Susie Frazier Mueller

Susie Frazier Mueller is one of Cleveland's most dynamic arts entrepreneurs. A visual artist herself known for her integration of art and nature, she has created Sparx in the City to stimulate vibrant street life with the summer-long Street Beats program and the Sparx Gallery Hop taking place this weekend.

Cool Cleveland: Where did the original idea for Sparx In The City come from? We did some work with Joan Perch in 2002 to design an Arts Master Plan for Euclid Avenue, and out of this came ideas like the storefront window projects, and the fire hydrant project. How did this evolve into the Sparx Gallery Hop and Street Beats?

Susie Frazier Mueller: Literally all the ideas in that first year came out of your Master Plan: gallery tours, installations, fire hydrants. We earmarked four or five ideas out of that Master Plan that could be pulled off. We shook out what could and couldn’t be pulled off, and what stuck was the Gallery Hop and Street Beats. What resulted was a strategic plan of a whole summer of street activities, rather than an event. We realized we were more of a marketing plan for Downtown, rather than an arts event. After last year, we realized that we could only do so much as a quasi-grass roots effort. Until you can gain relationships outside of your areas of expertise, you’ll never make a big impact. We needed more execution of events. Tenable, Executive Arrangements. We needed Downtown Cleveland Partnership. And you can have a great plan and a great event, but if you don’t have major media, you’ll never make the impact. And that was the third piece: Channel 3, Clear Channel, Cleveland Magazine, Plain Dealer.

Why do you think you’ve been successful when so many others have tried but not been able to gain traction?

Because I never accept NO as the final answer. Because I’m an anal perfectionist. Because I’d rather stay up until 3 in the morning rather than have something come off wrong. Artists get stigmatized as flighty or not organized, and I fight very, very hard to put down that stereotype. Street performers have been happening since the begining of time. Gallery exhibits are nothing new. But now people are banding together to make neighborhoods the real destinations, and not just one gallery. I’ve decided that Cleveland’s leadership has spent a lot of effort and a lot of money in building the structures, and we need the structures, but it has been at the expense of creating the scene. You’ve got to have street life, and a pulse, and events that are ongoing. You have the big attractions, but what is it like when you walk out the door? Is it fun? You have to have a sixth sense about what people want, what residents want, what visitors say they want. It’s not always about identifying the big event, it’s about the street life.

What is the budget, and how were you able to gain support, funding and cooperation from so many varied sources?

That diversity is a necessity of this business. If you don’t look for multiple sources of income, you’re putting too many eggs in one basket. National City is the presenting sponsor and they will continue to grow with us. They are very responsive. That’s a great sign when corporations want to work with artists. And American Greetings. They see it as perks for their employees, they want them to feel good about living in Cleveland. It’s good for retention. Foundations it’s a different story. Cleveland Foundation came in at the highest level. I don’t know if enough can be said about them: they are responsive to this region. They want measurable outcomes. You have to make your proposal and execution everything in more. The budget is now almost a half million. Cleveland’s On Fire was $30,000 cash, plus other contribution it totalled about $47,000 and that was in 2003. Now we have about $200,000 in cash, plus about $250,000 in kind. Some of this isn’t just in-kind; we’ve also created new models. The Cleveland Gallery Guide we’ve created stands on its own, and it probably will, since it is advertising supported. We didn’t put our branding on it, because it’s Cleveland’s Gallery Guide. It was professionally put together by Great Lakes Publishing, 32 pages full color, we printed 20,000 of them. All the galleries got them and we’ll distribute them at all the trolley stops next week. Now we’ve seen Johnny’s Downtown rent a flatbed and they’re putting music on it, for the whole neighborhood. We were doing small trios and duos out in front of their restaurant with Sparx, now they are taking it upon themselves to create their own happenings. It would be great if Sparx could become defunct someday, if everyone stepped up.

Talk about Street Beats and what effect it’s had this summer, putting artists right on the streets of Downtown Cleveland.

We’re looking at how to make it more impactful. This was the first time we paid artists really well. Soloists were paid $100 for 2 hours, and ensembles were paid up to $1200. We spent $58,000 on performers, these are professionals. We’re psyched that the people knew it was real art, that these weren’t panhandlers.

What spaces were the Street Beats artists performing in?

Public Square and Star Plaza for lunches only on Fridays. At nighttime, East 4th, West 6th & St. Clair, Playhouse Square and Tremont occasionally. We did it intentionally where there was nightlife already. We’re trying to build momentum and next year getting more bang for each weekend buck. And create mini-events out of them.

How do you measure the ROI of an effort like Street Beats?

The ROI on experience is hard to measure. How do you measure someone’s experience. When cities are billing themselves as a place where there is a good experience, it is related to the event business, the entertainment model. But most cities think of themselves for economic development as jobs. But we need to think about the experience economy. And if we listen to tourists and visitors, you hear them talk about the overall experience, not just one event. It’s all the fun little places in between that they see and do. That’s why we work with the Downtown Merchants Association. Usually when people market Cleveland, they don’t work with the little merchants and the in-between stuff, the artists, the nightlife, the gallery scene. It is hard to measure; you can’t charge a ticket at the door. We measure by people’s smiles. We’ve surveyed restauranteurs to see if we’ve helped their businesses. We found that seventy-five percent of the 25 restaurants that we surveyed found that we added to their bottom line. People stay longer. They drink more wine. They go out again. You have to document with photos and video. You have to work with the media to tell your story properly. To tell people that Clevelanders are enjoying their city again.

When did you realize that the Sparx Gallery Hop was the largest gallery hop in the state?

After we looked at the study that you guys {Ingenuity Festival of Arts and Technology] did with CPAC [Community Partnership for Arts and Culture] that looked at the 48 cities with arts festivals, and we did online research. The only art walks that we saw maxed out at 40 – 45 galleries. And we have a huge geographic footprint, from Ohio City to Little Italy. How many art walks do you know that last 3 days long.

Can you get a feel from artists as to the benefits that they receive from Street Beats and the Gallery Hop?

We have feedback forms that the artists fill out. I will say confidently- they are really jazzed, they are getting paid, they are selling CDs, they are developing new audiences. We are acting as booking agents for them.

You’ve also set a pricing structure...

Yeah, the first year we did this, it was embarrassing how little we could pay them. That part was pure principle, we made sure they got paid. Everyone who has a talent and is offering a service gets paid. You pay your caterer, you pay your photographers. On the flip side, we’re not paying the galleries, we’re charging them. Not only do they get in the Gallery Guide, we’ve done 100,000 insert in the PD, plus 15,000 overrun. There’s great value to these guides. We’ve got the pdf online. There’s a lot of editorial that we got. We got these galleries in the publications and magazines. It boils down to these partnerships that work when there’s trust. People are skeptical, cause people have been burned. We have no ulterior motive, we just want this city to thrive.

Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for artists or people who are thinking about organizing events like this themselves?

I would say the very first thing to do is do some research to find out what the need is in the community. Every great business plan will tell you this. Artists sometimes just dive in, and you don’t want to find out that there’s 3 other people out there doing the same thing. The other advice is to not wait for other people to give you permission to do it.

James Levin and I started Ingenuity without any real permission or blessing from the powers-that-be. You've done the same thing with Sparx In The City. Do you feel a more entrepreneurial approach is taking hold in Cleveland these days?

Yes, and I think it’s arts entrepreneurs. It’s artists taking the city back into their hands. They want this town to be known as an arts city. Artists feel that in the past, campaigns to market the city were not accurate as to the benefits of the city. I’d give props to Mayor Campbell and Joe Cimperman and the Arts Summits a couple of years ago that kicked this all off. And Richard Florida coming in didn’t hurt. A lot of people have been putting their money where their mouth is. Thanks to Dave Perkowski and Tower Press, we’ve got a real live-work district in the Quadrangle. Thanks to Cleveland Public Art, you’ve got a real incorporation of art into the big projects like the Euclid Corridor Project.

What is Cleveland’s next step? If projects like Sparx are taking hold, where do we go next?

It all boils down to the message and the communications, and it needs to be synchronized, and related to the vitality of the city. Everything from the attractions, to the colleges to the merchants, to you name it. And that effort needs to be led with a very strong creative campaign. It needs to involved the Downtown Cleveland Partnership, the CVB, we could take the lead for a campaign marketing Downtown. But that’s not my choice. I would like to see there be somebody who takes responsibility for marketing Downtown. We have to do a better job of compiling all the great events that are going on in this town. We did 80,000 Sparx visitor guides with a calendar listing of all the things going on all summer long: art walks, art festivals, outdoor events. It was a city livability guide. All Downtown residents received one, the hotels, we stuffed it in magazines.

How can Cool Cleveland readers get involved in Sparx? Do you need volunteers, artists, participants?

Sure. I have a great request. There’s two ways. The first way is if people want to see more street life in Cleveland, they can buy a raffle ticket where they can win a great Segway, and all that money goes to support street life. They can get information and tickets at www.Cleveland.com/Sparx. A more tangible way is we’re looking for ambassadors, for people who are city champions. We need them to serve as trolley guides over the weekend. We're looking for people who represent a Downtown agency or a neighborhood, and we have scripts where ambassadors would be able to tell people what is going on around the neighborhood, and how great these neighborhoods are. We need people for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. People who are interested can call 426-7335. Trolley rides are $5 to ride all day. We're encouraging people to park at the major events, ride the trolleys and then go out to eat afterwards. The thing is, if you love your city, come tell people why you think Cleveland is cool.

Interview and photos by Thomas Mulready

Check out Sparx In The City Gallery Hop this weekend Fri 9/16 through Sun 9/18 at http://www.Cleveland.com/Sparx

And register for the Cool Cleveland party Off The Hook, this Fri 9/16, and receive a free trolley ticket ($5 value) to ride the Sparx trolleys all night long to all the galleries. The Cool Cleveland Party also includes open bar, tons of hors d'oeuvres, belly dancers, hookah pipes, music by Rainy Day Saints, and more. Register now at Newsletter/Party (:divend:)