The curator of a private collection of roughly 3,000 pieces by internationally prominent contemporary artists, Richard “Rick” Rogers started his collecting practice in a slightly more modest fashion.
“As a kid, I started collecting coins. In kindergarten, I remember hours spent searching in vain for that really rare 1955 double die Lincoln penny.”
He went on to collect furniture and antiques in high school and college. In 1976, Rogers graduated from Hiram College with a BA in chemistry and biology and then earned his MBA from The Ohio State University in 1980. Following that he launched and ran Tribute Software for 14 years. When his father retired from the family industrial motion and control business, he stepped in to run it for another 20 years.
His commitment to collecting art seriously started around 2000, when he had the income to devote to it. Eva Kwong, a ceramics artist and professor at Kent State University, who he met about that time helped nurture an interest in ceramics.
Today, Kwong’s vivid work is strikingly displayed on an outside wall of one of the two homes in Akron where Rick and his wife Alita live, work, and exhibit their remarkable collection. Both houses contain ceramics, drawings, paintings, photographs, and sculptures. Artists in their eclectic and far-reaching collection include Hans Bellmer, Peter Voulkus, Tip Toland, John De Andrea, and Beth Cavener. (Visit hieronymusobjects.com for more details.)
“I really enjoy the aesthetic pleasure of being around the art,” he explains. “There is also the fulfilling aspect of finding an artist that I like and buying their work and having it around me. There is a lot of joy in that.”
In 2016, Rick won a Knight Arts Challenge Grant that he used to found the Curated Storefront. The non-profit organization is dedicated to transforming downtown Akron into a more vibrant community through the arts. By staging art shows in vacant spaces in the city’s core they have created a level of interest at the street edge that stimulates commercial development.
To date, Rogers and his team have programmed 40 buildings, completed more than 150 installations including murals on a set of shipping containers on the north end of Main Street, and established about 10,000 square feet of artist studio space in the Bounce Innovation Hub, a former B F Goodrich plant. The inventive project has featured the work of more than 325 artists from Northeast Ohio and all over the world. Curated Storefront has also collaborated with and recruited artists at most of the region’s art schools.
“We needed a mix of national, international and local artists to create an experience that is distinctive and unique,” Rogers states. “You have to have diversity of programming to raise the standard of the art, and the element of excitement in the city.”
Curated Storefront’s extensive community arts and projects include collaboration with Akron’s Porch Rocker music and arts festival; serving as a partner with FRONT International at the historic Quaker Square building; the Curated Courthouse, a selection of artworks to refresh the interiors of the Summit County Courthouse; an artist residency program at The I Promise School; and The World of Wonders, a mini museum featuring robots and other curious objects from the eccentric mind of the late artist Clayton Bailey.
Recently, the organization announced a new series of installations made possible through a grant from The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company to mark the company’s 125th anniversary.
Since Curated Storefront’s inception in 2017, the art exhibits have engaged more than 100,000 visitors, more than 500 individuals in guided educational tours, and a dozen buildings have ultimately been commercially developed and revitalized.
“Rick’s vision for Akron is based on a deceptively simple insight that downtown Akron had become hollowed out in all of these empty storefronts,” says Fred Bidwell, executive director, FRONT International (CAP, 2013). “So his mission to repopulate, and reactivate those storefronts so they can be made beautiful improves the quality of life, and is also what’s needed to restart economic development and revive Akron’s downtown.”
An exemplar of civic leadership, compassion and unwavering dedication, Rick Rogers is a driving cultural force in Akron. He has played a pivotal role in shaping and revitalizing the city’s development, growth, and inclusivity, and his vision will continue to inspire generations to come.
Of Curated Storefront’s resounding success, Rick says: “I credit the incredible talent we’ve attracted and the amazing dedication our team has to our mission. We’re nimble, and we’re able to respond quickly to new projects. It’s been invigorating to have that level of teamwork and people jumping in to do creative things with extremely limited resources.”