CLE
CLE
This piece begins with something direct.
Three letters. A place. A name we recognize.
CLE.
There is no abstraction in the structure.
It is clear, immediate, and familiar.
A marker of identity.
A shorthand for where we are from
and what we carry with us.
But inside the letters, the image does not stay fixed.
Color shifts.
Form breaks and reforms.
The guitar appears, then dissolves.
What should be stable becomes active—
as if the identity itself is still being made.
This is where the work moves beyond design.
Regional pride often settles into symbols.
Clean lines. Clear meaning.
Something that can be worn, displayed, repeated.
This piece begins there—
but does not remain there.
Inside the structure of CLE,
the image resists becoming a logo.
It does not simplify.
It does not resolve into a single statement.
Instead, it holds onto variation.
Noise. Energy. Movement.
The guitar remains present,
but not as an object.
It exists as a source—
a reference point within a field of change.
This is referential abstraction in a different form.
Not removing the object entirely,
but embedding it inside something recognizable—
and allowing it to shift beneath the surface.
There is a tension here.
Between clarity and complexity.
Between identity and expression.
Between something made to be seen quickly
and something that asks to be looked at longer.
This tension reflects a larger question.
What happens when art meets commerce?
Does it simplify itself
to become accessible?
Or can it carry complexity
into a space meant for repetition and use?
This piece does not answer that question.
It holds it.
It allows the letters to function as an entry point—
something immediate and shared.
But within that shared form,
it keeps the image alive.
Unfixed.
Unresolved.
Still becoming.
This is Cleveland—
not as a static symbol,
but as something experienced.
Something built from layers.
From sound.
From memory.
From the constant movement of people and place.
CLE is not just where we are.
It is what we continue to make.