Art & Culture

When Pandemic Hit, Libraries Were There — And for More Than Just Books

When 2020 hit, it seemed like no one was prepared for what was to come. Except, maybe, libraries.  Not to say the pandemic didn’t hit...

The People’s Mural of Columbus

Off of Main Street on Columbus’ East Side, a colorful, Midnight Marauders-esque mural overlooked a crowd gathered despite the growing heat of the August...

Snaps & Taps: How Black Artists Paved the Way for Slam Poetry in Columbus

In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act into law, authorizing one of the largest public works programs in the nation’s history:...

Young Theater-makers are Braving the Pandemic-era Stage—and Transforming It

When it became clear in the fall of 2020 that the COVID-19 pandemic wouldn’t be going away anytime soon, the University of Toledo (UT)’s...

How the Van Aken District Brought New Life to Shaker Heights: An Illustration Essay

My anti-morning person disposition requires that I have at least one iced coffee to start my day, and while Starbucks or Dunkin suffice, I...

The Transformation of the Modern Museum

Museums can originate from a multitude of places. Sometimes, they are created from a rich collection of artifacts inspired by a particular culture. Or,...

Entropic Peace in Isolation: Revisiting Yayoi Kusama’s Fireflies on the Water in 2020

The Toledo Museum of Art exhibition program brought together a special presentation of Yayoi Kusama’s Fireflies on the Water installation, just for a global pandemic to hit soon after. Despite what seemed to be a major set-back, COVID-19 has instead transformed Fireflies on the Water into a deeper reflection into what isolation and the individual mean in the chaos of 2020. What was once an incomprehensible escapist dream is now a sober dissolution into universal existentialism.

The Road to the Future: Life is a Highway and the Evolution of Toledo Car Culture

Rumor has it that Henry Ford himself thought about opening a major plant right here in Toledo; and while that plant ended up just...

Meeting Frans Hals in Toledo: A Dutch Family Reunion

As we strolled about the museum this past weekend, pausing at length before a pieced-together painting of an unusually happy family, the Midstory team...

Community by Rebecca Louise Law at the TMA: The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction

Between May 29 and June 12, community members came together for roughly 1,800 volunteer hours, stringing together 520,000 dried and fresh flowers, plants, and...

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