Art and Soul of Buckeye Park

How it Started

Cleveland Public Art, ParkWorks, Buckeye Area Development Corporation (BADC), and the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority collaborated to enhance the southwest corner of Buckeye Rd. and E. 118th St., rechristened the Art and Soul of Buckeye Park, in its ability to function as a park, festival ground, transit-waiting environment, and public parking lot.

For its part, CPA led the process of creating four new artworks for the park. The process involved choosing the artists and coordinating their work.

About the Work

Angelica Pozo of Cleveland and James Simon of Pittsburgh designed the park's permanent public art. Pozo's work consists of mosaics that run along a new concrete bench and includes chessboards and hand-painted tiled seating areas. Simon's sculpture, a larger-than-life jazz musician playing a trumpet while being watched by a little dog, is the park’s eye-catching centerpiece.

Photographer Chip Carter, formerly of Cleveland, and muralist Francisca Ugalde of Hudson created two temporary (two- to five-year) murals for the building walls that face the park. Carter's mural, in the form of five large photographs, and Ugalde's hand- painted mural on wood panels with collage elements, are both inspired by the Buckeye Neighborhood.

The park’s redevelopment is a component of both BADC’s vision for the arts as a tool for neighborhood revitalization and Neighborhood Progress, Inc.’s Strategic Investment Initiative, which focuses investment in six promising Cleveland neighborhoods, including Buckeye.

To view a video of the Art & Soul of Buckeye Park dedication, click here.