The Living Arts Initiative
The No Surf House Living Arts Initiative is a program to create new art from Cleveland-area creatives to decorate our facility. Unlike many such installations, these murals, sculptures, etc., will become a permanent part of No Surf House. Eventually, we hope to turn the whole house into one big art piece that people just happen to live in. The main beneficiaries will be our Home on the Road guests and our Career Kickstart residents, but the public will be able to view the artworks at our annual open house and by appointment.
The first piece, completed in December 2024, is Exodus by Charley Frances. Frances, who has also joined the No Surf House Advisory Board to help guide the initiative, creates through a process of combining representational imagery with archetypes often grounded in nature, history, the grotesque, or the delirious. These intimate and psychologically vulnerable images are cut abruptly, at times violently, and never include a recognizable human face. This intentional identity removal invites the viewer to take in the composition as a true voyeur and to observe their own influences and responses.
Inspired by No Surf House’s dedication to traveling musicians, Exodus reflects on the primal human drive between creating and migrating. Featuring a four-headed bison anchored in Americana folklore, the design stretches out from the center between two walls, angled in different directions. Shrouded in a dark, emotive color palette, illusions of smoke wrap throughout the visual space in a cyclical pattern, reflecting on the creative process itself. These weaving linear marks and introspective color transitions call attention to constant, vibrating movement—even within a still moment. Every visual element compounds and contributes to the form moving in every direction at once: encompassing, or perhaps challenging, the viewer.
