{"id":386219,"date":"2026-01-02T05:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T05:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/386219\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T05:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T05:44:11","slug":"across-20-years-a-cadre-of-cleveland-artists-becomes-a-worldwide-portrait-phenomenon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/386219\/","title":{"rendered":"Across 20 years, a cadre of Cleveland artists becomes a worldwide portrait phenomenon"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 I never thought I\u2019d be the kind of person who would sit for a portrait session. <\/p>\n

That always felt like a thing for poets with hollow cheeks or bluesmen with hands like driftwood\u2014people somehow more visually interesting than whatever I\u2019ve got going on.<\/p>\n

But then artist Tim Herron invited me to sit for a \u201cPretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists\u201d (PCPA)<\/a> event. <\/p>\n

I found myself saying yes before my brain could remind me of all the reasons why I stay behind a notebook, laptop or microphone.<\/p>\n

Herron \u2014 the group\u2019s founder and familiar presence in Cleveland art circles<\/a> \u2014 prefers to work from direct observation, whether he\u2019s capturing a landscape, a late-night barfly or a fidgety writer fighting the urge to scratch his crooked Roman nose. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s spent decades studying figures through classes at the Cooper School of Art, the Cleveland Institute of Art and in gads of plein air and life-drawing sessions around the city. <\/p>\n

Herron\u2019s work has hung everywhere from Mac\u2019s Backs Books on Coventry to restaurants, galleries and the windows of his Tremont studio.<\/p>\n

The PCPA group itself dates to 2005, when Herron and fellow artist Brian Pierce began gathering at a Tremont bar called The Literary Caf\u00e9. <\/p>\n

Their mission was simple: practice portrait drawing without paying for professional models. <\/p>\n

\"Kasumi\"Cleveland visual artist Kasumi sits for the Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists group.Tim Herron<\/p>\n

\u201cArtists who work from life need steady practice and join life drawing groups and pay $10-15 for a two-to-three-hour session. Models get paid and go home happy and the artists for the most part go home with the drawings,\u201d Herron told me after my portrait shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut those drawings usually go in the closet or the basement to die. A few can recoup their money by selling the drawings,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, this is what I did and would still do. What I decided was to concentrate on portraits\u2014moving away from nude forms\u2014and at the conclusion, the portraits could go to the best home possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the group recruited whoever wandered in \u2014 notable and unknown, quirky and conventional. Models received finished drawings; artists (as many as could fit in the room) enjoyed practice, repetition, camaraderie.<\/p>\n

Everyone wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to a point where we didn\u2019t repeat models, which is exciting and challenging for the artists,\u201d Herron said. \u201cThe other thing our group does: we don\u2019t give artists\u2019 work away for free. Our subjects are paid for their time with portraiture; the labor goes home with them.\u201d <\/p>\n

The group\u2019s name is more an inside joke than a boast \u2014 a tongue-in-cheek reclamation of a neighborhood stereotype. \u201cPretentious Tremont Artists\u201d eventually expanded into the Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists as the group grew beyond its original ZIP code.<\/p>\n

\"StrikeOnce the timer starts, the model needs to hold still. This is a challenge for anyone who fidgets or loves a good laugh. The PCPA keep cute animal videos on in the background to keep your eyes occupied.Tim Herron<\/p>\n

Those early years were scrappy and nocturnal. Sessions ran from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. (They run 7 – 11 p.m. these days, a byproduct of everyone getting older).<\/p>\n

Herron drew on massive 32-by-40-inch sheets and required models to pose twice \u2014 one night for the head, one for the hands. As more artists joined, including several from the Murray Hill drawing circle, the group switched to smaller paper and single sittings.<\/p>\n

When The Literary Caf\u00e9 changed hands in 2015, the artists scattered to new homes \u2014 breweries, galleries, studios across the east and west sides, before landing at their current landing spot at The Manly Pad artist studio in Tremont. Weekly gatherings continued. <\/p>\n

So did the flow of new faces. By the late 2010s, hundreds of artists and subjects had been rostered.<\/p>\n

The pandemic pushed the group online, where participation broadened unexpectedly. <\/p>\n

Artists from at least a dozen U.S. states and several countries \u2014 Australia, Taiwan, Iceland, Malaysia, Norway, Singapore, the U.K. \u2014 joined in through livestreams and shared photos.<\/p>\n

The group eventually returned to in-person drawing but also kept its expanded digital community. Two decades later, PCPA remains a Cleveland original: informal, accessible, delightfully unpretentious in its pretense. <\/p>\n

Anyone can draw. Anyone can pose. Everyone leaves with something.<\/p>\n

\"AOne of the dozens of portraits created from my sit with the Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists, this one by Cleveland native Lisa Hutson.Lisa Hutson<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are, I believe, the only group of our kind in the country,\u201d Herron said with pride. \u201cNot in New York. Not in Los Angeles. Not in Chicago. Why does this only happen in little ol\u2019 Cleveland? Shouldn\u2019t every city have a Pretentious group?\u201d<\/p>\n

That notion unfolds by the hour after I walk into The Manly Pad. First, some pre-portrait photos are taken (reference points for artists to use after a \u201csit\u201d is complete). Then it\u2019s a move to the front of a roomful of people, all of them ready to make sense of my face. <\/p>\n

Some are working with watercolors; others oil and acrylic paints. Still others using drawing tools like charcoal, graphite, pastels for drama and texture. Penned ink, colored pencils, markers. You try to focus on what the artists are doing, moving only your eyes.<\/p>\n

Some work goes home with you at the end of the night; other pieces make their way to you weeks later when long-distance artists send them to Herron. <\/p>\n

Posing is a whole different daunt than your morning mirror routine. This slowly dawned on me through a stretch of 45-minute-long poses soundtracked with between-artist banter and the lilting sounds of \u201cFolk Alley\u201d<\/a> coming from a tablet on a nearby table.<\/p>\n

Truth is, it doesn\u2019t drown out your own inner dialog. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about my sorta British teeth?\u201d (Stick to the Mona Lisa smile today!) My androgen receptor hairline? (Break out the Guardians cap!) Does this hoodie hide my double chin? (Turns out my Jack Black winter beard does!) Or my cockeyed nose, broken by a volleyball prodigy in junior high who went on to become an All-American at Purdue? Sigh. No hiding that.<\/p>\n

The mind wanders, wondering what the painters, illustrators and sketch artists would notice; things time has carved, life has softened, scars I forgot until someone finds them.<\/p>\n

While I won\u2019t share all the results, the sample in this story gives you a deep understanding of the level of ability, creativity and talent woven into the group.<\/p>\n

Some of the pieces were more photo-real than this; others more eclectic, avant-garde, abstract. All of the work is stunning: not because it\u2019s me, but because of things I am too close to the subject matter to see. <\/p>\n

With each subject they capture, this heartfelt, rag-tag, who\u2019s who of artists from all over the place bond, keep their skills sharp and stay connected in a familial way\u2014building relationship with their subjects while they\u2019re capturing them. <\/p>\n

Somehow, our four hours are gone in a flash. <\/p>\n

For one cold Friday night under the soft buzz of studio lights, everyone in the room and on the livestream is embracing vibrance, community, the perfectly imperfect and unique-to-Cleveland spirit PCPA was built on. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a metaphor for how we should all walk into 2026: leaning in, looking closer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 I never thought I\u2019d be the kind of person who would sit for a portrait…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-386219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}