We were lucky to catch up with Liz Maugans recently and have shared our conversation below.
Liz, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I was little, like five years old and I was drawing with crayons at a family friends on their card table. I was lost 100% completely in the trance and I knew that it felt good and that this was my calling. It was the only thing I wanted to do. Many years later, when in college, I saw a lithograph by Fairfield Porter called Lizzie Drawing and it looked exactly like me. That led me on a mission to study art in college, which led me to pursuing printmaking, and led me to continue through graduate school.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I never really veered from that feeling of the five year old, and as I moved through schools and university, with headwinds into the places and spaces that art was present, I am so fortunate I figured that aspect of my life in my formative years. I felt perfect and that I had arrived to some kind of home base. I stand here 52 years later as a mother, wife, artist, advocate, curator, entrepreneur, teacher and practitioner of anything and everything that has to do with art.
I come from farmers, believers, sinners, suits, makers, sewers, healers, drug addicts, and nurses. I am rooted in the Rustbelt, a place where stories from the past seem more vivid than those of our present day. My work integrates reclaimed prints, fabric, and found materials from my everyday life, which serve as stand-ins for expressive marks and a form of nervous labor. Creating is my way of note-taking, processing meaning, and organizing knowledge to better understand the world around me. Text is used as both form and function.
I am an arts evangelist where I want to de-silo disciplines, genres, institutions and stigmas and find portals of entry in the 14-mile stretch of Cleveland coastline introducing all that awaits droves of people to discover, enjoy, access and support the creative cultural offerings here. This is the place to start creative things and it has been a life-long mission of mine to be the biggest cheerleader for the arts and cultural ecosystem in this great city of Cleveland,
My work hs consistently been fueled by filling gaps of challenge for creatives. No place for me to make prints, so we started a collaborative printmaking studio called Zygote Press. No direct collective to celebrate what is going on in the visual arts, so I helped cofound the Collective Arts Network. No way to link creatives together to find them in one location? The Cleveland Artist Registry was born.
I am most proud of being apart of developing a stronger, more inclusive and supportive arts ecosystem in a city that has struggled. I have seen investment and participation in the arts grow and the creative economy become an asset to this city.
I am honored to work with the next generation of creatives to guide them through and discover the opportunities that exist for them as a faculty member and Haddad Arts Mentor at Cleveland State University.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
I’d want them to know that creatives are really just like anyone else and the jobs, professions and careers, whether plumber or teacher or caregiver commit themselves to their craft, training, education and pursuit of happiness as anyone else. Creatives just use different tools and materials. Many creatives are gig workers, juggling a lot of various things all at once… teaching, developing proposals for contracted jobs and programs, working in health/human services with art therapy, administrative jobs in museums, performance halls and music venues, and all kinds of other important positions that make our neighborhoods and communities tick.
Creatives fill needed gaps (in non-linear ways) and solve creative problems through music, painting, poetry, design and we really do make these invitations for all people to participate in neighborhoods, villages, street corners and our greater cities. It is a tough moment where cars and highways have taken over public spaces for gathering. People don’t know their neighbors anymore. Our cities have people isolated. Our social corridors have vanished and creatives have the capacity (and possibly more than any other profession) can bring people together with their wellspring of gifts and talents to get people to gather together once again and engage!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
About ten years ago, I was coming home from the gallery that I operate, riding high with a lot of success in both the studio and with a new job and I was pulled over by the police and charged with a UVI. It was a time in my life that I had experienced incredible loss in my family . I felt great shame from this experience being very committed to creative community organizing and social justice and I felt I put others in jeopardy because of my recklessness. Because of my privilege because I was white, with resources, and a strong support system that others around me just didn’t have, it changed the way I saw everything. I recognized how broken our systems and institutions were and the people who struggled the most who ust couldn’t catch any breaks because of their race and socio economic status. It changed me forever ensuring fairness, transparency and equity are in everything I do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lizmaugansart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizmaugans3830/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liz.maugans/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-maugans-1880009/
Image Credits
Jeff Downie photo credit