Thanks Curtis.

Well, good afternoon.

To celebrate Akron Roundtable's 50th anniversary in 2026, we have been featuring individuals from Akron who have achieved national— who have achieved acclaim on a national and even international level.

It's my honor to introduce today's guest speaker, Leandra Drumm.

Leandra is an artist, born of artists, and has been creating her entire life.

Her early summers were spent immersed in the arts and crafts at North Carolina's prestigious Penland School of Crafts, where her parents taught classes for the first 10 years of her life.

Leandra and her husband, Tim Benninghoff, currently own and operate Leandra Drumm Designs and have been actively running Don Drumm Studios and Gallery for the past 5 years.

Leandra's father, Don Drumm, is a nationally celebrated sculptor in aluminum and steel with public and private works throughout the entire world.

He and his wife Lisa owned and operated Don Drumm Studios and Gallery for 50 years, representing over 500 American artists and craftsmen, and have been repeatedly honored as one of the nation's top 10 American craft galleries.

Leandra is with us today to share some of the history of the gallery, her parents' partnership, and Don's impressive scope of work.

Don Drumm Studios and Gallery is celebrating its 55th anniversary with a show titled Reflections: A Drumm Family Retrospective that runs through October 24th, 2026.

I'm sure after today, many of you who, if you haven't been there already, will want to be there at the gallery to see that exhibit.

Leandra has shared that many people who have come to the show have shared treasures from their own collections along with their personal stories, and I heard one just as I was coming into the room today.

And I'm sure many of you have your own Drumm treasures of your own.

Moderating the conversation with Leandra will be Mila Susnjar.

Mila has been a staff member at Don Drumm Studios for many years and plays an integral role in the operations of the gallery.

Please join me in welcoming Leandra Drumm and Mila Susnjar.

So, Leandra, I understand, as Barry said, it is the 55th anniversary of the gallery being founded, and hopefully you can share a little bit of its history.

I want you to all repeat this after I'm finished.

So the gallery was started in 1971 when my parents were looking for a place to start my dad's foundry.

They had a couple of spaces before this, before finding a place at 437 Krause Street, which was an old automotive repair shop.

The intention was to put a foundry in the back and the gallery space up front that would highlight some of their work and the work of their friends.

In the early days, my father said they had a little bell out front on the counter, And when a customer would come in, they would ring that bell, and Don Drumm would come and wait on you personally.

My sister, Elisa Van Aken, we were talking the other day, and she was sharing fond memories of my going to breakfast with my dad on the weekends, and then they would go to the gallery, and she would do her homework at the front counter, and then when a customer would come in, she would go get my dad to wait on them.

We are still very much a family business.

And now we've grown to have a campus of 8 buildings.

2 are dedicated solely to retail.

We represent the work of over 700 artists in glass, fiber, ceramics, metal, jewelry, and I'm sure I missed something there, but we— the main gallery is focused on handmade American and Canadian crafts.

While the different drummer has a focus on the fibers in the wood that were more susceptible to the foundry dust.

But we've grown to include some nicely designed commercial lines and imports.

And apparently I talk with my hands, so I'm sorry.

So, Leandra, for visitors that are encountering the gallery for the first time today, I believe there's a short video that kind of highlights some of the items that you can see.

Yes, since we're visual people, I thought we'd play that.

That was a beautiful glimpse into the gallery.

There's one thing I noticed.

I also speak with my hands, by the way.

So near the end, there's a little kind of focus on your dad's iconic sun.

And I know that that's a symbol that's found in a lot of his work.

And I was hoping you could share with everyone how he came about with that symbol.

Yes.

So it's true, the sun has become synonymous with my dad and his work.

You can find it in his aluminum, in his murals, in his drawings and even in our logo.

And he told me that when he was a young boy, that a teacher told him that the circle was the most difficult shape to try to learn how to draw.

And of course, he took that as a challenge and worked to perfect the circle.

And over time, it grew to include the facial elements and eventually the rays.

And I always felt like it was a perfect combination of his 2 styles, the abstract and the figurative.

And I say that it even has his nose.

Yes, that is true.

So we heard a little bit about his early education with that circle, and I was hoping you could share a little bit about how your parents' families kind of shaped their foundation for their paths in the arts.

Yes.

So my father was born in Warren, Ohio, to Walter and Helen Drumm, and his father, Walter, was a mechanic, and we used to refer to him as kind of a genius mechanic because he had an incredible ability to think of ideas and create them and construct them.

And in his younger years, he created the wind wagon, as my dad called it.

It had a giant propeller, and he created this steel frame for this car that would, you know, blow down the street.

And in our early days as kids, he used to create all kinds of playground equipment and probably not safe by today's standards, but we had this giant spring with a wood paddle and handles, and we would bounce up and down on it.

And later, my grandmother and he bought a fishing lake, and they expanded it to have a swimming lake for adults and— or people, and it was a resort.

And on that resort, they had an amusement ride that I remember had these carousel horses on the outer edge of these giant mechanical spider arms that would go up and down as it went around.

I feel that my dad inherited much of this capacity to think spatially and create, and he also learned much of his welding skills from him.

But my dad chose to study medicine at Hiram College, and one thing I'm not sure everybody's aware of, but my father is dyslexic.

And so he struggles with numbers and letters.

And when he got into calculus class, he really struggled.

And he hit a wall and he thought, I can't do this.

And he started to wander around campus to see if there was something else of interest.

And he happened upon an art class.

And he thought, this looks great.

And he asked if he could sign up for the class.

And the teacher said, I'm sorry, we're all filled up.

And he tucked his head down and started to walk away and said, well, I guess I'm going to have to quit college.

And that teacher said, nope, nope, wait a minute, come back here, we'll get you in the class.

Her name was Mayo Johnson, and she was very informative in setting my father on his path to art.

And I really credit teachers and education for identifying somebody who has talent and, and helping them to find that path.

And there's a real similarity to my father's story And my mother's family story.

My mother grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and she was the daughter of Joseph and Catherine Plofkin.

And Joseph grew up in a family, they had immigrated from Czechoslovakia, and they, my dad, my grandpa, sorry, used to say that he grew up on the dirtiest street of the dirtiest neighborhood of the dirtiest town in Braddock, Pennsylvania.

I've seen pictures.

But, so he was a scrappy young fellow and often got kicked out of class in high school.

And while he's wandering through the hallways, he happened upon an art class, and he was staring through the door, and the teacher invited him in, and the teacher said, what do you think?

And because he was a little cocky at that time, he said, I can do better.

And so, so that teacher wisely challenged him to do so, and it turned out that he had a natural ability to draw.

That teacher also happened to be Eugene Everhard, who was an illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post and kind of synonymous with, or kind of equal to Norman Rockwell of the time.

And he mentored my grandfather in the arts, and my grandfather grew up to be an incredible painter and art educator, and my grandpa himself educated many students that became well recognized in our community.

Richard Anoskevich, who is known in the Op Art movement, and John Deckert, who was a sculptor, has many pieces in the Akron— or in the Erie Art Museum, are just a couple of those artists.

And I think, you know, I'm so thankful that he became an art educator and for the art educators who guided our family's path.

And naturally, my mother decided to follow in their footsteps and study art and education herself.

Yes.

So both Lisa and Don clearly came from families that valued art and creativity and education.

And I'm hoping you give us a little insight into their early life as well as how they met.

Yes.

So after college, my mother moved to Akron and she began teaching in the Akron Public School System.

And my dad worked as an industrial designer for Smith, Shear and McDermott as well as began teaching at the Akron Art Institute.

And my mom happened to be taking a class in art next door to his class, and he wandered over there and started to critique the artwork of the students.

My mom thought he was a student, and she thought, who's this guy to comment on our work?

Well, my dad eventually invited her to dinner, and they hit it off.

And at the end of the dinner, he handed her a business card that said, Don Drumm, artist and teacher.

And she laughed.

Fortunately, she has a good sense of humor because he's a bit of a prankster.

And they fell in love, and eventually they got married.

Unfortunately, during the month of their wedding, my dad was let go from Smith Shearer McDermott, and he was devastated because he was just starting his new life.

And he says in retrospect that it was one of the best things that ever happened to him because he was able to start his own business.

And my mother recognized that he had an incredible capacity to create, and she saw that as an asset and one that she wanted to support through her teaching and providing a steady income while my dad worked on commissions to supplement that income.

That is quite the idea of thinking about— you're starting a new life together and the job kind of falls out of the way and you're trying to start with all this uncertainty.

However, it didn't stop them.

By the end of 1964, Don had actually completed a project at Burke Lakefront Airport, and I'm hoping you can go over some of the details and what that meant to him at his stage of his career.

Yes, so my dad at that time was working for Gervais Brown Derby, and Gervais Brown Derby was opening up a restaurant, bar, and convention area at the Burke Lakefront Airport, and they had asked my dad to be the artist on that project.

And he, along with John Mazzola, who was a good friend and an interior designer, worked on this incredible project.

It had— he designed the carpeting, the tabletops, the cement relief murals with stained glass.

He created these incredible, like, chandelier lights that stemmed from the table, and several wall murals that had, you know, cut wood in them.

And it was just an incredible broad amount of, incredible body of work.

And I say this not as his daughter, but as a fellow artist, that I'm always astounded at the body of work that he was able to accomplish in his young career.

And I think for some artists, that might be considered a lifetime achievement, the amount of work that went in that, but for him, it was a blip in the radar of his early career in projects in art.

Yes, because shortly thereafter, beginning in 1965, he started his artist-in-residency program at Bowling Green State— Bowling Green State University.

Hopefully you can share a little bit about what he did there.

Yes.

So at this point, my mother was teaching and they were now starting to raise their young family.

And my dad achieved a residency at Bowling Green.

Where he had an incredible opportunity to create a large body of work.

He did a design for the student center, outdoor student center.

He had several large sculptures.

He created a cement facade of a fireplace at the skating arena and these giant aluminum handles.

He created a Corten steel sculpture during the Vietnam War that was called Bridge Over Troubled Water.

But sort of the icing on the cake was having the opportunity to work on the 2 facades of the William T. Jerome Library that was being built.

And the front of it was 10 stories high, and my mother warned him that when he's on that scaffolding, he might discover that he has a fear of heights, and that he should be careful.

Well, my dad said that he was working so intensely on that mural that he kind of forgot about it, and his hard hat fell off and ping-ponged through the scaffolding, and kind of like a pinball machine, and he said, well, I realized at that point I wasn't afraid of heights.

Well, we recently attended a dedication to the restoration of the William T. Jerome Library this summer, and I had a woman approach me that had been a phys ed teacher at the time, and she said, you know, I watched your father every day work on that sculpture, on that mural, And I said, what'd you think of the art?

And she said, I wasn't paying attention to the art.

She said, I was just enamored at the sheer physicality of what this man was doing out there.

And the current president of Bowling Green, in his dedication, said that this would never pass the safety standards of today's college.

And so we're really thankful that he was able to do that, had that opportunity to work on that, because it's really become a beacon for the campus and students and families attending.

Yeah.

And so I'd like to acknowledge the efforts also of the students past and former, as well as staff and faculty and other supporters who actually worked really hard to find the funds and the energy and the support to make sure that that renovation could go forward.

I believe this past spring another crew from Bowling Green State University came down to interview your father, and I think you have a short clip to share with the audience as well.

It's a way for my father to be here with us today.

Again, Id like to thank the team at Bowling Green State University for allowing us to share that clip with you all this afternoon, or this afternoon, yes.

I'd like to go a little bit back to your father's trajectory.

So, after he finished his artist-in-residency at Bowling Green, I think he did a little detour back to Kent State in 1967, and I'm hoping you can share a little bit more detail about that endeavor.

Yes, so my father was working on his master's, And as I said, he's dyslexic, so he had completed his master's work, but he still struggled with the thesis, and eventually came up with the idea of documenting, creating a sculpture.

So he created this large Corten steel sculpture that was called Solar Totem Number 1, and that sculpture became a very important part of the Kent State history, as it was the Vietnam War and students were protesting on the campus.

And the National Guard were called in to stop the protest, and shots were fired upon the students.

4 lives were lost that day, students' lives, and several others were injured.

The sculpture was pierced by a bullet, and there was a question as to which direction those bullets came from, and he was asked to do ballistics testing on the metal, and he proved from the direction that the way the metal was flanged outward what direction the bullet came from.

It came up, it came from the hill where the National Guard were located and was fired upon the students.

And that was a very pivotal moment in the case.

And my father asked that that hole never be closed because he wanted it to remain as a memorial to the students whose lives were lost that day.

Yes.

You know, reflecting on that somber time, you realize how difficult it was for both the Kents state students as well as the nation as well.

And to think that one of his pieces was part of that national story is also amazing.

But I'd like to also take a moment just to kind of think about everything that's happened in these few short years.

Both Don and Lisa had already taken on what I think have been extraordinary range of commitments and projects.

I think when you look about what your dad did, you know, the 10-story building, mural at Bowling Green, having one of his art pieces be part of the national history.

And then at Burke Lakefront Airport, even being concerned with the fibers in the carpet, just that level of detail.

And then not to forget your mother, but Lisa was working full-time as an art educator for the Akron Public Schools, raising 3 daughters, and also making sure everything moves smoothly so Don would have the time and energy to go forward with all these.

When I think about that, I say that's enough.

That's a lot of things going on.

But that's not all that they were doing.

They were instrumental in the beginnings of the American Crafts movement at Penland School of Crafts.

And I do know that you have some stories for what they experienced while they were there, as well as your own, if you can share that.

Yes.

So for many years, my parents taught at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina.

And I don't know if you're familiar with Penland School of Crafts, but it was started by a woman we refer to as Miss Lucy.

She grew up in the Appalachian Mountains, and she had learned the skill of weaving, and she wanted to share that with other women of the Appalachian Mountains so they could produce a livelihood.

She was donated land in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and later she was donated some looms, and she ran that school for many years.

And it was such a success that they decided to grow that program and include other craft teachings there.

And Bill Brown was the director of that program, and he had contacted my parents to participate as teachers at that time.

So we would go up for summer sessions, and as kids, it was just an incredible experience because we were immersed in the arts amongst so many talented artists.

And we had free range of that mountain, and we learned to square dance and clog, and this is all why my parents are teaching.

They don't know what we're doing.

And we also would watch the glassblowers blow glass, and when they would cut it, the glass from the punty, they'd have this perfect little ball of glass they'd throw out the window to cool in the sand, and we would scramble to gather them because they were the most beautiful marbles.

And we watched the ceramic artists, throw pots and watch them being— go into the kiln.

And we worked with enamel artists to make enamel pieces.

And we learned to card wool and turn it into— and spin it, sorry.

But it was also a really important time for my parents because they're working amongst all these very talented artists that are just starting to take off in their own careers.

They worked with some incredible people like Dale Chihuly, who was a glass artist, Drew Smith, who's a glass artist, Marianne Scheer, who's a well-known jeweler in New York, and Sam Maloof, who's a woodworker in California.

And so, at this time, they're discovering that the aesthetics can be combined with functionality and become saleable crafts, and they're learning from each other and coming up with techniques and tools that are still serving us today in the craft world.

And they're also discovering the value of that art and starting to form galleries that they can highlight their work and the work of their friends.

So it was very like significant time.

It does sound like Penland School of Crafts did a lot of not just experience for you, but exposed them to different things in the world.

And they learned a lot of lessons there.

And I think they brought quite a few of them back here to Akron.

And if you could Tell us a little bit about that too.

So last year, my mother passed away in July of 2025, and it was a very sad time for us.

But she— we were glad we had the time with her.

And she was an incredible mother, teacher, artist, businesswoman, and mentor.

And while we were grieving, we had this incredible warm embrace, one that I'm feeling today, actually, from our community of people sharing stories of what their art meant in their life, and those teachings.

And we experienced it immediately, like when we went to make arrangements at the funeral home, at Billows Funeral Home, and this is not an ad, but Nathaniel Billows handled our counseling personally, and he shared stories about how my father had come to him to have some urns made.

He wanted people to have this beautiful piece to remember their loved ones by, and he said that when he would come to pick up the pieces at the gallery, my dad would always insist on taking him to a local restaurant like Fred's, and sharing stories and laughing.

And then when we went to the service at the church, Mother Deborah, she had this staff with this beautiful pewter cross on it, and I knew my dad had made that for her.

And what I was realizing is that anywhere my parents saw a need, they tried to fill that with an art piece, and they did it oftentimes pro bono, not thinking about what they got out of it, just art for art's sake.

And I feel that they are always with us in our community.

When I go to the library and I see their sun and moon sculptures, when I go to Quaker Square and I see all the sun faces looking down at us, the schools, the LeBron James I Promise School, the Metro Parks, they're all around us all the time.

And what we really value is that Akron appreciates art and artists, and they've supported not only my family, but the greater arts community.

We're just incredibly grateful.

Yes.

Very true that we are fortunate to be in a community, in a city that appreciates and supports all forms of arts.

You've talked a little bit about your parents' history and how they've moved along.

Can you explain to us a little bit about how you started out with your career in the arts?

Yes, so I always associated art with play, and so I attended Central Hower High School where they had trade school and academics, and I chose the path of engineering 'cause I was good at math at that time, and I may have been rebelling against my art family.

I was really fortunate that my engineering teacher and my art instructor identified that I had talent, and they recommended that I sign up for a program at the University of Akron where you could get college credits in high school.

And I fortunately had— my teacher was Mark Soplin, who was an incredible artist and educator.

And he showed me that art isn't just like something that might be hereditary or something that is natural, but it's something that can be learned and that There's a history, there's technique, and there's process.

And so I was very fortunate that that coupled with Central Howard had a program where you spend the day with somebody in your field of interest.

And I chose an architectural engineer and a civil engineer.

And when I got to the civil engineer, it was on the basement level floor and had a drop ceiling with fluorescent lights and white walls.

And I'm sorry, Mr.

Civil Engineer, but he pulled down the book of calculus and he said, what I do is I study the density of a beam and the weight load it hold in a parking deck.

And I thought, I'm suffocating inside.

And what I was missing was colorful walls and art and music.

And I knew a little light bulb went off that I needed that in my life.

And so I decided to unknowingly follow in my father's footsteps, and I went to Kent State to study graphic design.

And while I'm there, I passed, you know, I'm in my dad's workshop at another time, and I passed by a sandblasting cabinet and I thought, I could use this for a project.

And I was really impressed by putting an image on a surface and leaving a permanent design on there.

And I fell in love with etching glass.

And so I started a little— well, I started a little business etching glass.

And my parents, who had always said, don't go into art because you can't make a living, and were showing me otherwise, encouraged me to start selling.

And so I had a little black market amongst my fellow students.

Who would come to me before Christmas for presents for their parents.

And when I graduated, I— oh, I was gonna say that I was selling to galleries at that point too, and I had exams, and it was the holiday season.

And I called— we had some galleries that were calling for reorders, and I called my mom in a panic, and I'm like, Mom, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

I got exams, I can't do this.

And she started to laugh at me, and she said, Honey, this is the best problem you could ever have.

You're sold out, just tell 'em you're sold out.

So I was able to start my career in Leandra Drumm Designs when I graduated, and I was fortunate that I could create my own work that I wanted to do, and I had an audience for that.

I later met my husband, Tim Benninghoff, who was trained as an architect, and we expanded the business to, you know, sell to galleries and museum stores throughout the US and in Canada.

At some point, my father came to me and literally said, you need to start working in metal, unlike that.

And so I did.

And I started to sculpt for that, and I really enjoyed the sculpting process as opposed to like the graphic part.

And so that line grew.

And now that I'm in the gallery space and I have ownership of the gallery, I'm learning both my parents' trades.

And I recently was learning how to weld, and I hope to step into, you know, having— finding my own path in creating some aluminum pieces, some larger scale pieces.

Yes, so thank you.

I also know that we wanted to show a short video of some aspects of what you've done with the community, but I also know that we also have another video that is very important to some of what Don has done.

So I don't know if we could maybe skip ahead to that video and talk a little bit about Don and how you found that video and Maybe the crew will have a little time to cue it up.

I'm guessing we're out of time.

We're okay.

Okay.

If we're okay, we can stick to script.

Are you okay, Tony?

All right.

So what we intended to do is talk about a community event that I participated.

It was called Light Up Lantern Festival.

And it took place in the University Park neighborhood.

I— it was an event that was free and at night, open to the public and family-friendly.

And I would work for several months with artists to create— to teach them how to make lanterns and costuming.

And I worked with schools, libraries, the Haven of Rest, and other, you know, events around campus.

And I also worked with artists to build stage and props and costuming.

And it was an incredible experience where if one artist has a skill set and they join with another artist, they can make a greater project.

And we would build stages for whatever theme we had.

Like we had a caravan stage that held velvet curtains and a dropdown screen.

And we worked with University of Akron artists to create these incredible shadow puppets, and they would do a performance with the shadow puppets, and then we would pull up the screen and Dr.

Sketchies would have a life model in costume posing, and we had these giant illuminated light boards where we would draw them.

It was just an incredible experience.

We had belly dancers, musicians, theater performers, aerialists, fire performers, and I even had a friend from Rhode Island who came with a giant hurdy-gurdy that he built, and he played with 2 Akron Symphony performers, We really worked to blur the line between audience and performers with, like, New World Performance Lab, who would dress up and interact.

And it worked so well that the following year they came back with even greater costumes and lanterns to participate.

But it was an incredible experience, and one that we try to incorporate now in our gallery, because sadly I had to step away for a little while to focus on my work, And now I'm able to bring some of that into the gallery.

So it's a place that you can come not only for beautiful handcrafted goods, but also have some experiences.

And more recently, we started an event in March called Salon de Lumiere that a customer can— it's right after we come back from the shows and we have new artists and art that we wanna share in a kind of boutique one-on-one experience.

We have— you can sign up to create something that night and then also have incredible drinks and food and music and interactions.

And we have all kinds of magical things.

My daughter, Alexandra Benninghoff, even does drawings of portraits of people, which I hear she does a really good job on that night.

But yeah, we hope to continue to bring that to our community.

Yeah.

So thank you.

And it really does.

You can see how it blurs the lines between someone who's in the audience and someone who's actually one of the artists performing.

But I believe we have a short video for that, and we'd like to share that with everyone as well.

All Right boys, like a pearl.

At the bottom of a barrel of tar, like my secondhand jalopy car, always giving me trouble.

And you said if you ever had a pet that you would never neglect it.

Well, honey, I'm that dog.

Ow!

We brothers simply say amen.

Amen!

I got to hear that music now.

This song is like no other.

I wrote it for my mother and I just can't wait to sing it again.

When Red Red Rev comes bop bop bopping along, you know he's gonna be singing that song.

A good old-fashioned 5-cent song.

I said what this country needs is a good 5-cent song.

One that you can whistle when you can't go wrong.

It's funny, for a dollar you gotta get up and holler.

You gotta clap your hands and stamp your feet.

Sing along.

All you really need is a good 5-cent song.

One you should have been singing all along.

Well, I guess we could talk a little bit about Salon de Lumière.

As someone who was participating with it, it was fun to watch people come into the gallery and view it in a different light.

They were walking around, getting behind the scenes.

I thought I heard some music behind the scenes.

There was a tour of your dad's one-of-a-kind pieces.

What was your favorite part of Salon de Lumière?

Serving drinks.

No, it's just, you know, we have an incredible staff and I really have to thank them.

You know, Mila and Tony and Sam who are here today.

And we have a whole table of our group over there.

Cheering us on.

Just a wonderful group of people, and I'm so thankful that many of them worked with my parents and we have the opportunity to work with them, and they've helped us through this transition.

So it's really been incredible.

It's also been wonderful to be able to be a part of things because a lot of us were there with Lisa and be able to see what she started and helping that transition to keep going throughout the years has been very special for all of us.

And I know we all have different experiences.

She was your mother.

She was also your business consultant when you were running out of materials at the end of the semester.

But she also was a real mentor for all of us there as well.

And she is sorely missed.

And I know that she— her contributions have been great as well.

Yes, I know some of my talk was, was focused on my father, who, you know, as I mentioned before, has an incredible capacity to create.

But my mother was equally significant, and they had an incredible partnership together.

And I think that's what made them so successful.

Thank you, Leandra.

And I think you have one more anecdote to share with us this afternoon.

Yes.

So my dad turned 91 this year.

And yeah, it was a milestone.

And he is still remaining creative and active, but he is slowing down.

And my sister and our husbands and I, we have dinner with him on alternating nights.

And one of those nights, I was sharing some early slides of his work, and he said to me, he's like, I really like these early pieces.

I haven't seen these for a while.

And I think he was, you know, getting creative all over again and being inspired by those pieces.

And then he said, you know, I was a good artist.

And I said, I said, Dad, you still are.

But one of those discoveries that we made while we were going through the old pieces was a piece of film that was created by 2 directors that were doing propaganda films during the Vietnam War.

And they wanted to highlight the Americas in a more positive way, showing that we had art and culture.

And they asked to do a film on my dad.

And this had only been shown internationally.

We had never seen it here in the States.

And I'm going to warn you, it's a bit like an old high school science film, but it's a treasure that, that we're happy to have.

In a plaza in Akron, Ohio, stands a large steel sculpture.

The artist, Don Drumm, calls it Sky Notch.

Don Drumm has caught the attention of a sometimes skeptical public.

He has set out to make a statement about the world around him.

But where some may use brush and palette, his background led him to work on a more massive scale.

I think probably, uh, my background of being a son of a very good mechanic Growing up in a garage, working on trucks and cars with my father gave me a size and a scale of material that then carried on and put together with an art background began to make me aware that you have to be able to bring technology together with visual development in order to be able to create on the scale that you need to create.

I call myself an environmental sculptor.

Really, this is only to say in essence that I have trained myself and specialized with working out in the field and working with the visual environment.

Don Drumm does not limit himself to outdoor sculpture.

In his foundry, he has created a line of craft items designed to be useful as well as pleasing to the eye.

Anything he can hold, melt, shape, or press his design onto has become fair game for this self-taught craftsman.

He has worked in wood, steel, brass, aluminum, iron, any metal or medium that will yield the shape and texture he wants to get into his work.

Work that he hopes will excite the human eye.

Can I also give a little shout out?

I see Stephanie Cerna there.

She was a wonderful artist in her own right and helped with my mom's caregiving.

And she was the one who discovered that film and had it digitized for us on behalf of our family.

Thank you.

Leandra, Mila, thank you so much.

This has been a tremendous presentation and an incredible retrospective of your family's life, your career, and all you've contributed to our community.

We typically have our questions sent up to us— oh, via email.

Okay, sorry, I did not have them ready in advance here, so hopefully they're loading up right now.

But in the meantime, Can you, can you tell me, we sometimes take this community for granted.

How do other communities see Akron coming to it from outside with your family's history and all you've contributed here and all the artists you've supported?

Well, I don't think Akron realizes this, but we produce an amazing amount of talent.

I mean, look at our musicians and our artists.

This is the thing I always joke about that people don't realize.

When you watch any TV program, you'll often hear a reference to their crazy aunt or something like that from Akron, Ohio.

I found out from theater performers that we're actually recognized for our theater programs.

And in the arts, my dad would always say that we are the birthplace of art, except for so many of those people move to New York 'cause they think they're gonna make it big.

But we really are strong with the arts, and I think that people do see that.

In Akron, and I love living here.

We have a question here.

Are there any other large-scale public artworks of your father's that are currently being restored or that you would love to see restored?

Well, Sky Notch, I don't know if you— so one of his early pieces, and I believe it was in the slideshow, is Sky Notch, that I think needs to be relocated, and we're hoping that maybe the city or somebody values that and will consider taking that piece.

We do, we're always thankful when people, you know, respect the work and wanna restore it, but we do understand too, change happens.

We had a significant wall mural, what was that, the piece that the new owners just decided to make a different choice, in Cleveland.

I thought it was a stucco dimensional relief in Cleveland, and it was several stories high.

I put her on the spot.

I mean, we do have several pieces that are in the area that people are trying to restore.

We do get contacted pretty frequently about the restoration and how to properly care of pieces.

There is a piece, I believe, in the Fairlawn area that the owner currently reached out and contacted us wanting to make the outside structure of the wall relief to look more like aluminum.

So that piece is currently being painted to look like aluminum.

It currently was the wall stucco piece.

I should share that Toni, who's here, she is one of our gallery managers and she's been archiving my parents' work.

So I handed the microphone to her because she's very knowledgeable on much of of the history of the work.

But also Quaker Square, I have to add, you know, they're renovating Quaker Square, and we're so grateful that many of those murals are still intact, and they plan to keep those with the new building.

We have a question here.

Can you tell us about your sisters?

Are they artists too?

Yes, I did not wanna neglect my sisters.

My older sister, Elisa Drumm Van Aken, has— she's very artistic, and she has a line of painted wood that she produces.

She used to be in the fashion industry, but that's kind of quick-moving, and she had twins, and so she found that, you know, this work was at a more moderate pace.

And she recently opened up a gallery in Massachusetts.

It's clearly in the blood.

It's a beautiful gallery.

And my sister, Tamula Drumm, should not be overlooked.

We used to say that, we lovingly say she was the black sheep of the family, because she escaped art, and she's teaching Chinese at St.

Vincent's, Vincent Saint Mary, but she's for many years taught over in China and in India.

She taught Chinese, or she teaches Chinese here in the States.

She's just phenomenal.

And as I said, we considered the lucky one because she was gonna be the moneymaker.

She's equally creative, and I love my sisters dearly.

They've been great partners in our taking on the gallery and continuing my parents' work.

One last question here.

What piece of advice would you like to give emerging artists or people who are trying art later in their career?

How do you encourage them?

What would you say to get them started?

I actually remember going to an event where there was a table full of artists, and they asked, who here is able— is an artist?

Everybody raises their hands, and they're like, who here is practicing as an artist?

Well, people raise their hand.

Who here has a second job?

Who here is producing your art in your garage or your basement?

And we do realize, so I do say, go after your passion, pursue your passion.

I have been fortunate to have parents that were great examples in showing that you could earn a living in art.

And I think we have a very supportive community.

When I look at, like, the Knight Foundation and the grants that are provided through the Knight Foundation, And that was, you know, a way we were able to help produce the Lantern Festival.

There is support, encouragement.

Our teachers— I've seen some of our kids' teachers who are here— just phenomenal.

I sing the praises of Miller South and Firestone and the other schools for their art educational programs.

I, you know, our son Logan, he is— he studied— he's working on his doctorate doctorate in physics.

Our daughter Andra is an artist and studying at University of Akron.

And he went to— Logan went to Miller South and auditioned in the theater program.

And at the last minute, I was saying to my husband, maybe we should have had him apply for STEM school.

And he said, look, he'll always have science and math, but to have art experience every day, how phenomenal is that?

And it really changed him dramatically.

From being sort of an insular, computer-driven kid to having that exposure.

He's great at speaking, and they honestly didn't wanna give him up as a teaching— from the teaching position to do research because he had that ability.

So yeah, pursue your passion, and we have things like Bounce Innovation Hub.

There's so many resources to tap into for that encouragement.

Stop by Don Drumm Studios and Gallery.

We'll give you an earful.

Well, thank you so much.

Let's hear it for Leandra.

Thank you.

Mack Love, thank you for doing the Q&A this afternoon.

Leandra, Mila, you have done a phenomenal job this afternoon, and we are grateful for your story.

With that being said, I would like to invite Michael Batu.

To the stage, who is our award sponsor.

And what do you give the Drumm family?

This was a tough one, Michael.

Who produced the contemplative sunplate that we award all of our speakers.

We are fortunate enough to have an artist on our board of directors, that is Mack Love, who produced this special piece for the Drumm family.

Let's give them a round of applause.

And Mila, that is a special thank you for moderating here today.

We are extraordinarily grateful again for you all being here.

With that being said, next month we will return here to the DoubleTree for David Grand, an Akron native and Firestone alumni, on Thursday, November 19th.

David is responsible for journalism and writing at The Atlantic.

This past year, David published a New York Times bestselling book titled The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America, which will be a driving force of his lecture with us.

We hope that you can be there.

Lastly, please be sure to listen to 89.7 WKSU.

And also watch us on WVIZ, PBS Western Reserve Fusion Channel, in the coming weeks to watch today's show.

For more information, please visit akronroundtable.org to see upcoming speakers, purchase tickets, get subscriptions, participate in our fundraiser.

And that being said, we will adjourn here for today.

Thank you so much for all being here.

Have a good one.