The MASK-R-AID online exhibition features 38 masks out of the 102 masks that were submitted to Curated Storefront’s Call for Artists. The MASK-R-AID exhibition and awards were juried by Curated Storefront’s Curatorial Committee.

In response to the CDC's recommendation for people to wear masks in public and as COVID-19 continues to impact the arts ecosystem, Curated Storefront announces a call for artists to create functional masks to be put into production, sold online at www.CuratedStorefront.org, and exhibited at a Curated Storefront site.

Curated Storefront’s mission is to support the creative economy by continuing to provide artists with a source of income. Half of the proceeds from sales will go back to artists directly with the remainder benefiting Curated Storefront. This puts great art in the hands and on the faces of the public while helping them to stay safe.

For a city to be considered alive, a certain number of lights must be shining at night. I am sure there is an equation that factors in the size and population and spits out the number of watts necessary to achieve the appropriate lumens required for an “Alive” rating.

Two years ago, Downtown Akron began shifting into that category when recently retired businessman Rick Rogers and his mighty crew founded the project known as Curated Storefront. With the help of designer Courtney Cable and installers Casey Vogt and Steve Levey, Rogers is adding life to Akron’s Downtown.

On Saturday afternoon, the Akron/Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau hoped to entice at least some of those gamers to experience the public art covering walls and storefronts downtown and perhaps catch a shiny Squirtle or secure a coveted mythical Celebi.

The event, dubbed Good Art Hunting, is one of three planned here over the next few months and is being spearheaded by Roger Riddle, the visitors bureau’s marketing and social media manager, in collaboration with the game’s creator. It came about from a Niantic/Knight Fellowship designed to enhance community programs and is among similar events in cities like Philadelphia; Macon, Ga.; and Charlotte, N.C.

Cities are living organisms that change from day to day and year to year. As time passes, some parts of a city can get left behind. This happens for a variety of reasons, because of lack of money, or because the pressure to make a substantive change is too great, and people just can’t comprehend it.

Akron is no different than countless cities throughout North America. Parts of Akron highlight the robust, diverse and quality community we know it to be and other parts seemingly limp along. While we would all love for them to become more vibrant, and of course we would support that type of growth, how to start that ball rolling might be out of our grasp.

Curated Storefront is a 2016 $100,000 Knight Arts Challenge winner that aims to showcase buildings that are abandoned, with a few under renovation, through ongoing, curated exhibitions. The current multimedia work ranges from brilliantly lit LED displays to digitally printed, cut and folded paper houses.

The idea is to draw people into downtown and activate the properties, some of which sat empty for years but sold or were rented within months of being highlighted through the project, said Executive Director Rick Rogers.

Today, Akron Community Foundation’s board of directors approved grants totaling $2,217,890, including $588,500 in competitive arts and culture grants chosen by the foundation’s Community Investment Committee.

This quarter’s arts and culture funding included a $5,000 grant to The Curated Storefront to bring vibrancy to downtown Akron through window art displays in vacant street-level buildings.

"Passing through downtown Akron will now be a little more colorful thanks to a project called Curated Storefront. The project puts art installations in buildings at street-level, including vacant spaces, in an effort to make urban areas more welcoming. There are 13 installations in all."

Click the title link to experience the full segment by WKSU Producer, Andrew Atkins.