Thinking Big

Artist and Mazza Museum curator Dan Chudzinski discusses the allure of hyper-realistic art and sending one of his works to the moon.

The moon has seen small steps and giant leaps, but it’s soon to be visited by Bigfoot. Findlay-based artist Dan Chudzinski’s roughly 300-pound Bigfoot head sculpture, “Evasive Species,” was chosen to be part of Lunar Codex, a cultural time capsule that is taking art, music and more from over 30,000 artists around the globe to the moon. An image of Chudzinski’s massive work will be laser etched onto a thin sheet of nickel that is set to ride aboard a SpaceX rocket in 2024.

The moon mission is just the latest trip for Chudzinski’s hyper-realistic beast made of silicone and taxidermy hair, which he created for an exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts.

“My thought was, what if I were to make the most realistic Bigfoot and put that in front of people in a place that they’re not expecting,” says Chudzinski, who is the curator at the University of Findlay’s Mazza Museum.

“Evasive Species” is currently on display at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums in Fremont through June 25. We caught up with Chudzinski to talk Bigfoot, going to the moon and more. Jason Brill

You started working on “Evasive Species” right as lockdowns were implemented. What was it like to work on the project at that time?

A: I had studied Michelangelo to the point where I lived in Italy for a while and learned to carve marble in the same village as him. When he was working on projects like the Sistine Chapel, the Black Plague was sweeping through Europe, killing a third of the population and Rome was being sacked by rival armies. My thought was, if he could do that back then, and he didn’t even have artificial lighting, what’s my excuse?

There have been many depictions of Bigfoot. Why did you want to create a hyper-realistic one?

A: When you see Bigfoot, or when you see something come up on the news about Bigfoot, it’s almost always a letdown. It’s always a blurry, out-of-focus picture, or it’s a hoax. … Hyper-realistic art is a powerful illusion. To walk into a gallery and see even a human figure that looks so lifelike that you’re waiting for it to breathe or blink, that will always capture people’s fascination.

What does it feel like to know something you created will be on the moon?

A: It’s incredibly flattering. It is surreal. I still don’t think, even after it happens, I’ll fully be able to wrap my mind around it. One of the first things my mind jumped to was imagining this little alien scuttling around the moon and finding this thing, opening that up and leaving with a very warped perception of what’s happening on Earth, and I’m okay with that.

To see more of Dan Chudzinski’s artwork, follow @danchudzinskistudio on Instagram.

Parade the Circle

June 10, Cleveland

Wade Oval is known for its beautiful vistas and spring cherry blossoms, but each June the University Circle hot spot also hosts Parade the Circle. The cultural celebration, organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, embraces creativity and community. Members of the public work in tandem with local artists to create a vibrant procession of larger-than-life, human-powered floats and decorative costumes. This year’s June 10 event focuses on the theme of transformation. Noon. 11150 East Blvd., Cleveland 44106, clevelandart.org

Calendar of Events: Your summer plans start here. Check out our guide to festivals, concerts and other happenings scheduled between now and the end of July.

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riangular tree trunks topped with round bursts of green stand in front of the stark shapes of buildings. The oil painting of a Parisian park, “The Vert-Galant” by Pablo Picasso, has the unmistakable sharp angles of his works of cubist art.

“It’s a wonderful composition with the geometries and the colors working so exquisitely together,” says Peter Jonathan Bell, curator at the Cincinnati Art Museum, where the exhibition “Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds” is on display June 23 through Oct. 15. Originally conceived by Picasso scholar Laurence Madeline and organized by the American Federation of Arts, the touring exhibition features more than 40 paintings.

While Picasso may be more well known for his portraiture and still life work, landscapes held an important place in his life and art throughout his career. This is the first exhibition to dive deep into how the physical landscape around Picasso played into his art.

“The Vert-Galant,” for example, was painted during a period when the artist was stuck in occupied Paris during World War ll. He wandered the city, painting the things around him. Picasso experimented with a wide range of subjects and styles in his landscapes, which depict his travels around the world. Other pieces show the spot where an abstract coastal cafe meets the sea (“Cafe in Royan”), a grove of trees painted with softer brushstrokes that offers a contrast to many of his works (“Grove”) and a cubist hallmark, “The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro,” depicting a Catalonian hill town.

“With the cubist paintings, when he’s working through this totally revolutionary style, he uses the landscape like building blocks to construct these very architectonic views of mountains or urban cityscapes,” says Bell.

The overall effect of the exhibition is of a tour through a lesser known but crucial aspect of an artist we think we already know.

“When you look at these works throughout his career,” Bell says, “you get a sense of how important looking at and painting the land- scapes and cityscapes around him was and how much that played into all the other landmark things he was doing with his art.”

953 Eden Park Dr., Cincinnati 45202, 513/721-2787, cincinnatiartmuseum.org

Event

Plein Air Gatherings

Every Thursday through Nov. 16: hancockparks.com festival

The thick woodlands, open prairies and rippling water of the Hancock County parks system are great ways to immerse yourself in nature. A series of outdoor art events scheduled through autumn encourages artists to capture the beauty of various park locations to take home with them.

Plein Air Gatherings — referring to the French practice of painting outdoors to capture scenery occur at a chosen park each Thursday through Nov. 16 and are open to anyone. Paint views of the Blanchard River at the Eastpoint Area on June 22, birds of the Lehman Conservation Area on July 6, or the rushing waters of the Waterfalls Area on Aug. 3.

Beginning in 2014 as an extension of program leader Sharon Hammer Baker’s nature journaling workshops, Plein Air Gatherings have evolved into a popular Hancock Park District offering that attracts both professional and amateur artists to take part.

“We would step outside if we could, but it was in the evening,” Hammer Baker says of the journaling workshops. “So, I decided that it would just be really nice to be able to go out during the day doing something additional.”

Plein Air Gatherings are not just about art, but also community and connection. Aspiring artists can hone their skills by learning from one another about techniques, and the variety of Hancock Park District locations provides plenty of inspiration.

“We really enjoy taking advantage of whatever is available,” Hammer Baker says. “We have a really good park system in the sense that they have a lot of locations.”

Lauren Patterson

Juneteenth Ohio Festival June 17–18: Columbus

Since 1997, this weekend festival at downtown Columbus’ Genoa Park has marked Juneteenth with entertainment, education and celebration. In addition to live music, shopping at the on-site marketplace, a classic car show and plenty of great soul food, Juneteenth Ohio also hosts exhibitors that provide health screenings, employment scouting, college information and other resources. “That was one of the traditional purposes for Juneteenth: to bring resources together for people as well as celebrate,” says event organizer Mustafaa Shabazz. juneteenthohio.com festival

Logan Washboard Arts & Music Festival

June 15–17: Logan

The lead-up to Father’s Day brings the Washboard Arts & Music Festival to downtown Logan, an annual event chock full of fun that includes barrel-train rides, a car show, washboard factory tours, family activities and a stacked lineup of live music. The event celebrates the fact that Logan is home to the last remaining washboard maker in the U.S. loganwashboard festival.com exhibit Sean Kenney’s Nature Connects

June 2–Sept. 17: Mansfield

Imagination meets nature at Kingwood Center Gardens beginning June 2, with artist Sean Kenney’s depictions of various creatures built with more than 460,000 individual Lego bricks. Check out Kenney’s take on a majestic monarch butterfly feeding on milkweed, his interpretation of the majestic peacock’s brilliant plumage and 13 other sculptures displayed across the grounds as part of this special exhibition. kingwoodcenter.org