Passport Project's mission is to provide exciting educational experiences that build community through the arts, encourage respect for diversity and rejection of racism, and inspire a passion for learning and the global community.

Avast ye mateys! Every September 19th is "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" and to celebrate, the pirate duo The Rambling Sailors will perform traditional and modern sea shanties and ballads of the sea at 2PM in the lower level of the Louis Stokes Wing. There will be pirate activities for the kids and refreshments. Make sure you dress and talk like a pirate! This event is free and open to all ages. So weigh anchor, hoist the mizzen, and bring the lads and lassies to the Main Library Louis Stokes Wing on Saturday, September 19^th, 2009 at 2PM to enjoy an afternoon of maritime fun. Aaarrrrrrr!

Be sure to check out these pirate-themed book titles! 

The Cleveland Public Library is pleased to announce a new podcast archive page on the Fine Arts and Special Collections Department portion of our site. This page features MP3 files for most of the "Music at Main" events that have been held. The next live event will take place this Saturday, August 8, 2009 at 2PM and will be held out in the Eastman Reading Garden. The library will host the Kent Shindig All-Stars (featuring some of the finest traditional musicians in northeast Ohio) performing old-time music. See the Fine Arts and Special Collections blog for more information.

One of the many treasures in the Cleveland Public Library is the work of artist Ora Coltman. Born in Shelby, Ohio in 1858, he studied at the Art Students League in New York City and the Academie Julian in Paris. Coltman was a painter, sculptor, block printer, muralist, teacher, and writer. He kept a studio in Cleveland where has was a member of the Cleveland Society of Artists and Cleveland Printmakers. Exhibitions of his work took place at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. He also created a mural for the Cleveland Public Library called Dominance of the City.

Cleveland Public Library currently has artwork produced by local students on display at four library locations. Each exhibit features the artistic talent of young Clevelanders in a variety of formats.

Each Spring the Artistic Discovery Congressional Art Competition is sponsored by the U.S. House of Representatives. The competition is open to high school students throughout the nation and the over-all winner of each district will be displayed for one year at the U.S. Capitol. The entries from the 11th Congressional District are on display at the Martin Luther King Jr. Branch.

Artwork from the Cleveland Municipal School District’s 10th Annual All City Arts Exhibition is on display at three locations throughout CPL. Selections from the exhibition can be viewed through May 14th at the lower level of the Louis Stokes Wing of the Main Library, the Carnegie West Branch, and the Memorial- Nottingham Branch.

Image : “Woman of Thought” by Rayshana Richards. 

To celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month, the Fine Arts & Special Collections blog will feature information about jazz artists and its music. Visit the Fine Arts Department for jazz book collections and music CDs.

The Smithsonian Institution will also feature a webpage highlighting events & activities related to jazz.

The 30th Annual Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland runs from April 23 to May 3, 2009 that will be “Celebrating 30 Years of Jazz” in Northeast Ohio.

This week the Cleveland Orchestra presents a fully staged production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro." Conductor Franz Welser-Möst leads the orchestra in the first staged opera at Severance Hall for over 30 years. Images from this historic production can be seen here.

You may remember the hilarious gag at the end of the famous Warner Bros. cartoon "Rabbit of Seville" where Bugs Bunny drops Elmer Fudd into a huge wedding cake with the words "The Marriage of Figaro" on it. On April 1^st, 2009 (April Fool's Day) at 4PM, the Cleveland Public Library Fine Arts Department will host Case Western Reserve University Associate Professor Daniel Goldmark as he presents "Tunes from the ‘Toons: Cartoon Music from Mickey Mouse to Wall-E" in the Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium. This program is free and appropriate for kids of all ages and will include audio and visual examples of music in cartoons.

Visual Stories is an exhibit of fifty-one paintings by the renowned artist and children’s book illustrator, James Ransome, that depicts an extraordinary array of African American experiences, particularly from the Black South. The selected paintings span decades of collaboration with major publishers and numerous children’s authors, and reflect themes of emancipation from slavery, segregation and the Jim Crow era, and the strong family traditions that were necessary to maintain and keep the African American family together. Ransome’s paintings embody the powerful strength of family, faith, and fortitude that gives these people the courage to face difficult social and political conditions.