A sense of place—an artist’s response to a familiar landscape or an exotic new locale—is a recurring theme throughout art history and in the galleries of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

As Greater Clevelanders, we are acutely aware of changes in our communities. Even decline becomes an opportunity for rebirth.

As plants, and organizations too, branch out, the branches themselves sometimes grow roots, becoming self-sustaining in a new environment while maintaining ties to their original source. In this way we support ourselves and each other and enable our community to flourish.

A door, a portal, a port—a marker of coming and going, welcoming and saying good-bye.

A beginning of sharing culture and tradition, creativity and innovation.

In late June 2010, the Cleveland Museum of Art opens its newest door, unveiling reinstalled galleries on the lower level of the original 1916 building. These galleries showcase the museum’s collections of the ancient art of Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome; the arts of late antiquity, the Byzantine Empire, and the European Middle Ages; as well as the collection of African art.

The art objects in these collections were once integral to living cultures, and many were used actively in daily life, ceremonies, rituals, and festivals. What a perfect opportunity for Parade the Circle, a Cleveland tradition of ritual and celebration, to recognize this portal of cultural exchange. African mask makers, musicians, and dancers from Burkina Faso will share the living traditions of the Bwa people with Cleveland and enliven Parade 2010.

Artist> Muse> Ruminate> Create> a parade... a museum

The creative process begins with the Muse, the vision, frequently something on the periphery of our conscious awareness; then comes the fiddling with the idea, sifting its many parts like grains of sand, arranging them until everything finds its proper relationship and weight; finally committed to the statement, the artist "runs with it,” putting paint to canvas.

With its renovation and expansion project, the museum, literally “temple of the muses,” followed this same process. Now with the vision and the deliberating essentially complete, the commitment has been made, the skipping has picked up steam, and the running is underway.

natural wisdom supporting an exuberant spirit

In Catalonia, Spain, two components form the Catalan personality: seny, an instinctive and reliable sense of order, couples with rauxa, an ebullient spirit and love of almost excessive gaiety and frivolity both in life and in the arts. These complementary elements formed the basis for Modernism, the art movement centered in Barcelona, which brought us Gaudí as well as Dalí, Miro, and Picasso. The Cleveland Museum of Art reopened with the special exhibition Barcelona & Modernity [9], October 15, 2006-January 7, 2007.