The Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists started around 2005 then Timothy Herron and Brian Pierce started drawing portraits out of the back of a small bar called the Literary Café in the Tremont section of Cleveland. The Literary Café was run by a couple, Andy Timithy and Linda Baldizzi who were patronized by artists, poets and other types of creative people.

It was a way of getting steady practice. We offered any of the patrons if they sat for a 3-hour session they could keep the drawings. Trading the models 3 hours with the artists 3 hours so the models went home with the drawings. Today this provides the artists with steady practice and a new face each week as we don’t have to repeat models. The artists also find the best home for the portraits rather than store them in their basement or closet for who knows when? The drawings are also posted on our Facebook group page: The Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists along with our website: https://www.literarycafeartists.com/

When covid hit we were lost as we only met in person. That’s when we received assistance from Roger Miller and his wife Beth who’s podcast on Facebook Live “Tues@7” became the template to continue. Not knowing how to videotape our sessions, Roger and Beth took over videotaping their large family one week at a time and broadcasting it on our Facebook group page: The Pretentious Cleveland Portrait Artists till Brian and I could take over. Now we were only online with a video of our models posing. We then lost half our artists who didn’t want to draw from a video (later we added stills to draw from). It was then that karma stepped in and we found many artists who liked the idea and were fine working from a video or still.

Today we offer live drawing, an online video and stills of the model each week to practice from. After posing the models go home with the drawings of the live artists but also receive a second envelope of drawings from the US online artists who send me portraits every 7-8 weeks to save on postage. We have many international artists joining us weekly whom we don’t ask for the portraits as it is more expensive and troublesome to send. By just doing portraits we are able to get very interesting models to pose, from other artists, authors, actors, poets, dancers, community leaders along with people from all walks of life. The name comes from the beginning when we were setting up the group in the Literary Café, and I overheard an artist in a private conversation with a friend, explain to him that Tremont was full of pretentious artists! But of course! Ha ha ha.

Timothy Herron