The City Artists built

Helping Artists Navigate Their Way Home

Creative Compass

Cleveland, Ohio. While not everyone realizes it, the city is home to one of the largest concentrations of artists in the country. Cleveland’s plentiful industrial warehouses, distinct neighborhoods, low cost-of-living and extraordinary quality of life have drawn a massive concentration of artists to live and work in Northeast Ohio.

At the same time, Cleveland has a nationally recognized network of high-quality community development professionals. Every day, these individuals are working to revitalize the neighborhoods that give our city and our region its unique character.

But CPAC believes that we can do even more to position the city as a national creative hub and an urban laboratory for reinventing “Rust Belt” cities through arts and culture. In 2007, we launched Creative Compass, a multi-year initiative to increase artists’ access to affordable home and business space and to make them more active partners in revitalizing our urban neighborhoods. In the coming years, Creative Compass will educate artists about obtaining affordable space and will educate community development professionals about the unique roles artists can play as neighborhood residents.

Through an innovative series of programming, in partnership with Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), we’ll launch a new conversation about how Cleveland, and other cities in the industrial Midwest, can serve their artist communities … and how artists can revolutionize how we think of industrial cities.

First up is From Rust Belt to Artist Belt. On Wednesday, May 14, CPAC will convene community development professionals working in “Rust Belt” cities about the unique challenges and opportunities that such communities face in conducting artist-oriented community development. Participants will hear from national leaders in the field and will begin to talk about what a regional agenda for moving such initiatives forward might look like.

Dowload Mail-in Registration Information here

Online registration is available.  To register online please follow these steps:

1.  Join our "Online Community"

2.  Log-In

3. Visit the Events Calendar and register online

If you have any difficulty registering online, please call us at (216) 575-0331 x124

Brought to you by CPAC with generous support from:

Dominion

Cleveland - Ward 13

Additional support from:

The Abington Foundation, The Eva L. and Joseph M. Bruening Foundation, The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, The John P. Murphy Foundation, The Kulas Foundation and The Thomas H. White Foundation.

In the coming months, we’ll launch other Creative Compass programming, including educational programming for artists seeking space, a housing expo where artists will be able to meet with community development professionals in a “one-stop shop” and an online clearinghouse of resources available to artists in Northeast Ohio, including information on affordable space opportunities, low-interest loans and housing grants. Check this page soon for additional information!