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Here is the story, from my remembrances
and bits and pages of yellowing papers,
of the birth of the Valley Art Center.

By Ann Over

My family’s first house, in Chagrin Falls, was an old Western Reserve style at 35 South Main. We moved in late October, 1961 from Indiana, and the valley was full of color, most especially beautiful maple trees. My oldest son found a buddy, Corky, who lived on the same street up the hill and soon his mother, Eleanor Over, and I became friends. I enrolled my three-year-old son in Alice Fitz’s preschool in her home just behind the Over’s house. East of the Over’s lived Dolly, the “puppet lady” whom I would later know as Lilly Criswell, knower of all thing pertaining to the Chagrin Falls Artists. Betty Solether, from across the street, dropped in to tell me how hard it was to become part of the town. Her mother-in-law owned the movie theater in this Western Reserve community and she said the old timers “felt more New England than New England”.

The village was going through a difficult adjustment. It was evolving from a small town into a bedroom community of Cleveland. The old timers felt threatened by the new.

In March, I attended a Chagrin Falls Artists meeting in the Old Town Hall and introduced myself to some members. In the spring, I would walk with my little boys to the donut shop, and with a sack of sweet circles, we would walk down broken stairs to the base of the large falls, sit on a rock and ponder. I knew I wanted to continue making art, and the side parlor was perfect studio space. No way could I have known that in two years it would become a gallery.

After Christmas I began some new paintings. One was of the Chagrin River seen as it swept away from the bridge and the large falls, and one was of a deserted Indiana one room schoolhouse. The annual exhibit of the Chagrin Falls Artists would open at the Old Town Hall in the fall. I was told it was enthusiastically enjoyed by residents, visitors to our picturesque town, and artists who submitted new pieces each year for prizes. Preparing for this show took lots of energy and work. Heavy flats, stored in the Old Town Hall basement, were pulled upstairs and placed in traffic patterns enabling the art to be properly viewed. The male members, with Bob Takatch leading, had constructed standing frames holding heavy composite board, 6 feet by 8 feet, on which to hang our paintings. Our local primitive artist, Max Barnard, would deliver his work with painted frames as part of the picture. It was more practical and cheaper, he explained, to paint a frame on his painting panel. There was always an argument as to how to handle rejected work. One year we held a “Salon de Refuse” in the balcony, but that was poor compensation and made several artists unhappy. The Old Town Hall Show was a great social time for all of us…working to hang the show, sit the show, and take down.

I won a blue ribbon, in my first year, for the Indiana schoolhouse. Someone came up at the opening of the show and said, “The only reason you won is that Joan is pregnant!” It took someone else to explain that Joan Kerber had been taking the blue ribbon for several years. Later, when I saw her wonderful abstracts, I knew why.

But I was happy and now getting to know the members of the organization, enjoying meetings in various homes and participating in potluck dinners. I remember an early controversy when the majority vote chose to open the required borders for exhibit applicants. We would now include much larger area for membership than our town and a small area outside. The minority felt threatened with a larger pool of new members, but we added some talented artists, some from Cleveland, Orange, Moreland Hills and Gates Mills.

In February of 1963 my family moved to 31 South Street. Before my move, Nancy Martt asked me to join her in teaching children’s art classes. We rented space over Chess’s Cracker Barrel next to the Popcorn Shop. The windows looked over the falls. It was a good space and had a closet with a large wash tub used by a former hairdresser. A small room with toilet was in the hall next to the stairs...a necessity for children’s classes. (This space is now used for law offices and is over the Fireside Bookstore.) Nancy named our “school” the Studio-Workshop. After several weeks we added adult classes, and among the first seven students was Jane Spock, the wife of Dr. Spock of baby book fame.

We also offered the Studio-Workshop for Chagrin Artists meetings. As president, Nancy managed to pass a resolution to rent the large side room at 35 Main for a gallery. We would staff it with volunteers from our group. The vote was very close; many members were afraid of any financial commitment. Soon, finding that members wanted to hang on the walls but not sit and sell, Lil Fueger and Del Gimmel took over the gallery and gave many shows. They called it Gallery 35 and painted the floor for each opening to go with the exhibit. How many coats of paint those old board experienced, I do not know, but I remember having a show with a new artist in town, George Roby.

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