such as Fort Worth Symphony, Tulsa Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Symphony of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Symphony as well as many other symphonic organizations. Denise’s operatic roles include her recently performed  Mother in Amahl and The Night Visitors, La Traviata in Charlottesville Virginia as Violetta as well as with Master Works Festival.

Denise has been a soloist in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops as well as the Actor’s Club in New York. A recent performance of her one-woman classical cabaret show took her to Leibnitz, Austria where she performed for the International University of Global Theater to an audience representing thirty-two different countries.

Stephen Sakowski, MFA, Theatrical Lighting

Stephen Sakowski has worked as the Lighting Director or Assistant Lighting Director for the major entertainment/arts events listed above. His event and television lighting work, recognized at the highest level of production, is transferred to his university productions as well. 

Stephen has served as the Lighting Director/Assistant Director for the NBA All-Star Games. The National Basketball Association, (NBA) is a leading sports organization with an All-Star Game viewing audience of 7.175M in 2015, 7.614M in 2016 and 7.751M in 2017, respectively. Lighting for these half-time performances have been for some of the most internationally-known performers, including: Cirque du Soleil, Sting, The Roots, and John Legend.

Stephen has also won awards for his lighting design associated with The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, (KCACTF). KCACTF is a national theater program involving 20,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide annually. For 47 years, the organization has served as a catalyst in improving the quality of college theater in the United States. KCACTF has grown into a network of more than 700 academic institutions throughout the country. The regional groups are funded and administratively support by the Kennedy Center.

Matt Yockey,  PhD, Film Studies

Yockey’s research focus is on Hollywood genres and fan studies. His essays on these topics have appeared in journals such as The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, The Velvet Light Trap, CineAction, Transformative Works and Cultures, Journal of Fandom Studies, The European Journal of American Studies, and Studies in Comics, as well as the anthologies Critical Approaches to the Films of M. Night Shyamalan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Superhero Synergies: Comic Book Characters Go Digital (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), and The X-Men Films: A Cultural Analysis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). His monograph on the 1960s Batman television series was published by Wayne State University Press in 2014. He is the editor of the anthology Make Ours Marvel: Media Convergence and a Comics Universe (University of Texas Press, 2017).
Matt’s writings on culture and film can be found journals such as, the European Journal of American Studies and the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, and in book chapters published by such notable presses as, the University of Texas Press, Wiley Blackwell, Rowman & Littlefied, and Palgrave Macmillan. Matt also has an extensive listing of professional paper presentations.

SEPTEMBER 13-15

DOWNTOWN TOLEDO (PROMENADE PARK, IMAGINATION STATION OUTDOOR AREAS)

University of Toledo School of Visual and Performing Arts faculty and students are involved in the festival in a BIG way! We are presenting several attractions this year. Look for us on Saturday afternoon at the Mini Maker Faire (Noon-6 p.m.).  The Faire is the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth—a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker Movement. It’s a place where people show what they are making, and share what they are learning. Makers range from tech enthusiasts to crafters to homesteaders to scientists to garage tinkerers. They are of all ages and backgrounds. The aim of Maker Faire is to entertain, inform, connect and grow this community.

UT ATTRACTIONS AT MOMENTUM

ALL TOGETHER NOW

JULIA LABAY DARRAH + YUSUF LATEEF (ALUMNA AND UT PART-TIME FACULTY)

All Together Now combines aspects of play, sculpture, and installation using interchangeable life-size forms. These lightweight sculptures will feature a conglomerate of images of the human body and will be placed on a stage, inviting participants to interact with the forms to create a “family photo”.

DIALOGUE WITH THE RIVER

BARBARA MINER (UT PROFESSOR OF ART, CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ART)

Dialogue With The River will be a group completed project, enabling hundreds of people to participate in the creation of an aesthetically engaging, temporary work of art. Based on Tibetan Prayer Flags, hand silk-screened flags with environmental information about the Maumee River and Lake Erie printed on the colorful fabric will be created. The flags will be available for individuals to write on and create “dialogues”, “wishes” or “pledges” for the health of the river and the lake. The customized flags will then be strung on the tent like uprights, creating a moving wind-driven sculpture. The idea is that the wind will carry the good wishes and the promises out into the world in hopes that the newly gained awareness of the river’s plight will influence the choices each of us makes. Didactic materials from regional and national groups such as Partners for Clean Streams, The Black Swamp Conservancy, and the Nature Conservancy will be available for visitors.

ECO PARADE

MATT FOSS (ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF THEATRE, UT DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE AND FILM)

Eco Parade showcases our community water source biodiversity, ecological need, and health with aims at improving our collective relationship and stewardship of the system as a whole. The parade will feature large format puppets and performance, live music, and community created objects; everyone will be invited to participate in the processional.

BUBBLE BUTT

SABA: SAM SHEFFIELD + BARRY WHITTAKER
(SHEFFIELD – BALTIMORE ARTIST, WHITTAKER – ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ART, UT DEPARTMENT OF ART)

Players will work as a team to explore a surreal and humorous landscape as a pair of sentient pants. Players must work together by bouncing on a convoluted, two-person, human-powered interface to control each leg of the pants avatar as it journeys through a series of ridiculous obstacles and distractions. Enjoy this work on Saturday, September 15th at the Toledo Mini Maker Faire.

STEM

MATTHEW DANSACK + SEBASTIEN SCHOHN (UT ART ALUMNI)

Stem is a digital interactive media project using multiple song stems (tracks of one or two instruments used to make a song) to allow participants a chance to create new song compositions. By interacting with an installation of amps, record crates, and digital technology, users can arrange the stems to create and download a song. Special thank you to Vincent Chiaverini for guitar samples.

UT BIODESIGN CHALLENGE PROJECTS AND BIOMATERIAL DEMONSTRATIONS

Professors Brian Carpenter and Eric Zeigler, along with UT students, will present Biodesign Projects by student teams that will engage with the greater public in a dialogue about real-world issues and potential solutions through biotechnology. Students will exhibit their prototypes along with their research.  Many of the prototypes made use of a 3D printer, CNC lasers, and CNC routers.  Additionally, UT faculty Brian Carpenter and Eric Zeigler will be performing simple biomaterial demonstrations. These demonstrations explore low-tech methods and materials that encourage playful interactions, to stimulate creativity, enabling the end user to tinker, design and build their own devices and realize the potential of imagination.

Toledo, OH, July 18th, 2018 – The National Educational Telecommunications Association (“NETA”) has contracted with Professor Holly Hey, Head of the Film/Video program at the University of Toledo for exclusive public television distribution rights of Hey’s film “Crossing Water – Flint Michigan – 2017,” a documentary about the ongoing water crisis in Flint, MI. Hey worked with the non-profit service organization Crossing Water to highlight the continuing needs and challenges facing the residents of Flint and the social service volunteers who help them. The film will broadcast regionally for the first time on WNED Buffalo, NY on Saturday August 11 at 5 p.m. Katherine Larsen senior director of Radio/TV programming for WNED says Hey’s film is a, “great program on an ongoing issue. Clean water is vital to our communities, especially in the Great Lakes region.”

Holly Hey, Professor of Film – The University of Toledo

Flint, Michigan made national news in 2014 when the city’s emergency manager switched the source of the city’s water, plaguing residents with a host of immediate and toxic problems, including: deadly bacteria, outbreaks and deaths from Legionnaires’ disease, and the wide-spread presence of lead in the city’s drinking water. In the film, Hey highlights the work of Crossing Water, a nonprofit organization that brings together social workers and other volunteers to bring water, services, and access to resources to the hardest hit residents of Flint. Hey weaves together multiple stories of Crossing Water volunteers, staff, and Flint residents, creating a portrait of what it is like to live within an ongoing systemic disaster. Crossing Water Executive Director Michael Hood called the film “a sobering story of the Flint water crisis.” Hey believes that all Americans should care about Flint because it’s a crisis that is indicative of the future for many US communities. According to CNN, over 5,300 municipalities around the country are in violation of lead rules. Hey says, “eventually systems will fail in any community, systems essential to human life like water and power. We can’t ignore that we are all vulnerable to such collapse, wherever we live in America.”

ABOUT THE MOVIE

Learning by Doing & Pouring (from April JJC Newsletter)

The basement of the Juvenile Justice Center served as an art studio for University of Toledo students enrolled in the “Media and Methods in Therapeutic Art” course, on Monday, April 2.

Instructor Renée Obrock had her students convene at the Juvenile Court, meeting up with court-involved youth and Probation staff Tim Bauerschmidt, Bill Weis, Lisa Demko, Kristen McClain, Angie Morgan, Elizabeth Sepeda, Kineka Wallace, and Ed Cox, and East Toledo Family Center staff, Makayla King, Onna Moore, and two interns.

The group activity involved a combination paint and resin pour on top of wood plaques. Over 60 wood plaques were prepared for the two different art sessions. The work space was broken up into stations for each of the precise steps involved: from mixing the paint, combining the components for the resin, to selecting paint colors and creating.

The UT students, whose majors ranged from Psychology to Disability Studies to Women & Gender Studies worked alongside youth and staff.
     

Ms. Obrock, who has a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts and a Masters of Art Education, said class, “Media and Methods in Therapeutic Art,” hadn’t met the minimum number of registrants in a while, so she created a flier to drum up participation. The flier, circulated beyond the Art Education department to the Psychology department, helped promote the class beyond the usual majors. In short order the class filled, resulting in an opportunity for expanding the teaching of therapeutic art to non-art majors. She first became aware of the Juvenile Court’s Positive Youth Justice focus in probation through Joe Szafarowicz.

While waiting, the UT students shared the stories of the paths that brought them to this particular class and inspired their career choice. One of the students shared that while on a mission trip to Central America a language barrier was easily hurdled by “communicating through doing,”
-Marty McIntyre, JJC

From the desk of the Arts Commission Director, Marc Folk:

April 2018 Newsletter

Community Collaborations

High school artist Lynwood Fisher (Rogers High School) with University of Toledo Professor of Art Thomas Lingeman. Lynwood
was recognized with the University of Toledo Department of Art Award during the 35th annual Ninth Congressional District
Invitational Art Exhibition. Photo credit: Tom Whalen

The Arts Commission values our continued and deepening partnership with the University of Toledo. We have collaborated with our UT neighbors on youth education programming, Art in Public Places conservation projects with Professor of Art Thomas Lingeman, Student Art League involvement in Momentum led by Associate Professor of Art Arturo Rodriguez, and many more examples. Our board of trustees also benefits from the inclusion of UT Department of Art Assistant Professor Dan Hernandez, currently serving as co-chair of the Art in Public Places committee.

Beginning in 2010, the Art Department has generously hosted the worksite of our Young Artists At Work (YAAW) program in their state of the art studio facilities. The YAAW apprentices benefit from their exposure to university studios, expert faculty and positive interactions with undergraduate art students. Access to digital technologies, printmaking presses and a professional gallery space provide opportunities for the YAAW apprentices to explore new visual art media and gain marketable job skills during their six-week summer employment with The Arts Commission.

Since 2007, The University of Toledo has annually sponsored monetary awards for The Ninth Congressional District Invitational Art Exhibition. Presented by Congresswoman Kaptur and The Arts Commission, this program invites high school artists who live in the Ninth Congressional District to showcase their talent in the form of two-dimensional visual artwork. Starting in 2016, The University of Toledo deepened their involvement with the program by integrating the exhibition design and installation of the Toledo portion of the Congressional exhibition into their Gallery Practice course curriculum.

The Arts Commission’s staff are thankful to work alongside many talented University of Toledo student interns. We applaud the university faculty for the contributions they have made in the lives of their students as they consider careers in the arts and culture sector.

We thank the University of Toledo Art Department for their many contributions to our community, continued partnership in supporting talented youth artists, and leadership in advocating for arts, culture and education.

A one-day public program that began in Detroit and finished in Toledo explored the impact of the African-American Great Migration on literary and musical expression in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.

The program, “I Got a Lust for Life: The Unique Words and Sounds of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan,” included panel discussions, poetry readings and musical performances on Saturday, Jan. 20, in Detroit at Wayne State University and in Toledo at the Toledo Lucas County Public Library and Toledo Museum of Art.

The program began in Detroit with panel discussion at Wayne State University’s Schaver Music Recital Hall. The panel included Ben Blackwell, co-founder of Third Man Records and official archivist for the White Stripes; John Gibbs Rockwood, Toledo author of the 2014 book “Can I Get a Witness” that features his photographs of iconic rock, pop, blues and folk musicians performing in the region during the early 1970s through the 2000s; Ramona Collins, Toledo-based popular jazz singer; and Oliver Ragsdale Jr., president of the Carr Center, a community hub for African-American artistic expression in Detroit.

Detroit morning event (Schaver Music Recital Hall, Old Main, Wayne State University)

“I Got a Lust for Life” then moved to Toledo, where Tyehimba Jess performed a poetry reading and held a book signing at the McMaster Center of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library. Jess is a 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning poet from Detroit whose work has focused on music, biography and African-American history. He read read from “Olio,” his award-winning collection of poetry that weaves together sonnet, song and narrative to examine the lives of mostly unrecorded, African-American performers from the Civil War to World War I.

McMaster Center, Main Library, Toledo Lucas County Public Library

The program  concluded with a panel discussion in the Glass Pavilion of the Toledo Museum of Art with Jess; M.L. Liebler, a Detroit-based, award-winning poet and editor of the anthology “Heaven Was Detroit: From Jazz to Hip-Hop and Beyond”; Frances Brockington, associate professor of voice at Wayne State University; and Dr. Lee Ellen Martin, jazz vocalist and Jon Hendricks scholar.  Mack and Duchan moderated the discussion, which was followed by a musical performance  by UT Jazz students an alumni.

“I Got a Lust for Life” in the TMA Glass Pavilion.

“I Got a Lust for Life: The Unique Words and Sounds of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan” was sponsored by the Roger Ray Institute for the Humanities at The University of Toledo, which advocates for and supports the study of human culture — from a great variety of fields — at all levels of learning and scholarship. Additional support for the program was provided by UT, WSU, the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, Toledo.com and the Toledo Museum of Art.