Collaborative Art
Bringing people together through art is what it is all about. Together we can amplify our voice to promote hope and empathy to our community. Listed below are just a few of the many ways Michael engages with the creative community.
Birdsong
Michael has had the privilege over the past three years to be a major part of the “Birdsong” community art project. This installation was the brainchild of Adriana Caso and continues to grow and now includes 180 artists and over 1,500 community member contributions
Check out more information and a video explanation here:
Door 2 Community
Michael serves as the Associate Director of Door 2 Art Studio. His role sees him provide vision and strategy for programming, systems and collaborations.
This includes activities like building partnerships, planning speaker series’, moderating critiques, mentoring artists and arts organizations, designing class and workshop series, and much more. It brings him great joy to listen to artists, discover what they need to progress and then find a way to provide that through the Door 2 community.
Check out more information at Door2art.com
County Excellence Exhibition
This year Michael was thrilled to have two pieces shown in the Summit “State of the County, Artistic Excellence Exhibition”. He enjoys being active in the local arts community and his desire is to help raise the tide along with the efforts of many other amazing artists.
Murals
Michael routinely has the opportunity to be involved in painting, and or designing murals in the community and abroad.
Pictured here, he and a team from Door 2 paint a mural he designed for the entry way to “Scuola Di Vita”, a Door 2 partner in the heart of Rome, Italy as well as an additional roman mural he painted on.
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Birdsong Italia
An extension of the Birdsong project, Birdsong Italia is an installation partnership with the city of Alatri, Alatri Cultura and Chiesa Hopera which brings together artists from central Italy and unites them under a common vision of hope and unity with their counter parts in the “Birdsong” installation.
Check out more information and a video explanation here:
Classes and workshops
Michael loves to learn new things, and that is with the mind that the more he learns, the more information he has to empower others. Consequently designing, teaching, and contributing to workshops both locally and internationally has become one of Michael’s favorite rhythms.
Collaborative Gallery Shows
Art is better together so Michael seeks to regularly participate in group shows with other artists at locations such as: Akron Art Museum, The Moos Gallery, Summit Artspace, The Peg’s Foundation Gallery, Western Reserve Hospital and many more.
It is always a pleasure to see how their visions complement each other and how together they can have an amplified voice to bring positivity to the community.
Door 2 Juried Show
As part of his role at Door 2 Art Studio he gets to design the jury process for their annual juried show which offers substantial prizes and includes categories for painting, sculpture, mixed media and new media.
The show has a committee of jurors who are intentionally selected from a diverse set of art specialties to ensure as wide an array of art as possible is advocated for and has the potential to receive recognition.
Western Reserve Hospital
Michael loves to show his work in medical settings as much of his work is both medical in nature and aimed at helping people feel seen, heard and valued.
In addition to group shows, Michael has had multiple solo shows at Western Reserve as well as contributing to their semi-permanent collection.
