As part of a project called Knitscape CedarLee, artists are knitting and crocheting sheaths for select trees in the neighborhood to mark the business district with a line of color and pattern — to knit, in the shape of the pieces, an identity for the city. Artist Carol Hummel crocheted a cover for a parking-meter pole in front of Heights Arts Gallery (2173 Lee Rd.). Someone apparently called the police while Hummel was installing the colorful parking-meter condom. When they arrived, Hummel explained the project to the officer, mentioning that Heights Arts had permission from the city and that she was installing the prototype — so he didn't give her a ticket. But some time Saturday night, the protective shield was removed — stolen or perhaps censored by someone who had a disturbing personal reaction to it. Anyone who knows anything about this should contact Heights Arts at 216.371.3457 or heightsarts.org.
Artist Brian Jones' new paintings are a little like sonnets, using consistent, sensible and even rhetorically sound form to explore another idea entirely. In Jones' case, the form is a little grove of trees on the left side of a hillside horizon that gradually slopes to the right, organizing the whole thing into color fields of land and sky. Jones shows his work at his eponymous gallery, one of more than 20 galleries, restaurants and shops participating in the 30th anniversary of the Murray Hill Art Walk, noon-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon-6 Sunday. For information, call Brian Jones Gallery (2021 Murray Hill Road, brianjonesart.com, 216.229.5110).
Matt Greenfield's monthly Oddy Festival marches on, with a vaudevillian blend of Shakespearean bits with rap, reggae and a campy morality play that seems to really want to mean something. Oddy Festival's June program, dubbed txt-ing, comes in three parts. The Fog is Greenfield's mashup of Shakespearean bits. Then comes the intermission music, featuring a "minimalistic" rap called "Drop the Mic." Greenfield has tagged the second-half production, Stand Down: A Morality Play for the Modern Era, "F-bombastic for language." Performances are at 7:30 p.m. June 3 and 17, at the Heights Arts Studio (2340 Lee Rd., Cleveland Hts., Heightsarts.org, 216.371.3457). Tickets: $10.
