CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – Some say that life imitates art; for Ariel Vergez, art is his life.
“For me, art is breathing, so it’s something that I have to do,” he explained. “If I’m not doing art, I’m suffocating.”
On Thursday, the spray-paint muralist did just that, continuing his work on Walton Avenue as part of the Art Garden project.
Vergez received nearly $400,000 from the city of Cleveland to mentor local artists in order to produce 10 murals across the Clark-Fulton neighborhood. “Really just celebrate the community’s resilience,” he said.
Transforming Storer Avenue [and adjacent Near West communities] into a vibrant Art Garden, this project merges murals, sculptures, and green spaces to reflect the cultural essence of Clark-Fulton. With community training and deep local partnerships, it symbolizes investment in creativity, neighborhood pride, and long-term revitalization.
“I think that as with a lot of people in this neighborhood, we just hoped things would get brighter,” said fellow artist Priscilla Florian.
“This is really about recovering and helping the artist economy rebuild and scale back,” said Arts and Culture Advisor for the City of Cleveland Rhonda Brown. “The impact of the pandemic was really rough on our artist community, because many of them are self-employed…all of that revenue stopped for almost 3 years.”
Vergez explained the mural on Walton Avenue is a series inspired by literature: “We’ve converted famous literature books inspired by their covers and created letters out of them—glyphs—so we call them ‘lit glyphs.’”
The muralist hopes to complete this piece within the next two weeks, but hopes his work doesn’t end with the Art Garden.
“There’s 5,627 houses and buildings from 25th to 65th and Lorain to Denison,” he said. “I think a third of them should get painted.”
It’s all part of his desire for others to have a little more art in their lives: “Those that want to breathe and sleep painting, I welcome them to it.”
The city of Cleveland will host a community event to celebrate the completion of the Art Garden project next Saturday, September 6th from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
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