Wed 1/17 @ 5-7PM
Fri 1/19 @ 5-8PM
Thu 2/1 @ 5:30-7:30PM
Through 2/24
In 2017 Liz Maugans stepped down as executive director of Zygote Press, the printmaking organization she co-founded in 1996 and at which she was an ubiquitous presence. She said she was going to become even more involved in community organizing for the arts as well as focus on her own artmaking.
And has she ever! Scratch any advocacy project in the arts community and you’ll very likely find Liz involved. She helped launch CAN (Collective Arts Network) Journal, a quarterly magazine and weekly newsletter covering the activities of the visual arts community. She’s an artist advocate addressing the issues around Cuyahoga Arts & Culture’s artist funding and served on an artists’ advisory panel to explore ways to effectively fund artists. She organized projects such as Artists Trust at moCa in 2017 and Mouse House Party in 2021 to bring together and showcase the range of talent in the area, and a central website where artists could list their information. (She was described by former Akron Art Museum deputy director Seema Rao, accurately, as a “convener of people.”) She created the Yards Project, a gallery in a Warehouse District apartment building, where she puts together shows and markets the work of area artists to residents, a project that’s since expanded to Ohio City’s Tinnerman Lofts. She also teaches — and make her own art.
We could go on and on, but let’s focus on that last item since, amid all this activity, she’s also been an astonishingly prolific artist. And she’s about to have her third show in six years at 78th Street Studios’ HEDGE Gallery, which represents her as an artist.
Life is Brutiful revolves around her distinctive mixed-media collages that incorporate her print work, drawing, text and found materials, many of them bits and pieces from her past. They offer an open-hearted and emotional look at her own life and all the things she’s been going through and thinking — good and bad, as the show title suggests.
His autobiography comes across in her work in ways other people can relate to.
“I’ve always had this interest in private things, making them public,” she says. “I’ve used the past a lot in my work, I’ve used a lot of images that are really specific to what is going on in my life.”
“This work is broken into dualities — polar opposites,” she explains. “Brutal and beautiful — those two words put together. We have both those paradigms in our life every day. Sometimes the brutal part takes you and sometimes you’ll be like, this is the perfect day. The brutal part of my life is where I’m at watching my kids grow, my parents die, looking at a lot of the middle life scenarios — aging, health scares. I’ve had a lot of people in a rapid amount of time no longer here on this planet. It’s very meditative for me to make this work. It makes me slow down, it makes me contemplate relationships. Living is the beautiful part, living life to the fullest every single day, letting people know they should have gratitude.”
“The opposite side is this ability for me to just play, and enjoy and thinking about moving things on,” she adds, pointing to the 2022 documentary by Jonah Hill called Stutz, which talks about tools for dealing with mental health issues. “There’s one called ‘string of pearls’ for people who have depression and other issues. When you get out of bed every morning and put your slippers on, that’s one pearl. When you brush your teeth it’s another pearl. You can find accomplishments in the little things in life. I can flip back and forth between more difficult process and getting lost in energy of being a maker.”
And Liz being Liz, she’s always casting around for new partnerships, new collaborations. She discovered John Hannibal through the weekly online radio show he curates from his home in West Park. So she asked him to look at her work and create an appropriate playlist to be played at the show’s opening.
A significant recent project for her was doing illustrations for urban planning/economic development expert Richey Piiparinen’s new book of essays Octopus Hunting. One thing Liz does in her “downtime,” such as when she’s at church or the local pool, is draw incessantly. The drawings she did for the book were directly inspired by what Piiparinen wrote.
“The drawings relate to the concepts and stories Richie was using,” she says. “We were able to connect as my brother was transitioning from same diagnosis Richie has, glioblastoma. Richie was able talk about the health and wellness and decline of our rust belt city, which is his specialty, and compare it with his own health and decline narrative — using his personal narrative to tell stories that show potential optimism in what our city and other rust belt cities can do. People don’t like to talk about death and decline. For me and my beautiful relationship with Richie, I find myself wanting to talk about this and be a comfort to the people going through it, just being there with people.”
Life is Brutiful opens with a free, public preview event on Wednesday January 17 and an opening reception during 78th Street’s Third on Friday January 19. She’ll also be doing a book signing even at the gallery with Piiparinen on Thursday February 1. The show will be on view through Saturday February 24.
Get more information here.
One Response to “Liz Maugans’ New Work at HEDGE Gallery Blends Life’s Good & Bad”
Marjorie Falk
Thanks