By Debora Flora
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – A joyful vibe filled the hallways of the new Loop Youngstown Arts and Culture Center during its dedication on a warm, sunny Sunday in June. Karen Schubert, Loop board chair, happily announced to 100-plus attendees that interested artists had already committed to using all 32 studios inside the building at 805 Mahoning Ave.
“To me, this is like an anchor store,” said Angelo Lo Castro, Youngstown/Warren office director of Bridgeway Capital, a lender and supporter of social impact projects. Arts drive local economies by strengthening community bonds, creating jobs, boosting tourism, increasing the tax base and improving property values. Intangibles include preserving local history and promoting local community pride. “Artists have the special, unique ability to do that,” he said.
Fine art photographer Vaughn Wascovich was focused on the struggles of artists. He did not kill the buzz. He reflected on the value of struggle.
As coordinator of Loop’s new Emerging Artist Fellowship Program, Wascovich was asked to review two dozen applications and choose two artists for the first cohort. He joked about disappointing those who didn’t make the cut.
He recalled enrolling at Youngstown State University as an art student in September 1976. Back then, airborne particulates tinted the sky orange, a reality of life during the era of steel production. Observers asserted that pollution was tangible proof that people were gainfully employed, he said.
One year later, the Youngstown Sheet & Tube shutdowns devastated the community. After earning his Bachelor of Arts degree at YSU, Wascovich joined thousands of others who launched their careers elsewhere. He lived for 12 years in Chicago working in advertising and freelance photography. He taught collegiate art courses in Missouri and Texas. Regardless of geography, there was no escaping periods of scarcity in financial support for his work in pottery, fiber and photography. Still, he persevered. “When things are tough, then you can make really great art,” he said.
Struggle was the motivation behind Loop’s building search. When the Ward Bakery, also on Mahoning Avenue, was sold to new owners a few years ago, artists who occupied studios there for years were forced to scatter. Without a building of their own, artists would not be able to take root, Schubert said.
Tough times are not exclusive to the visual arts.
The Youngstown Symphony Orchestra’s following withered as it lacked a permanent conductor for five years, after the sudden death of Randall Craig Fleischer in 2020. Last September, after an intense period of negotiations, the orchestra was acquired from the Youngstown Symphony Society by the Henry H. Stambaugh Auditorium Association, which then hired Erik Ochsner as YSO’s full-time music director. An agreement also was reached with JAC Management Group for the symphony orchestra to play at DeYor Performing Arts Center free of charge on certain dates. YSO’s free “Ignite the Night” concert and fireworks display July 5 at the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheater was designed to spark energy and pride in the community.
Arts organizations do not merely need roots to survive. They need taproots.
Annual garden plants sprout, grow, bloom and die within one growing season. Their shallow roots grow out, not down. Perennials return year after year when their central roots push deep and secondary roots branch out to find water. This system enables them to survive winters and droughts. Pine and pear trees, carrots and beets, blanket flowers, columbine and milkweed – the preferred food of the Monarch butterfly – survive and expand because of taproots.
Imagine the historic and economic stresses that these beloved, perennial arts organizations have weathered.
The internationally recognized Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown was founded in 1919. Trumbull Art Gallery in downtown Warren opened in 1957. The Hoyt Center for the Arts, operating out of two mansions in New Castle, was created in 1965 by local artists who wanted to cultivate and elevate local talent.
YSO is approaching the 100th anniversary of its first public concert, which was in 1929. The Greenville Symphony Orchestra in Mercer County is preparing for its 98th season this fall. Its conductor, Michael Gelfand, retired from the YSU Dana School of Music faculty.
The Youngstown Playhouse boasts of 101 continuous years of community theater. Trumbull New Theater, at home in Niles, staged its first production in 1948. The New Castle Playhouse started in 1958 by performing in various venues before making a permanent home in 1987 in the old State movie theater building. Salem Community Theater followed a similar pattern, staging its first performance in 1977 in borrowed spaces and then purchasing its current home (the 1922 State Theater) in 1981.
Wascovich, like Lo Castro, cited the value of connection between artists and communities amid a new struggle: the rise of artificial intelligence.
“It’s the human touch, the human connection that makes us human beings,” he said.
