Thu 3/10 @ 6PM
Fri 3/11 @ 6-9PM
At its core, printmaking is the craft of disseminating fine art. And for decades, the Northeast Ohio scene was spotty at best. That is until the cooperative, fine art printmaking workshop Zygote Press started up in 1996.
Soon its organizers discovered what began as a zygote of an idea was warmly embraced by an arts community starving for a collective vision where artists were encouraged to produce fine art prints. Today, this nonprofit is an epicenter of creative expression for printmakers and artists in its E 30th St. location, as well as throughout Cleveland neighborhoods.
Zygote Press celebrates its 20th anniversary with the “Lovin’ Spoonful” fundraiser taking place Thu 3/10 at Tastebuds Restaurant next door to its workshop, as well as with retrospective exhibition ReUNITE, which opens a day later and features artworks by Christi Birchfield, Reverend Albert Wagner, Laurence Channing and Audra Skoudas.
CoolCleveland talked to Zygote Press co-founder and executive director Liz Maugans about the past, present and future of printmaking in Cleveland.
Looking back over the past two decades, how has Zygote Press evolved?
It’s so exciting. We were in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood, and we moved from one end to the other. Now we’re in a really great vibrant part of AsiaTown. We have a production house in Collinwood now, so we’ve expanded. And we’ve grown exponentially over the last five years. We increased the staff and almost doubled our capacity. A lot of that is due to a lot of our educational programming and our community engagement initiatives. Our advocacy for arts in the region has been sort of paramount. A lot of that growth and exposure came from trying to create more of an amazing visual arts landscape. So when people come here they can find us now. They can see how vibrant and dynamic the arts are in Cleveland. Before, we really didn’t have that sort of ability to unite and collaborate.
What do you have planned for Zygote Press’ 20th anniversary celebration?
We’re doing tons of stuff. We’re having an exhibition that opens March 11 called ReUNITE. It’s 20 years in print. We curated a show with about 41 different artists. The day before, we’re having a benefit called “Lovin’ Spoonful.” [Former Cleveland Ward 3 Councilman] Joe Cimperman will be our big spoon. He’s our MC, and we’re going to be raffling off some beautiful prints from the archives. They’re $20 and you don’t have to be there to win. They’re beautiful gorgeous prints. The dinner is at Tastebuds, which is in our building. Those funds will go towards the support of all of our programming: education, touring school groups.
In what other ways is Zygote Press unique?
As part of the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion program, we have artist residencies. We do production printing. We have classes, workshops. We rent spaces to artists so they can continue making their work. Also, we use a lot of analog equipment that didn’t go into landfills. So a lot of this is sustainable. We’re creating these prints that were made the same 200 years ago but we’re also looking at all kinds of groovy things. Like we’re using laser cutters, CNC cutters and 3D printing processes to translate these ideas that we have in printmaking so we can use them to make our plates. It’s exciting. We do a lot of the old, traditional printmaking, but then we also are really looking to the future.
Speaking of the future, what does Zygote have planned for the next 20 years?
We just recently went completely green, and for printmaking that’s really wonderful because we’re one of the most toxic disciplines that probably exists. We’re hoping to have a green symposium this year to extend to other artist and arts organizations regionally. That’s kind of our next big whammy, really looking at how we can continue to be a model for other organizations and other artists.