A class all its own: REUNION show brings together ’80, other alums

Image: Participating artists in REUNION—almost exclusively CIA alums—gather for a group photo during the exhibition’s opening reception. Mary Urbas ’80, center, curated the show. Submitted photo. 

When Mary Urbas put together REUNION, an exhibition of the work of graduates from the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Class of 1980, it proved two things. One is that 45 years after they graduated, these artists are still creating provocative, vibrant work. The second is that the community built among CIA cohorts thrives long after students depart. 

“You always hear that an artist never retires,” Urbas says. “Being an artist is a frame of mind. This may sound pretentious, but we exist on a different astral plane.” 

Subtitled “Celebrating the Class of 1980,” the show was on view over the summer and featured the work of 40 artists from all over the country, including a piece by Urbas, a familiar figure in the Cleveland arts scene. Also represented: invited alumni from other graduation years and Urbas’ mentors, including her high school teachers. It was presented by the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve in the Bostwick Design Partnership Gallery in Cleveland. 

While the show was deeply nostalgic, the art was fresh and relevant. It also reflected Urbas, a Textile Design and Weaving graduate with a minor in Printmaking who conceived it as a way to honor her class. In a way, it also was a coming-out party for her as an artist, not just a curator. 

“Mary curated a personal snapshot of her time at school with the artwork of her peers and mentors,” says Judith Salomon, who taught Urbas ceramics at CIA. “She credits them all with her trajectory as a teacher, curator and gallery director, with warmth and gratitude.” 

Persistence pays off 

The show was a long time coming. In 2020, Urbas proposed to stage it at the gallery she ran at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, Ohio. COVID killed that. And shortly after she suggested it for this summer, Lakeland eliminated her position—after 20 years—and closed its gallery. 

The third time was the charm, and Urbas didn’t want to wait. She and most of her classmates are in their late 60s, and their teachers are in their 80s. Salomon was surprised by all the gray hair she saw at the opening reception. 

“How could that have happened when I am still a 25-year-old new teacher at CIA in my mind?” she joked. “My hair is now gray and it was lucky I had my name tag on.” 

The CIA edge 

All the pieces in REUNION, no matter the medium, attest to the refinement CIA instills in its graduates, says Urbas, who includes the work of CIA graduates in every show she curates. She considers that presence a guarantee of quality. 

“I know that when I’m showing work from Cleveland Institute of Art graduates, there is a level of excellence,” she says. “There’s a level of completion of thought, of integrating the idea to the technique and the presentation.” Her professors “taught us that it’s not just the front of the painting, it’s how you wrap it around, how you finish it. It’s the complete package.” 

REUNION included a “Hotpads” triptych of pot holders by Urbas; a bright acrylic “Wall Flower” by her friend and classmate Lori Bolt ’80; “The Covid Effect,” an eerie Sumi ink painting by Salvador Dali devotee Joe Stavec ’80; four LGBTQ+-themed digital prints by visual artist David Lee Csicsko ’80; and Salomon’s “Vase on Base,” a wood-fired porcelain. A suspended, multifaceted dress by Juli Edberg ’76 adorned the lobby.

These just scratch the surface of this show of some 100 works. Each room of the Bostwick galleries was a testament to who the artists have become over the decades and the grounding they received as CIA students. 

Catching up to today 

Csicsko couldn’t attend the opening reception so Urbas hosted an evening for him to visit with fellow “art pals” who also spent most of 1975 to 1980 at CIA. He describes his younger self as a “quirky student interested in everything.” 

“At the time, the school was thought of as the closest American version of Germany’s Bauhaus School,” Csicsko says. “I loved it. Loved the teachers and the art students. I’ve been fortunate to have a broad art career, from poster design and book illustration to designing large-scale stained-glass windows and public art mosaics. Back in 2012, I was the featured artist designing the look of Christmas at the Obama White House. The pieces I sent off to Mary’s exhibit are fresh and could not be more current.” 

What Stavec particularly liked about his time at CIA was its anything-goes atmosphere. The undergraduate degree program in which he enrolled in 1975 still operated on a five-year schedule and the school had just acquired the former Ford factory that is now its core structure.

At the dawn of the ’80s, “the factory building was open all the time, 24 hours a day,” Stavec recalls. “It was just a raw space. ... And it was a nice sense of freedom.” 

That sense coursed through REUNION, which honored artists who are still fully engaged and love what they do. 

“Here’s to Mary Urbas, who brought together some amazing artists who were all just good art kids—and are now just older art kids,” Csicsko says.