{"id":25832,"date":"2014-06-04T22:41:28","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T04:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=25832"},"modified":"2025-10-29T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T02:11:00","slug":"connecting-the-dots-craig-cleveland-at-zuriick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/connecting-the-dots-craig-cleveland-at-zuriick\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting the Dots: Craig Cleveland at Zuriick"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Connectivity is an abstract term, a function that acts prolifically in multitudinous ways in all functioning of daily living.\u00a0 Through it, by connecting seemingly distant or unrelated terms or ideas, we create new meanings. Making art with meaning that is fundamentally based on connectivity requires a subject for which connectivity is an oblique tool and meaning is the culminating result, something Salt Lake City artist Craig Cleveland has been doing in a number of recent projects.<\/p>\n

Cleveland has previously demonstrated this in a monumental way in a major effort called \u201cThe Dada Face Project.\u201d In this project, Cleveland generated an image, or icon, a day for 12 months with a total of 365 icons, each using two arbitrarily chosen words as the title and motivator for the piece.\u00a0 Cleveland stated to his Facebook audience that, \u201cA \u2018single word\u2019 can be profound in its meaning, or provoke us to move or to stop. Words such as \u2018LOVE\u2019 and \u2018HATE\u201d\u2019 are defined yet interpreted by individual measure. A word can be a thing, an action and a descriptive. Taken further, the combination of \u2018two words\u2019 can invoke abstract visualization, inspire or enrage deep emotion, and shift paradigms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Each individual month\u2019s set of icons began with a certain template of graphic elements for a unity from month to month and within the year.\u00a0 The iconic results are each a product of \u201celements of visual art, graphic design and typography\u2026 inviting the irrational, the absurd and playful, the emotive and intuitive, and cryptic.\u201d For example, Cleveland\u2019s \u201c20121005 Robot Slang,\u201d published on the 5th of October 2012, uses elements of the average keyboard to create the face of a robot, or at least what reads like a mythical, syntactical robotic expression.\u00a0 Layered beneath this, in a white milky surface, is the haunting figure of a robot.<\/p>\n

Related to \u201cThe Dada Face Project,\u201d Cleveland\u2019s current project is called \u201cspam haikus,\u201d 10 of which are currently hanging at Zuriick, a new shop in Salt Lake\u2019s 9th and 9th district that features locally-designed shoes and boots.\u00a0 The origin for \u201cspam haiku\u201d again hinges on an element of connectivity.\u00a0 When Cleveland participated in the 2011-2012 Free Jazz Spoken Word Project,<\/strong>\u00a0in which the artists involved were performing responsive once-used-never-to-be-recreated poetry and music, he used for his source material an arbitrary interaction of words that lacked connectivity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>These random words were found serendipitously in Cleveland\u2019s email spam box.\u00a0 Approximately eighty series of words with no logical or meaningfully apparent connection, such as \u201cpassport, kaleidoscope, rain, bottle, root, festival,\u201d would arrive in Cleveland\u2019s spam box over the course of several weeks. For the sake of the Spoken Word Project, Cleveland used a large spread sheet and placed first words in the first column, second in the second, third in the third, and so on.\u00a0 After filling the sheet, Cleveland began to randomly select words from the spreadsheet columns to use as subjects for his Free Jazz Spoken Word Project, creating what would be never-to-be-repeated arbitrary poetry and song \u2014 but given human intonation, and a given a level of syntax, creating a language from the meaninglessness of email spam.<\/p>\n

This led to his current series of \u201cspam haiku,\u201d in which Cleveland has expanded his poetic device into a visual medium. He calls these works \u2014 each 48\u201d square \u2014 \u201cverses on consumerism & other mythologies.\u201d Using acrylic, latex, vinyl and hardboard, and a precise color code, Cleveland creates works driven by graphic design that are a \u201cjuxtaposition of chaos and clutter with connection and moment.\u201d Consider \u201cButterfly Robot Hieroglyph Solid Child Rope Window,\u201d in which Cleveland has inserted the distinct iconographic elements of \u2018Mickey Mouse\u2019 and the \u2018eye of Ra\u2019 based on the words \u2018child\u2019 and \u2018hieroglyph\u2019 presented within the original \u2018spam haiku\u2019 subject line. \u201c\u2018Mickey\u2019 is an icon representative of childhood, a corporate \/ consumer driven mechanism designed to market to our children,\u201d says Cleveland, \u201cwhereas \u2018the eye of Ra\u2019 arguably has become an icon representative of an ancient culture and deity. I have chosen to mash-up these two icons as a statement about how our contemporary culture may be perceived in the distant future \u2013 where \u2018Mickey\u2019 may be looked upon like the Egyptian sphinx is today \u2014 a monument of a past culture not quite understood or forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleveland\u2019s \u201ctelescope mouth flower tongue bible\u201d results as commentary on \u201creligious ideology and belief systems.\u201d\u00a0 He reads \u201ctelescope\u201d to \u201cpotentially discover truths\u201d and \u201cmouth\u201d and \u201ctongue\u201d as the method for spreading ideologies, \u201cBible\u201d being among them and a source of unity and difference.\u00a0 According to Cleveland \u201cReligion and belief systems can bring us together or drive us apart\u2026 these belief systems have many similarities and have similar roots. The image of the \u2018cartoonish skunk-like character with a bull horn\u2019 stating \u2018what\u2019s all the stink about\u2019 is a statement about understanding, respecting and honoring differences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the \u201cThe Dada Face Project\u201d and the Free Jazz Spoken Word Project, Cleveland has again used connectivity as a tool, a device to glean from a substantive source for meaning, in this case for \u201ca visual essay on consumerism and disconnection.\u201d\u00a0 He does not have to analyze or dissect, but on the contrary, by a process of connecting infinite possible signifiers of meaning, the artist is able to address issues that\u00a0he<\/em>\u00a0sees, what is important to\u00a0him<\/em>, content that fuels\u00a0him<\/em>\u00a0artistically and as a human being.\u00a0 It is in the chosen subject that meaning is connected and\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0is where the artist finds truth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Craig Cleveland\u2019s spam haikus are on exhibit at\u00a0Zuriick\u00a0in Salt Lake City through June. You can see more of Cleveland\u2019s work on\u00a0Facebook.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connectivity is an abstract term, a function that acts prolifically in multitudinous ways in all functioning of daily living.\u00a0 Through it, by connecting seemingly distant or unrelated terms or ideas, we create new meanings. Making art with meaning that is fundamentally based on connectivity requires a subject for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":25846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1980,1981],"class_list":["post-25832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-craig-cleveland","tag-zuriick"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/clevelandblog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-18 14:57:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25832"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97512,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25832\/revisions\/97512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}