Abstract

Artist and educator Anthony Eterovich recounts his time as both a student and teacher at Lincoln High School, highlighting the neighborhood's longstanding yet evolving art community. He reflects on the impact of local art initiatives and influential figures, on his development, and the broader community. The interview delves into Eterovich's personal journey, the cultural dynamics of Tremont, and the transition of the neighborhood into a vibrant center for emerging artists and upscale establishments. Eterovich also shares anecdotes about the physical education program at Lincoln High, his family's background, and the movement of his community towards the western suburbs.

Interviewee

Eterovich, Anthony (interviewee)

Interviewer

Garr, Richard (interviewer)

Project

Tremont History Project

Date

11-8-2003

Document Type

Oral History

Transcript

Rich Garr: Alright. This is the beginning of the interview with Anthony … Anthony Eterovich: Eterovich

Rich Garr: Eterovich. Anthony, if you could spell your name so we could get it right.

Anthony Eterovich: My name is spelled … my last name is spelled E-T-E-R-O-V-I-C-H.

Rich Garr: Alright. And Anthony, you were a teacher at Lincoln High School in Tremont back in the forties?

Anthony Eterovich: For at least sixteen years.

Rich Garr: About sixteen years?

Anthony Eterovich: Yes, and prior to that I had been a student at Lincoln.

Rich Garr: Can you just give me a general idea of how the neighborhood has turned into an art community or has it always been an art community?

Anthony Eterovich: Well in my view, yes, I feel that it’s always been an art community but it was on a much smaller scale. Those of us who went to Lincoln High School from Tremont School we’re not really busting out with a lot of art work but we were fundamentally interested in cartoon work and also working for the newspaper, The Lincoln Log. And in The Lincoln Log we described what the life was of that time. I was fortunate that in the tenth grade one of my cartoons was printed in The Lincoln Log on the front cover having to do with the scary moment of the first dance. For youngsters at that time we had, not like today, we had certain rules and formalities about the proper way for ballroom dancing. But in the neighborhood in the 40s there was an art club meeting at the Merrick House and the area and at that time it was housed in two very small homes that were converted for community services. At the time Director Miss Helen Fallon was the director at the time and she got interested in forming an art club and she rounded several of us who lived in the neighborhood but who rebelled against having any art teacher. We just told her that we wanted to do our own portrait drawing amongst ourselves. We didn’t want a teacher and she accepted that and let us work in one of the basement rooms, we made drawings. That went on for awhile but then she thought no we should have a teacher and the teacher we got at the time from the art museum was Charles Barkley Jefferys and who came in with the intention, more or less, of converting us into craftwork, into pottery, which again we rebelled. And so he wasn’t a teacher there for long. Then again Miss Fallon was undaunted and she got John Tyro to come down. John Tyro who later on became an instructor here at the institute. John Tyro let us draw first, looked around, and the most startling thing that he did was demonstrate large scale portrait drawings. We were all under the small drawing influence of Rembrandt, Rembrandt’s etching in particular. And John showed us a way out of the light and introduced us to the few notable artists in the neighborhood, one of whom was Ambrossi Poliwota and Poliwota was a strong draftsman, painter who achieved great notoriety in one of the early May shows. He did a painting of a Russian Samovar on Burlap cloth and it was quite a hit in the early days of the May show.

Rich Garr: The May show was at the art museum?

Anthony Eterovich: At the art museum, and he was a very strong influence but John himself had ideas too for his own growth and at the end of his years at the Cleveland School for the Arts, which it was called then, achieved the Agnes Gund Award and had to leave us. And at that time that he left he put in his associate, his friend from the old art school building, Edmund Brooker by name, who came in and gave a different slant on portrait drawing. And in that way then we started to think about well how are we going to get more advanced work. There wasn’t any inklings of any galleries in the area. We all had two aspirations. One of them was to get to the Cleveland School of Art and preferably by scholarship because we did it for financial reasons and secondly it was close to the art museum and so our goals were twofold: the May show of the Cleveland Museum of Art and getting into the institute for further education. So there was no such opportunity for, as we are having it today, for emerging artists but there was the opportunity if you wanted to be serious, especially with the criticism of John Tyro and several others who were there, that you could make your way to the Cleveland Institute of Art and thereby then that’s quite a jump form just the cartooning level that we were all into.

Rich Garr: Okay I wanted to ask you how you got involved with art and as a child growing up and also were you introduced to art after you moved to Tremont and just talk about what the art scene was like in Tremont at the very beginning.

Anthony Eterovich: As far as I can remember at the very beginning we had a very limited scope of what art consisted of. As a matter of fact, most of us at Lincoln High School took art purely as an enjoyable endeavor but we were much more interested in the academics of Lincoln High School.

Rich Garr: Were you forced to take an art class?

Anthony Eterovich: No but we chose, we elected it but it wasn’t, at that time it wasn’t really pushed for any seriousness. We also in the neighborhood there was no such thing as exhibiting anywhere in the neighborhood so our total concept was how can we get into the Institute of Art and how could we get then to eventually to submit work in the May show. And it was in the May show that we discovered other artists making their mark such as Michael Shiriski and the other instructors at the Institute were Henry G. Keller, Frank Wilcock and you had Paul Travis and you had Mrs. Young who was your first teacher when you left high school and if you enrolled in the school. She was your first teacher and she was a strong teacher who told you that in the second and third and fourth year you teachers get even tougher so we had good ground, basic, and developed education from that point on.

Rich Garr: Okay now about your childhood in Tremont, when did you move there and why did you move there?

Anthony Eterovich: I can’t give a reason. I was to young to even know why we moved there. I moved there and enrolled from Saint Joseph Catholic School on the east side and I’d had one year of education there so when I came to Tremont I was put in for temporary time in the second grade and then because of the advanced education that I had I was promoted to the third grade, which then got me in step to where I really belonged.

Rich Garr: Okay, did you have any connection or your family have any connection with the steel mills because I know a lot of the people that lived in the area worked there?

Anthony Eterovich: Yes my father worked a great number of years for McLaughlin Steel and I started to work even at an early age working in the various food stores in the neighborhood, the Kroger Store in particular, I even packed potatoes in bags. At twenty-five pounds I got so used to it I didn’t have to weigh it anymore.

Rich Garr: Oh yeah. Did you ever go to the West Side Market? That was open when you were there right?

Anthony Eterovich: Yes the West Side Market was fully functioning and we, my parents only went there occasionally because it was regarded as treat to go into that area.

Rich Garr: Yeah. Did you spend a lot of your time in Tremont and when you left Tremont it was sort of a big deal? Did you ever go to any baseball games or travel to the west side or the east?

Anthony Eterovich: Well a key drawing area that pulled people together there was Lincoln Park and in the center of Lincoln Park just for enjoyment on Sunday afternoons had a large pool and they had a number of Oriental goldfish in it that we were all fascinated with. Opposite Lincoln Park there were quite a number of churches. We became members of Saint Augustine’s Church there on West 14th Street.

Rich Garr: Yeah I go there sometimes, good mass. Sticking with the churches, how do you think the churches helped develop a community and did they support the arts at all?

Anthony Eterovich: Well I don’t know if you’d call it support but they were always in full understanding of each at least of the neighborhood people and some of their problems and tried to alleviate them with all kinds of programs which I think are even continuing today especially at Saint Michael, I mean Saint Augustine. And then there was the Pilgrim Church at the other end. The Pilgrim Church was always like it is today anticipated even the performing arts. They did some theater work there.

Rich Garr: Dorothy talked a little bit about the Pilgrim Church and I just saw in the newspaper yesterday they were having a peace rally there. They still do a lot of extracurriculars within the community. Alright so why did you move away from the Tremont area?

Anthony Eterovich: Well I don’t have a great big reason but it seemed that everyone was finding that things were possible to make a move and everybody thought the west side with the Brooklyn area was a jump and they thought the farther west side was even better economically and that was the reason for moving. No great mystery there but a simple move.

Rich Garr: Was it more like an investment? You thought maybe if you moved out west the land was going to be worth more money or you’d get a better deal with the houses?

Anthony Eterovich: No I don’t think so. I think we were all very earthbound. We knew the simple economics of the time as to what we could do so that we made the jump as gradual as we could. We didn’t think of it in terms of neglecting or going away from the city. It was just a sort of a normal movement.

Rich Garr: Yeah, people just started going out in the suburbs and expanding, more land?

Anthony Eterovich: Yeah there was more land and also ethnically speaking there was a section in the Brooklyn area that was set aside almost, it seemed that way, with Slavonic people. Then they had a German section of people and they had Czech people in certain areas. Seemed to group together. They did some mixing but actually they went according to who they felt comfortable with.

Rich Garr: Okay and what nationality are you?

Anthony Eterovich: I am of Yugoslav descent and in particular of Dalmatia which is a little town south of Triesi in the Adriatic Sea.

Rich Garr: Okay, you moved to Brooklyn? Is that right?

Anthony Eterovich: No I moved to off of State Road on the, what would you cal it, the west side. Rich Garr: Okay State Road. Is it in Parma though?

Anthony Eterovich: Yeah leaning toward Parma. That’s right.

Rich Garr: Oh and when you moved to off of State Road was that a lot of people from your own ethnicity?

Anthony Eterovich: Yes and I would say predominantly they were Slavic people that were there.

Rich Garr: How do you think art in a neighborhood preserves culture? Or do you think it doesn’t preserve culture. Especially pertaining to the new galleries that have gone in in Tremont? It’s become a center of galleries now in Cleveland.

Anthony Eterovich: Yes and they also have some marvelous restaurants there too that are very upscale and very rich. They’ve gone in leaps and bounds and they do a great deal, compared to my early days, they do a great deal for emerging artists. There’s always a venue for them to get in with the restaurant … see how they want artists to mingle with them. And then they have their own separate studios as a matter of fact. One of our outstanding teachers that just recently retired—Paul Saint-Denis—was a top notch watercolor artist and he lives in that area now. He’s one of the top ones there.

Rich Garr: And he just recently moved there?

Anthony Eterovich: Yes, he just recently m—No! He’s been there for some time. Along with Gary Schoomer, ah, who also lived there and had a studio in that area. Gary Schoomer left the institute here and was appointed one of the senior animators with Walt Disney, from this institute.

Rich Garr: I think Dorothy mentioned him.

Anthony Eterovich: Gary Schoomer.

Rich Garr: Yea, he’s well known.

Anthony Eterovich: Yea … . Well but the one that set the pace there was Ambrogi Poliwoda. He was a chief animators for Walt Disney.

Rich Garr: What? How do you say … can you spell his last name? Anthony Eterovich: P-O-L-I-W-O-D-A, Poliwoda.

Rich Garr: Okay, and he’s passed right? He was older.

Anthony Eterovich: Yea, yea. And he was very successful. He visited me when I began, when I was teaching at Lincoln High School and I was up on the fourth floor, my class came there. We exchanged greetings, then he took me right to the window there and pointed down below to look at his brand new read car. Cause he had just recently received another promotion.

Rich Garr: Yea? At Disney? Anthony Eterovich: At Disney.

Rich Garr: Was there a Disney office in Cleveland that he worked at?

Anthony Eterovich: No, he worked directly with Disney.

Rich Garr: But he lived in Cleveland though?

Anthony Eterovich: No, No. That was before he left Cleveland. He left Cleveland to work with Disney.

Rich Garr: Okay.

Anthony Eterovich: In Disneyland.

Rich Garr: Okay. Ahh, there was a big mural painted at Lincoln High School. I think it was part of the WPA … .

Anthony Eterovich: Right.

Rich Garr: Do you have any idea who did that or what happened to it?

Anthony Eterovich: I know of a few, especially Henry Keto, who was an outstanding artist, and who did a great deal of the painting on that particular mural. And it represented the industry of Cleveland, it had depiction of the steel mills, it had depiction of the activities in that area. Umm, Bob Wouty, who was supervisor at the Cleveland Schoo … No, at the Cleveland Board of Education decided that that needed to be preserved and came to the school and with workers removed it from the walls before the building itself was, ahh, destroyed.

Rich Garr: So was it on canvas that was mounted to the wall? And they kind of took it out?

Anthony Eterovich: Right, and then rolled.

Rich Garr: Do you know what happened to it?

Anthony Eterovich: The last I knew of it the Cleveland Board of Education knows where it’s at. They’re in possession of it somewhere.

Rich Garr: I would like to see that sometime. I saw that Dorothy had a poster with it. Jim, Jim Ptack … he’s a guy that makes posters of Tremont and he … Ptacek. Jim Ptacek.

Anthony Eterovich: Sounds familiar, yea.

Rich Garr: Yea, Dorothy bought me a poster actually. I have one in my basement of all the churches and then the one that Dorothy gave me was all the landmarks in Tremont. But, so this Keto character–how do you spell his name? Do you know that?

Anthony Eterovich: K-E-T-O.

Rich Garr: And was he local?

Anthony Eterovich: He was a graduate of Lincoln High School and in those days they had midyear graduations. So that in, ahh, I graduated the normal year—June. He had to wait another half year. He graduated in January. So then I met up with him at the Art School, at which time he told me of the projects he had been working on.

Rich Garr: Okay. And you think he did that mural with a number of other artists?

Anthony Eterovich: Oh yes. A number of other, yea. I can’t remember what the others were.

Rich Garr: Ahh, can you describe to me a typical day of high school? From the beginning when you went to high school to the end of the day when you went to bed?

Anthony Eterovich: Well, my prime interest at Lincoln High School was the Phys-Ed program. Ahh, we had a Mr. Faginaur there–we called him Mr. Hour–who was a, umm, very athletic person. He was of the old Germanic school. Believed in the high bar, he believed in the mechanics in the gymnasium. And he took a particular interest in me to develop me. So I even did extra morning hours with him. Ahh, because I liked him and his treatment of, ahh, intense caring about physical development. And I was so happy that in my junior or senior year, I think it was, I became a captain of seven students for just the high bar display in which we had open house display.

Rich Garr: And what is the high bar?

Anthony Eterovich: The high bar? Well it’s a steel bar usually seven, eight feet high.

Rich Garr: Is it for pull ups?

Anthony Eterovich: Yup, for pull ups, but then you do the swing rise, you do the giant swing.

Rich Garr: Oh wow.

Anthony Eterovich: You do a lot of things on it. And they still have it in the athletic, ahh, what is it? The big once a year … this year its gonna be in China. You know the big world.

Rich Garr: Is it like gymnastics?

Anthony Eterovich: Yes.

Rich Garr: Oh, okay. So did you … . I didn’t even know they had a gymnastics program. Anthony Eterovich: Oh yes, very heavily.

Rich Garr: Oh, okay. Did they call it high bar back then?

Anthony Eterovich: They had the high bar and they had the horse, in which you would also do your tricks. They had the rings, which you’d also do your tricks. And then they had the parallel bars, of which you get on and do other levitations.

Rich Garr: Oh okay, so they had … at first they had a class that taught it to you and then you got interested in it …

Anthony Eterovich: Yea.

Rich Garr: …and you would show up early and train?

Anthony Eterovich: But they happened, before you had your academic program, you had that early in the morning. Many of them started at seven thirty in the morning.

Rich Garr: Wow, ahh, alright. So after you did the high bar you did your classes. What did you do for lunch? Did you … were you allowed to go into the park and eat lunch or was there a cafeteria?

Anthony Eterovich: You could. They had a simple horse and wagon person that would come along the way displaying hamburgs, hotdogs, whatnot. But most of us bought little sandwiches from home or we bought the lunches at the lunchroom which were very good for those days.

Rich Garr: Okay

Anthony Eterovich: In the building. But the thing we were most proud of, or relatively speaking, was the good academic program that Lincoln High School had. We had excellent English teachers. We had, ahh, most of the teachers were also publishers. Ahh, we had Mr. Balmgardener, who was a publisher of social studies. He did about two or three printings of, uh, social studies called The Challenge of Democracy and I think it’s as good a book today as could be used. And then we had the mechanical drawing teacher who also produced a book on the basics of mechanical drawing. We had a woodworking teacher who also had a book published on what he considered his own craft.

Rich Garr: Wow, did you … did it seem like Lincoln High School was a step above a lot of the other high schools in the city—as far as academics go?

Anthony Eterovich: Well, in those days all the high schools had their own elite strengths. They all had their own specialties. West Tech always had a beginning in basic engineering courses. So some of the students, not many but some, preferred transferring in the twelfth year to West Tech.

Rich Garr: Because they were interested in engineering? Anthony Eterovich: In engineering.

Rich Garr: Was there a school of arts back then? Or any other …

Anthony Eterovich: There were two. There were two schools. There was the Cleveland School of Art that was on Juniper Road …

Rich Garr: And that was high school or was that college? Anthony Eterovich: No, that’s college.

Rich Garr: Okay.

Anthony Eterovich: And then there was the Cooper School of Art. And the Cooper School of Art never, in a sense, was not competitive. It was basically a commercial art school, training for commercial art.

Rich Garr: Okay. Alright, so we have your school day. After you ate lunch you had your afternoon classes and then what would you do? Would you, would you do any art? Would you train in sports? Or would you go home, have a snack?

Anthony Eterovich: Starting in the senior, in the last part of the eleventh grade and going into senior year, those of us seriously interested in art knew that we had to make a portfolio. And so our afternoons, when we finished school, dealt with first of all getting the things together that you might consider for making a portfolio. We also had our fun at the same time because, part of this equipment, for fun, ahhh, was in Lincoln Park itself. You had the high bar, they had a number of things. So you didn’t need to necessarily have an instructor around. If you been a prize of some of the beginning efforts in it you could easily carry on with more of it in Lincoln Park. And a simple way that that was done was after supper in the evening we’d call one another and, uhh, gather—five, six of us—and go to Lincoln Park and have fun especially again on the high bar.

Rich Garr: Okay. So there was a group of you that were really interested in the high bar and you would hang … they were mostly your friends. You would hang out with them?

Anthony Eterovich: Right, right. Along at the same time though we were all aiming to get in shape for ballroom dancing. And at Lincoln High School again there was a program in the afternoon that was planned so that you would have a program card. And during the school day if you became acquainted or you liked someone that you might want to dance with in the afternoon, ahh, you’d get signed on the little card. She would sign her card and then you’d meet after your last class in the gymnasium. And one of the biggest bands that got his start there was, uh, Ray Anthony. Who proved to be one of the big hits both for regular ballroom dancing and he went on to Hollywood and was the back up band for a number of movies.

Rich Garr: Oh yea? These dances weren’t canteens? That was separate?

Anthony Eterovich: No, no. This was in the gym itself. And it usually took place about three thirty and they would go for one hour, one hour itself. And those were in the days when one had to learn all the etiquette rules being very polite. If you approached a girl for a dance you would always have to say, “may I have this dance, “ which is unheard of today.

Rich Garr: At the art museum last night they had dancing going on. They had a dj set up. There was an artist, Bill Viola, talk. There were a lot of CIA students and then after it there was dancing, poetry. The museum was open till one o’clock.

Anthony Eterovich: What kind of dancing was it? Was it rock?

Rich Garr: It was sort of techno. It’s like a rock. A lot of electronic type mixing of music. It was pretty neat to be in the art museum and see what was going on. Till one in the morning too.

Anthony Eterovich: That’s great, that’s great.

Rich Garr: So, it sounds like Lincoln High School was combining all these arts really well.

Anthony Eterovich: In a sense you could say they were like a junior college because you got everything started for you and you had your almost first year, second year, beginning college work.

Rich Garr: Yea, uh, There were a lot of different ethnic groups in the area as seen by all the different churches.

Anthony Eterovich: Oh yea, a lot of diversity—we had Italians, we had like I say the Polish and the Slavonics—we had almost any nationality we mixed. We even had a number of Latino sections. So in my mind our area was always a mixed, ahh, diverse area.

Rich Garr: And they got along together okay?

Anthony Eterovich: Oh yea, yea.

Rich Garr: And did they come to school and they all knew English beforehand or were there language classes offered at the school to help them?

Anthony Eterovich: No they, ah, they received pretty good basic English if they didn’t have it at the elementary school, Tremont Elementary did a great job on them. But I have had a lot of English training at Saint Joseph on the east side for the first grade.

Rich Garr: Did you… do you know another language?

Anthony Eterovich: Ahh, I took about four or five years of French at high school with some very top notch French teachers and I had that on my bio when I was drafted into the army in 1940 in which of all the other activities that went on I was assigned to teach French to officers at the time who were going overseas.

Rich Garr: Oh yea. So you never … you were mostly in a classroom for your duty?

Anthony Eterovich: No, I left, I spent three and a half years in the army and I was stationed in about maybe five, six camps all involved with training aids, visual aids, and the teaching of French and then drawing terrain, drawing, ahh, how terrain would look in the area the soldiers were going into and how to make yourself aware of possible gas attacks, how to manage the mask itself—things like that.

Rich Garr: So you were given a description … someone would tell you what it would be like and you would draw it and then the people that were going overseas would see it?

Anthony Eterovich: Yes, that’s right.

Rich Garr: Ah let’s see. How did ah … when you came back from the war, is that when you moved right as soon as you got back?

Anthony Eterovich: No I didn’t. Ahh, when I got back I only had my regular BA degree form the school and I wanted very much…

Rich Garr: From the CIA?

Anthony Eterovich: Yea …but I needed to have credits for teaching in the public school system and so I went back to education and I was fortunate to take advantage of the GI Bill of Rights which allowed me to go to college and get both my, ahh, BA degree and my masters eventually.

Rich Garr: So you got your BA degree after your service?

Anthony Eterovich: Right.

Rich Garr: Okay. And you got your masters in fine arts?

Anthony Eterovich: Yes sir.

Rich Garr: And then after that you started …

Anthony Eterovich: No I got my masters in, ahh, art education.

Rich Garr: Okay and then after that you started teaching right away at Lincoln High School?

Anthony Eterovich: No I started teaching, first of all, in two junior high schools. I started teaching in Central Junior High School on the east side and Rollings Junior High School. I had put in a year in each one of them and then, ahh, then I got, ahh, that was when at the point I got into the army. When I came out after three and a half years I was assigned to Lincoln High School.

Rich Garr: Okay. Ahh, going back to your childhood or your high school days, what would you do on a typical Saturday night? Was there a certain thing? Would you see movies or, ahh, did you hang out in the park, or umm, were you a partier?

Anthony Eterovich: Well I did some of that. No I also did some extra drawing things but around the twelfth year in high school I became aware how, ahh, the Aragon Ballroom was in full force especially on a Saturday night. And so on, ahh, being beckoned by other friends, I became always hopeful that with Saturday night our main attack was—lets’ get dressed, let’s get spiffy, and let’s go to the Aragon.

Rich Garr: Yea. So you were trying to pick up some women at the dance hall?

Anthony Eterovich: Ahh, no I don’t think so. It might have been in the back of some of my friends minds but actually the strictness of the ballroom rules at that time with Lloyd Myers at the ballroom and Frank as the doorman, ahh, we didn’t have much time for that. You basically were so concerned with getting a dance. You were concerned with how you looked and how they looked—it’s a very society thing.

Rich Garr: Yea, so did a lot of the … was that where a lot Lincoln High School seniors would go on a Saturday night?

Anthony Eterovich: I would say that was a prime area but there were other activities in the town. There were smaller places. There was a place called Swiss Hall that had polkas and they had, ahh, other types of dancing. And then we had the smaller theatres on West 25th Street. We had the Marvel Theater and we had the Southern Theater and the big one, the luxury-ish one was the Garden Theater, which is where the bank is now. I forget the name of the bank that is now there on the corner.

Rich Garr: Okay and these theaters were for movies?

Anthony Eterovich: They were all for movies and they were in the black and white stage early on, uhh, and it was on certain occasions you could win at the end of the program everybody would win certain dishes and you’d have to go successively other nights to get the companion pieces for these dishes. So it was … everyone was going hoe with a dish or cup or whatever.

Rich Garr: Oh yea, uhh, right now in Cleveland it seem like politicians are emphasizing the arts and how the arts are going to bring Cleveland a solid economic base.

Anthony Eterovich: Right.

Rich Garr: Ahh, do you think that’s going to work or do you think things like this at the art museum or maybe that Jim Dine statue that they just put up on the federal building or the Free Stamp, things like that that, bring art into the open in Cleveland? Do you think that’s going to work to build an economic …?

Anthony Eterovich: Well they have to, they have to make a lot of these things work. I mean that’s the, ahh, having you for us all to get to into. But it should be remembered that in the meantime though all these suburbs have had artistic growth themselves. Ahh, we have the Cassidy Theater on the west side and many of the people fell that they could go there as well as the city. It’s my hope that I wish we could just like both sides of our city and not feel that the one or the other is neglected or to argue that, ahh, that we have to do something to attract people to come back to the city.

Rich Garr: Yea.

Anthony Eterovich: That’s not in my scope. I don’t see it.

Rich Garr: So you’re talking about the development of art in the suburbs. They don’t have to go into the city for it to be a center?

Anthony Eterovich: Right, right.

Rich Garr: Where is that theater, the Cassidy Theater?

Anthony Eterovich: The Cassidy Theater, yea, it’s on, ahh, on the west side. It’s in the Parma Heights area.

Rich Garr: Okay, yea,

Anthony Eterovich: And it’s called a Cassidy because that’s the name of the mayor that they had there for quite a long length of time–very good mayor who did a lot for them. And we’re loaded. That side is loaded with restaurants, and, ahh, almost every type of activities. So why can’t we just enjoy both sides.

Rich Garr: Yea, well the city is in the center so, so both sides can meet… I don’t know. START SIDE B

Anthony Eterovich: One thing I’d like to say is that I’m in great admiration what’s going on in the Tremont area, both for the arts and the growth of the restaurants in the area and music and culture. Ahh, all of this is very fine and I think they should always be, ahh, displayed and publicized. But by the same token all the other area are blossoming and they’re producing their own wealth of entertainment sources there. And they’re very professional–many of the activities in these areas too.

Rich Garr: Yea, ahh, do you ever go to any of the places in Westlake or Bay Village or Fairview? Is there any …?

Anthony Eterovich: Westlake and Bay Village …

Rich Garr: …for art?

Anthony Eterovich: … in the two hotels there. What’s that big one? Swingos, Swingos, and the one next to it. They had ahh, and they’re still doing it every once in awhile, the lower entrance, sections of the places have gallery venues there and they display works there pretty regularly.

Rich Garr: Yea, ahh, and do you ever show your work? I know you’re an artist.

Anthony Eterovich: Yea.

Rich Garr: And where do you usually show it at?

Anthony Eterovich: My work is usually concerned with the Cleveland Institute of Art faculty shows and I’ve had a long display with the May shows of Cleveland and also with the Butler Museum in Youngstown in which I was fortunate to achieve a national award when they became a national show. I had a first firstest award there, which I’m proud of, and then I’ve exhibited in New York City and I’ve exhibited in tri-state around here. So I’ve done my work around and I don’t quite fit into the emerging artist category.

Rich Garr: Well you got to, you got to figure something new, something new out for your art [laughter]. Did, well, speaking of that, do you ever…you’re a drawing instructor here.

Anthony Eterovich: Right.

Rich Garr: Umm, do you ever go into abstraction much?

Anthony Eterovich:Ohyea. InmyownworkattimesIdo…

Rich Garr: I’ve never… yea I should have looked at, found some of your work to look at before.

Anthony Eterovich: But I would call it more abstract expressionism. That is where I still deal with the human form and the human involvement.

Rich Garr: Like, like a DeKooning—sort of mixing the human form with abstraction.

Anthony Eterovich: Ahh, yes, ahh, yea but unlike Jim Dine, who himself—he doesn’t like anything with narrative in it even like the head on Venus, you remember?

Rich Garr: Yea.

Anthony Eterovich: I personally thought that the Venus was indicative of a lot of rich narrative—the head and the mystery of where the arms would be. Ahh, so I made a painting in that light and in a faculty show in 1999 I did one called the Venus Fantasy. It was purchased by a New York collector. Many times in our shows at the faculty we get New York visitors who come in just on the spur of the moment. They’re here when the faculty shows goes on and many times they will purchase one. Then I had another one that I’m pretty proud of that the Good Year people bought, ahh, the center of town of Cleveland of a bus stop and they liked it because there was a bus in it that featured their tires.

Rich Garr: Yea, uh, what about people like Bill Viola who’s doing art with video nowadays and he’s part… he pushes programs like the CIA’s new program of art and technology? Have you ever thought about trying to work with that or are you interested in it?

Anthony Eterovich: I think within my work, within my painting I’ve always thought I was involved with installation, I was involved with video. I watch video a lot. But I don’t like the idea of saying that it’s a painting that is the instrument itself. But I’ve always been involved with a … I don’t think … there’s no artist ever that didn’t involve himself with some sort of installation, even Rembrandt.

Rich Garr: Yea, so you’re saying sticking to traditional mediums like painting …

Anthony Eterovich: No I always argued that you build on tradition. I don’t like breaking with tradition but I do like building on tradition. After all tradition gave us a lot.

Rich Garr: Uhhu, what do you think about Jasper Johns? There’s a big show up at the Cleveland museum right now. Did you see it?

Anthony Eterovich: You can’t argue, you know, a very successful artist with a kind of establishment of the monies of his case. I don’t think a single piece of his is seldom below a million dollars so it’s hard to be analytical. You have to constantly study and see what’s he after, what’s he doing. And remember that in this country of ours marketing is a big part of the success or failure of an artist.

Rich Garr: Yea. Do you feel that you’ve done well marketing yourself as an artist? Has it been difficult?

Anthony Eterovich: I don’t like the term marketing myself but certainly I like to make clear what I like to do, what I’m working at. And I’m now in the process of working on what they call the bio, or the provenance, of an artist. I’m trying to record what I’ve done and what I’m still working on.

Rich Garr: Um … and we’re gonna wind down … but where could I see your art if I wanted to see it?

Anthony Eterovich: Well, usually my art is either like I say at the institute here, or if I exhibit out of town. Or my appointment. If a person’s really interested, which I’ve done and they will make a call and say that they’re interested in my style, or have seen it then they can come and visit me in my home and my studio.

Rich Garr: Okay, great. If you want to add anything do it now because I’m gonna go back to my class.

Anthony Eterovich: No, except it’s a trying thing to do this and I want to compliment you on what you’re trying to do …

Rich Garr: Yea.

Anthony Eterovich: … and there’s no mystery about Tremont. It is growing so beautifully and there are so many good things there that I will always cherish my relationship to Tremont.

Rich Garr: Oh, and one more thing I forgot to ask you. Have you gone down there recently and gone to any of the restaurants. And do you make it a point to revisit?

Anthony Eterovich: Ahhh … well I like to just from a nostalgic view point. I like to drive around and go through certain areas from Scranton up through every once in a while. But I haven’t yet visited certain areas that I know I soon will. What’s the name of this one that had so much publicity recently ( )?

Rich Garr: Restaurant? Lola’s is a pretty big restaurant.

Anthony Eterovich: No, the other one. One was Miracles was it?

Rich Garr: Miracles? I don’t know. There’s a ton of ‘em around there now. And there’s a lot of bars … I go to the bars there. There’s Lincoln Park Pub, I went to Dempsey’s recently.

Anthony Eterovich: No the one that just recently had a lot of stories about it in the paper. Even big pictures. He’s fixing it … .

Rich Garr: Oh, they’re doing a series about this restaurant, I can’t remember the name of it. It’s a newer one, he just opened it. But, Yea. Its just part of all the new hip stuff going in in the area. Alright …

Anthony Eterovich: Well, enjoyed it.

Rich Garr: … alright. I’m gonna cut the recorder off.

END OF INTERVIEW

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