Dayton Most Metro

Things to do in Dayton | Restaurants, Theatre, Music and More

Bill Franz

Dayton at Work and Play: Simeon Oyeyremi

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Simeon Oyeyemi is one of the artists participating in the exhibition “Unity: Creating a Better Tomorrow” sponsored by the United Way of the Greater Dayton Area.
Simeon tells me he has been an artist since he was still in preschool. In the late 80’s he lived in New York where he learned from three famous artists – Haring, Warhol and Basquiat. He met these people after he painted over graffiti by Keith Haring. Haring felt Simeon should learn Haring’s style before painting over his work, and the relationship was born.

Simeon is a graduate of Central State and has also studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He works out of a large studio in the building occupied by Central State West. Simeon works in several different styles, and will be exhibiting three very different pieces in the show.

“One piece is my drawing of Frederick Douglas” he told me. “Another piece is a 1/25 scale model cast iron truck on which I’ve painted graffiti. The third piece is part of a series I’m doing that relates to African art. My father is from Nigeria, and I’ve had a chance to visit there. The figures in this series relate to some of the art I saw in Africa.”

You can bid on Simeon’s work online starting August 26 at https://www.liveuniteddayton2020.org/.

Dayton at Work and Play: Erin Smith-Glenn

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Erin Smith-Glenn is one of the artists participating in the exhibition “Unity: Creating a Better Tomorrow” sponsored by the United Way of the Greater Dayton Area. In this photo Erin is working in the studio where she teaches at Central State University. I asked Erin about the exhibition and about how she’s weathering the pandemic.

“I entered a painting in the exhibition inspired by my daughter. She’s a big fan of the Black Panther movie and her favorite character is Shuri, a princess of Wakanda. I started doing a painting of Shuri as a demonstration for my class, and fell in love with it.”

“The pandemic has been an interesting time for me as an artist. When I was told that Central State was shutting down, I saw that most people headed to the grocery store to stock up on food. I went to the art supply store and bought a lot. I went home and immediately went to work on a large piece and felt my stress going down as I worked. This has been a productive period for me, and a time of learning and growth.”

“Classes start again at Central State soon, and I’ve spent a lot of time getting ready. My art classes will be a combination of in person and online. When students are in the studio here I have things set up in a socially distanced way. Easels and supplies are labelled so we can keep track of which students use which items which can be important for contact tracing.”

You can bid on Erin’s work online starting August 26 at https://www.liveuniteddayton2020.org/.

Dayton at Work and Play: Artist Morris T. Howard

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Artist Morris T. Howard and three of his  paintings, a bit abstracted.

The reaction to the postcards I’ve sent out has been positive, so I’ve decided to make more. As I make an abstract version of a portrait I am putting it on two postcards. One is sent to the subject and one stays with me to display in my office.

Yesterday I sent this postcard to Morris Howard, one of my favorite Dayton artists. Morris paints people, and as I look at his paintings I see more than just what the people look like. There’s also something about the essence of the person captured in the painting.

Before sending Morris his postcard I contacted him to see what he’s been doing. He said he just created a painting for an event called “Unity: Creating a Better Tomorrow.” It is sponsored by the United Way of the Greater Dayton Area and highlights the talent of local African American artists. The community will have a chance to bid on the artwork online. Then the art will be exhibited at Ebonia Gallery / Bing Davis Studio.

“The piece I’m painting for the exhibition is from the funeral of John Lewis,” Morris told me. “As part of the ceremony, his casket was taken on a horse-drawn carriage across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. In my painting, the bridge is renamed as the John Robert Lewis Bridge. Artists get to do things like that.”

Morris gave me a list of the artists who will be exhibiting. I’ll try to get some photos of the artists and/or their artwork and post it before the online bidding opens.

Dayton at Work and Play: Aj Bauer of Smokin Bbq

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“I lived in the Oregon District when I went to the University of Dayton” AJ told me. “I loved the food here and ate here several times a week. I knew the family that owned the place, and when they gave me the chance to buy it I bought it with my brother Brendan in May, 2019.”

A J Bauer co-owner of Smokin Bbq

“Before buying this place I sold restaurant equipment. That gave me a look at the operations of all kind of restaurants, but this is the first time I’ve operated one. This place has been voted “Dayton Best BBQ” so we didn’t want to change the food at all. We kept almost all of the employees and kept the recipes the same except for making the Mac and Cheese a little cheesier.” (I tried it – delicious).

“When the pandemic hit we stayed open for carry out orders, but business was down. Lunch has always been our busiest time, but no one was eating lunch downtown. Our other busy time was late at night on weekends when people stopped by after being at the bars. That died too. Fortunately, our dinner business boomed. That gave us enough business so that we haven’t needed to lay off any of our employees.”

Smokin Bbq

200 E 5th St
Dayton, OH 45402

(937) 586-9790

Hours:
Mon – Thurs 10:30am – 9pm
Fri & Sat 10:30am- 11pm
Sunday- closed

Order Online Here

Open for dine-in & carryout. Grub Hub & Uber eats for delivery.

 

Dayton at Work and Play: Daj’za Demmings

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Daj’za Demmings is a Biomedical Engineer working on artificial vertebrae for people with back disorders. She’s also the Executive Director of Dayton Young Black Professionals.  I met her while she was working to clean up Mallory Park in Dayton’s Pineview neighborhood, as part of the I Love West Dayton project.

I wasn’t familiar with the Young Black Professionals Group and asked Daj’za to tell me something about it.

“We try to empower our members to be leaders in our communities, and to support improvements to those communities to make them the kind of place where we want to live. Last year after the tornadoes hit we delivered food, water and other supplies to people who were impacted. This year we’re working on the Mayor’s Police Reform effort. We also have an after school program, run summer camps and do workforce development training.”

“We could use some help with one of our projects. We’re buying Chrome Books for students who don’t have a computer while schooling from home. The GoFundMe page is https://www.gofundme.com/f/dybps-fight-for-social-justice ”

Dayton at Work and Play: Ghosts at Browse Awhile Books

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When I visited Browse Awhile Books (118 East Main Street, Tipp City) last week I learned about their ghosts. The building is 150 years old, and has been a grocery store, harness shop, bakery and hardware store before becoming a bookstore 30 years ago. I guess that’s a long enough history to attract a few ghosts. The ghostly activities at the bookstore have been featured on two TV shows and the place has been visited by dozens of paranormal investigators.

When I asked bookstore owner Bill Jones about his ghosts, he said they didn’t worry him. They had never done anything harmful or bothered anyone. He suggested I talk to Haley, one of his employees, about her experiences.

“I’ve been here about a year, and in that time I’ve seen quite a bit” she told me. “It doesn’t bother me. I grew up in an older house and we had weird things happen at home every once in a while.”

“I’ve seen one particular ghost three times. The first time I thought he was a customer standing with his back to me, although I hadn’t heard anyone come in. He was wearing a hat and a long coat even though the day was warm. I walked around the counter to greet him, and he was gone. Then someone showed me a photo of Sam Baldwin, who had owned the building when it was a hardware store. That’s who it was.”

Browse Awhile Books
118 E Main St
Tipp City, OH 45371
(937) 667-7200
Hours:
Tuesday- Friday 11am – 5pm
Saturday  11am – 4pm
A local bookstore that opened in 1980 and specializes in used, rare and out of print books. We offer a variety of subjects for your reading pleasure.  Our store is around 4,000 square feet and houses more than 150,000 books on two floors, and 50,000 on line. We have a variety of subjects which include: fiction, mystery, cookbooks, history, classics, religion, science fiction/fantasy, and many more.

Dayton at Work and Play: Chaz Amos

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This is my first photo of recent high school graduate Chaz A. Amos, but I doubt that it will be my last. This young man is someone who is making good things happen in Dayton.

As a student, Chaz founded “The Youth of Our Future” mentoring initiative for Dayton Public schools, and he organized a city-wide youth town hall which gave students an opportunity to voice their concerns to the Mayor and to school board members.

Now he’s started I Love West Dayton, a 14 week initiative to clean and beautify West Dayton. “The whole goal of the project is to promote community pride. Once you see your community look better you want to contribute to that effort. Then once you start contributing to that effort it comes together as a whole, better community,” Amos recently told a reporter.

Lots of groups have joined with Amos, including Dayton Young Black Professionals, Dayton Urban Young Life, The Living City project, the city of Dayton and lots of volunteers.

On his Instagram page Chaz describes himself as a future Mayor of Dayton and as the future first Black Governor of Ohio. He laughed when I told him I’d seen that statement, and said first he needed to get through college. But as I talked to him I got the idea that someday he might well hold those two offices.

Dayton At Work and Play: Amelia O’Dowd, owner of BRIM

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“I moved to Dayton from Boston in 2012. I’ve always been a hat person, and in my old Boston neighborhood there was a great hat shop. I couldn’t find anything like that in Dayton, so I bought this building, painted it yellow, and opened a hat shop for men and women. As is turns out, there wasn’t another hat shop in this region, so we regularly get people coming here from places like Indianapolis or Columbus.”

“When the virus hit, we had to shut down for a while. We used that time to improve our website. I’m happy with the result. The site has good photos and all of the size information a shopper needs. Our selection of hats for men and women is really unique. We design some of the hats ourselves, and have them made in the country’s oldest operating hat factory. Other hats are made specifically for our shop by designers in New York. We also have some other interesting products, like Jewelry from artisans in India or skincare products from a retired cricket player in New Zealand”

“We’re open for walk-in customers now, and operating as safely as possible. We’ve changed the store layout a bit to help with social distancing, and everyone wears masks. Business isn’t as good as it was, but between the walk-ins and the website we’re doing OK.”

Brim
464 East Fifth Street
The Oregon District
Dayton, OH 45402

(937) 222-4287
Hours:
Tues- Sat 11am – 8pm
Sun 11am- 4pm

Dayton at Work and Play: Kate Rivers-Twist Cupcakery

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Kate Rivers worked as an engineer for a business that makes medical devices. Now she makes gourmet desserts for her own business – Twist Cupcakery (25 South St. Clair).

“I started baking from home” she told me. “People raved about the desserts I made, and asked if they could buy them from me. Five years ago we decided to move out of the house and operate out of this spot downtown. We’ve gotten a lot of support from the community, and business has grown steadily. We’re closed for walk in service currently, but people can order cupcakes and other products on our website and then do a curbside pick up.”

“Cakes for weddings and other special events are an important part of our business, but that ‘s not happening now. To boost sales we developed a new product that’s doing well. It’s called Cupcakes in a Jar. Each jar has two of our gourmet cupcakes. We can mail them out nationwide. It’s a great way to celebrate a special occasion with people that we can’t be with.”

“We’ve been sending our cupcakes to hospitals, testing stations and other places where people are doing so much to help the community – our way of spreading happiness and joy. Everybody need to pitch in during these tough times. We like to do it with cupcakes.”

Dayton At Work and Play: Big Sky Bread Company

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Mari Gallenstein of Big Sky Bread Company Dayton, Ohio. (3070 Far Hills Avenue). You can see her husband Phil baking in the background. They’ve owned and operated this local business for over 20 years.


I’m a regular here because I’m addicted to their blueberry crumbles. The last time I stopped in I asked Mari how the pandemic had affected her business.

“We’ve done everything we can to make this a safe place to shop. Our employees wear masks and we spend a lot of time cleaning everything. We’ve added barriers and changed the layout so there’s a safe distance between the customers and between customers the staff. Business is down from our normal levels but we’re doing OK. A few of the restaurants that sell our products have recently opened back up, which should help.”


“When the pandemic first hit we were contacted by Catholic Social Services. There was more demand than ever for the food that their Choice Food Pantry hands out, but their regular suppliers couldn’t get them any bread. We had decided to close on Saturdays because business was down, so we decided that Saturday would be our time to bake for the pantry. Some customers saw that we were working and stopped in, so we decided to stay open for a half day on Saturdays after all.”


“When people heard what we were doing, some of them gave us money to help cover our expenses. That helped a lot. Recently the regular bread suppliers to the Choice Food Pantry have worked through their problems, so we don’t need to do that baking. But we’re still baking for two other programs – Good Neighbor House and Kettering Backpack. We’ve gotten a lot of support from this community over the years. Helping people get through this difficult period is something we want to do.”

(937) 643-0300

3070 Far Hills Ave # c, Dayton, OH 45429

Hours

Mon: 10am – 6pm
Tues-Fri: 7am – 6pm
Sat: 10am – 2:30pm
Sun: Closed