“Cleveland Public Library made an important impact on my early artistic development. I’m largely self-taught as an artist, and most of my education took place in the Library’s Fine Arts collection. I remember walking through the stacks and pulling books off the shelf to learn about an artist I wasn’t familiar with. The Library enhanced my knowledge and my deep…
“If you’re an entrepreneur, you can’t do it on your own. You need help. I cannot tell you how much connecting with people has made a difference—people are the most important thing. When I used TechCentral’s MakerSpace to print my labels on the vinyl cutter, the staff walked me through the process and showed me how to do it myself. It’s much…
As a child growing up in Cleveland, Cella Borgia played video games to bond with her father. In the process, she discovered a love of gaming that persisted into adulthood. Gaming as an adult, however, was a different experience. Gone were the days of gathering with childhood friends to play in the same room—adult gamers, by comparison, were relatively isolated. That’s why Cella and her partner, Keven Barrera, decided to start…
When Kaitlin Juarez moved back to Cleveland after a decade spent living in West Virginia and Rhode Island, she needed to find new facilities to make her line of handmade designer toys—and Cleveland Public Library fit the bill. Juarez’s “monsters” are whimsical fabric characters with playful identities and imagined histories. Juarez crafts the monsters from 100% wool, which she cuts…
When Mayele Ngemba left Africa to come to the United States in 2011, he was eighteen years old and determined to build a new life Cleveland. A mere five years later, he set out to use his newly acquired skills to assist other refugees in the area. “Coming in as a refugee is tough,” he says. “That’s why I decided…