All That Matters To Me: Cle’s latest industrious art show

Artists starving for attention and exposure have united for the inaugural All That Matters To Me exhibit Sat 6/25 in Lakewood’s favorite converted warehouse-turned-artist-enclave, The Lake Erie Building. Billed as possibly the largest contemporary art show in Northeast Ohio, the unique collective features over 30 artists exhibiting printmaking, painting, sculpture, video, performance and more.

The entire event is the vision of Medina native Chrissy Lapossy, a 2006 Kent State University graduate who plans on attending grad school at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston this fall. CoolCleveland talked to Lapossy about the impetus for her unique idea, the struggle to get it off the ground and why she feels it’s important for Northeast Ohio.

CoolCleveland: First of all, what exactly is All That Matters To Me?

Chrissy Lapossy: It is a one-day art show that is primarily for art that is installation, sculpture and video. I’m moving to Boston to go to grad school in September and I thought if I don’t do it now it’s never going to happen. The show will have work you normally don’t get to see in our area because it’s not easy to sell. It’s not really a product. You can’t really put a price tag on it. Therefore, it becomes hard to put it in a gallery because there is no chance it is going to bring in a little profit, which is understandable. But it’s also very interesting work that is nice to see. So, we thought we’d create a forum for it ourselves.

So, it is basically run by a group of artists, and I’m the entire coordinator. The whole planning of it took place on social media. I sent out a message on Facebook to my artist friends and said, “Here’s the idea. How many of you are interested in it?” I got a commitment from about 10 of my friends from my art world connections who said, “Let’s do it.” Since we have the website, it was able to grow and now a lot of people are involved who I never met before. The whole planning of this show took place in six weeks.

What’s the Lake Erie Building’s role in All That Matters To Me?

It’s a really interesting building. It used to be this huge three-story industrial complex and over the years they’ve had a hard time selling out the 2nd and 3rd floors. Because they were vacant, the owners had an idea that was really inventive and great for the community. They decided to rent it out in an affordable rate to small businesses and artists, so the place has about 30 artists who rent studio space in the building. It’s kind of a fun building to work in. As for All That Matters To Me, we’ll have 32 artists, as well as open studios for the people who already work in the building. Because there will already be traffic coming through, it’s a nice opportunity for them to just open their doors and be involved.

What’s the appeal of All That Matters To Me?

I think you’ll get to see a lot of work that is really exciting and fresh and new, and a bit interactive. Things like you’ve never seen before; very much of the moment. I know there’s a lot of great galleries in Cleveland that put on shows that are really fresh and have new work, but there’s just a lot of really great artists living and working in this area and there aren’t enough forums for them to display their work in. So it’s going to be a really exciting show for some experimental work.

Are you surprised at the number of artists involved?

Definitely. I think it’s amazing we met our goal of getting 30 artists for the show. The way it’s working is I’m donating my time for free to plan the show and every artist is contributing the same financial amount of money to just pay for the rental of the space, the advertising and the printing of all the promotional materials. Every single artist in the show has contributed $40. I’ve been basically working full-time and not making anything. It’s all getting spent on materials and promotion.

Finally, do we smell annual event?

Yeah, I definitely would like to see the idea evolve and possibly grow and get more people involved. We would want to try to do every spring or summer in Cleveland.

The free All That Matters To Me show takes place from 7 – 10PM on Sat 6/25 @ The Lake Erie Building, 13000 Athens Ave., Lakewood. Visit http://AllThatMattersShow.com.

[Pictured: Save Me From What I Want, Chrissy Lapossy. 2010.]

 

Freelance writer John Benson spends most of his time writing for various papers throughout Northeast Ohio.

When he’s not writing about music or entertainment, he can be found coaching his two boys in basketball, football and baseball or watching movies with his lovely wife, Maria. John also occasionally writes for CoolCleveland.com

Post categories:

• Events
• John Benson
• Visual Arts
• Civic Affairs
• Free
• Hot
• Entrepreneurialism