Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#271: Liz Maugans (Printmaker & Entrepreneur) (pt. 2 of 2)
This week is part 1 of our interview with serial arts entrepreneur Liz Maugans. She’s a Cleveland-based printmaker whose works are included in the Progressive Art Collection, The Cleveland Clinic, the Dalad Collection, BF Goodrich, the Westin Collection and The Riffe Center for Government and the Arts. She received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in 2000, and a 2005 Artist-in-Communities Grant. Liz was awarded an Ohio Arts Council’s International Residency to Dresden, Germany in 2009. We hope you'll tune in to hear all about Liz's experiences in founding numerous nonprofits over the past 25+ years. https://www.lizmaugansart.com/
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hello podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heise.
Nick Petrella:And I'm Nick Petrella. Serial arts entrepreneur Liz Maugans is with us today. She's a printmaker whose works are included in the Progressive Art Collection, the Cleveland Clinic, the Dallad Collection, BF Goodrich, the Westin Collection and the Rice Center for Government and the Arts. She received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in 2000 and a 2005 Artist in Communities Grant. Liz was awarded an Ohio Arts Council's International Residency to Dresden, Germany, in 2009. She has many more accolades, so we'll share her website in the show notes so you can read more about Liz and her art. Liz, it's great to have you on the podcast read more about Liz and her art.
Liz Maugans:Liz, it's great to have you on the podcast.
Nick Petrella:Thank you so much, Nick and Andy. I'm so thrilled to be here, yeah it's great.
Liz Maugans:Well, you're helping them transition into professionals. Yes, the two big assignments that I have this year the one that we just finished was called the Side Hustle Project and their final is called Build it and they have to. Actually, the side hustle is kind of having them think more in a sort of commercial sort of realm and to have either a product or a service that they're using their creativity and to be able to build. Who is your audience? How are you reaching them? What's your budget? And then the Build it project is basically they have to use some of the models of my Artists in Communities class as we go out into the field and we see all these different models of for-profit, non-profit. What is a fiscal agency?
Liz Maugans:We're going to the Cleveland Foundation next week to look at the importance of grant writing and what is a great grant? How do you tell that story? What should we do? What shouldn't we do? And so these are all very practical spaces and places.
Liz Maugans:We were going to Red Lion Tattoo, where my friend Days One does his tattooing in there with Christopher Rehans and other artists, but it's also their gallery and it's in the St Clair neighborhood and they're all just doing such great work and so to say how did you do it, what were your challenges, what were the barriers, what were your successes? And so it's been a great joy in my life to, you know usher life, to, uh, you know usher uh, and showcase, uh, these things that I have, um, these things that I have learned about, connected to, uh participated in within their shows and their cultural um, uh opportunities that they have. So, um, uh, I, you know, I want, I want to do this uh to on the other side at Worthington Yards, to get these newcomers who aren't used to going to art openings, that don't know about any of this stuff, about what do I wear? Does it cost anything?
Liz Maugans:These are the types of things that we don't do very well in arts and culture. So I'm trying to figure out some of those navigations with the creation of these little zines how to do art, how to do poetry, how to do writing, how to do what's the difference between a poetry slam and a poetry reading. I want to put art in my building. How do I do that? Yeah, you know, with a really practical and easy and simplified version for people to consume so they can better navigate arts and culture.
Nick Petrella:That's crazy and you know the for anybody in Northeast Ohio or people who are going to be visiting MoCA. I've been there a couple of times. It's fantastic, and that the um Cleveland museum of art. It's really world-class. It took me, I think, two to three visits, but I managed to get through the entire museum.
Liz Maugans:Yeah, I mean you know, right now we're having a.
Liz Maugans:We're having a lot of conversations about um, uh uh, jeremy Johnson's three-legged stool and about how we're supporting artists and the uh uh creative economies and ecosystems.
Liz Maugans:And um uh, you know, a lot of the for-profit creative businesses have, I think, been sort of ignored in this conversation venues like the Happy Dog and the Grog Shop and the Beachland Ballroom and other for-profit you know creative exhibition spaces that are happening, that we all have to be and have some sort of supportive mechanism, and how this is all going to help all of us move forward and with that comes support and so some of these things we're really trying to advocate for the next levy for arts and culture. So that's a big topic that's happening right now in this region and many of the people who are running the show and who are making those decisions are not artists show and who are making those decisions are not artists, um, and so I've been a uh, very loud squeaky wheel uh and trying to find ways uh to be able to um uh get uh more people involved in that conversation that actually do this for a living every day. Yeah, so that's the sort of other side of that that has been sort of consuming.
Nick Petrella:Yeah Well, it's a nice segue into the next question, Liz. Why have you gravitated to nonprofits over starting for-profit ventures? Why?
Liz Maugans:have you gravitated to nonprofits over starting for-profit ventures? I started a nonprofit and I am a huge fan of for-profit. I work for Yards as a for-profit entity. It's been refreshing. I recently went to another nonprofit gallery Deep Roots Experience with my students, and it's in the Cedar neighborhood of Cleveland and the most excellent.
Liz Maugans:David Ramsey, when asked why are you a for-profit, he said because I want to say what I want to say, and I just thought that was so refreshing and I want to do what I want to do and it, you know, it's liberating to hear the different ways that for-profit businesses are supporting themselves and having to do it on their own, um, on their own accord, uh, without having to check box, or or, uh, or you know, uh, appease the 50 people in Cleveland that are, uh, the you know gatekeepers, and so it's been a learning exercise for me starting that way. But we were very entrepreneurial at Zygote, I think, because of the way in which we think, both the commercial aspects of printmaking as well as the fine art aspects. So I think I already had that sort of lean into that direction and I'm really happy to be there.
Andy Heise:Yeah, and so what do you think are some common misunderstandings or what's what's commonly unknown or misunderstood about nonprofit organizations?
Liz Maugans:A very good friend of mine named Sanchi Sethi had done a presentation at one of the Alliance for Artists Communities and it was called the Writing Arm. And the Writing Arm is a nautical term that is used where your boat is starting to get unbalanced. So we think of stability as the thing that we all achieve stability in our bank accounts, stability in our relationships and particularly with nonprofits. Once you start to stabilize and you become comfortable, oh, I'm going to get that grant next year. That person's still in that position, that's going to be able to, you know, continue to support A, B and C there any longer. Or when the private foundations decide to change their strategies or their strategic efforts and what they want to fund, then you start to capsize. And next thing you know you're not getting that grant for, or you're not getting that residency that was $40,000, $50,000. For a small nonprofit. Those are things that can capsize you. That's two people's salaries.
Liz Maugans:The writing arm is really interesting because it allows you to still innovate. Is really interesting because it allows you to still innovate. It allows you to take risks, it allows you to reach out to new funders or new people that can, new neighborhoods, new projects, new programs, and that was a really, you know, a light bulb moment for me, and I use that even in everything that I do, Sure. And, and so you know, how do I, how can I engage new audiences when I'm creating my exhibitions? Why don't we bring in some guest curators? You know, let's keep on giving those platforms and those opportunities that I know I have been very privileged to have and to you know, I've had this just this past year I had a former assistant who helps me as a volunteer, and one of my students my past graduate students curate a show called the Cleveland Show, and they got to do everything from soup to nuts, and it's something they could put on their resume and that they could use as a sort of stopping stone to leapfrog to doing this elsewhere.
Liz Maugans:And so it's those types of things that my endorphins go crazy, and you can tell I'm so excitable about it and I really authentically am. I really adore artists and I know that I'm an extrovert and many artists are not, and so I believe that it is a perfect position to be evangelist and to try to excite other people. That's palpable through these types of energies, and I really just love, you know, the joy of all these people I get to interface with that is in my everyday life, so it's a really wonderful life experience for me.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, this is great. Liz, did you or your partners have any business experience prior to starting any of your organizations?
Liz Maugans:No.
Andy Heise:None.
Liz Maugans:No, and I am from a long family of uh fiscal Republicans they're not anymore, uh, but uh, my father was a chief financial officer and uh to have the um daughter go into the arts was, you know uh didn't roll out well but uh. But uh became a supportive, proud father after uh. There was proof in the pudding, um uh. I think my experience came from uh my early days as being a plane dealer, uh deliverer. I was a waitress for a long time, I was a bartender forever, and it's those types of connections and me having a really great Rolodex that I think really provided me with the who's who of reaching out to them. Can you help me with this? And this is the idea of really getting out there, and I think it's my own moxie and excitability that people fell for it. So I should say that for me, but none of my other, when we first started the enterprise with Zygote, none of us had any business experience.
Nick Petrella:Yeah.
Andy Heise:Okay, yeah, so at the time of this recording, it's tax season and was curious. Of course, now that I know a little bit more about these organizations, they sound a lot more sophisticated than maybe what I had when I was writing these questions, but nonetheless the question still stands Are you a tax do-it-yourselfer or do you outsource that to a professional?
Liz Maugans:I absolutely outsource it. I've had the same guy named Todd Kincaid for I don't know how many years, but, um, I used to have seven w-2s. Because I'm a gig person, I have, like right now I think, I have five different w-2s that are coming in. Um, uh, and so it's just been my life and I just put down that big, huge bulk of receipts and we figure it out together. I'm losing my tax write-offs. My kids are starting to grow. I only have one little tax write-off this year. It's changing and maybe eventually I'll be able to do it, but for now I have somebody that does my own.
Andy Heise:Yeah, that makes sense.
Nick Petrella:In doing research, I see that you founded Art Every Space. What is that organization and how can artists participate?
Liz Maugans:So Art Every Space was an extension of the work that I have been doing at Dallad.
Liz Maugans:So myself and four other people who founded the organization are really interested in trying to do curation and both rotating and permanent work in collections or in residential spaces and to kind of create their own collection. And we had been very fortunate to have a pretty good startup prior to COVID. But because of the sort of, I guess, the lethargy of what's happening within the post-development process, you know it's been a very difficult road recently to be able to have those types of value adds that art can bring and to have those conversations in a lot of building projects with other developers right now. So, but we have also participated in a lot of management of community projects, including the CAN Triennial, which was a big, huge festival across Cleveland. That was specifically at the same time as the front triennial, which was brought by Fred Bidwell, who is the executive director and the visionary behind that, where national and international artists would be coming to Cleveland every three years and we wanted to bring in the local love through Cannes. And then Art Every Space helped manage that citywide festival.
Andy Heise:Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, because commercial real estate's not maybe what it was pre-pandemic, and so maybe some of those outlets for what you were wanting to do with that organization don't exist or are drying up or whatever.
Liz Maugans:Yeah and we were really interested in, mostly like other residential or government buildings and and you know, activating well, you know buying work from artists, helping commission projects for different, um uh, residential spaces and then being able to activate it and to do rotating shows and other types of things. And we did a number of jobs and there's been a lot of shifts in that landscape recently, I think economically on the development side, sure.
Andy Heise:And so, as we've been talking, you know you, you manage your own um artistic practice. Uh, you've, you're involved in all of these organizations, you've started many of them. Uh, what is it about starting something that just you've done it many, many times, right, so you seem to enjoy starting new projects or starting new organizations. What is it about that starting process that you enjoy so much?
Liz Maugans:And that maybe enjoys the wrong word, but but you keep doing it to get something chemical happening and to take maybe a leap that I don't necessarily know if it'll work. If it doesn't work, that's okay, and I've had maybe many failures that have been both small and large, and that's the way in which we try to understand what not to do. Other models that exist. I'm a big researcher. I love seeing where something like this is happening in other places and will it work here. This is a very unique space, northeast Ohio and so I like to kind of poke the bear, and the weirdest thing with all of these enterprises that have started is a lot of people. It's almost like I'll drive for a little bit, you want to come, and so they can kind of jump in the front and then we'll go a little bit, and then somebody else will say, hey, where are you headed? And I'm like we're heading over this way. And so I'm in the middle of that right now, as both Fronts and Cannes and a terrific exhibition called the People's Art Show that was at Cleveland State have halted and are not going to be happening, more importantly, to create a art festival that helps to support a lot of visual artists, but other types of arts disciplines as well.
Liz Maugans:And so I saw, with the news coming out on Facebook, my good friend, dave King, saying we should keep up the momentum, and I said, hell yeah, we should. And so I ended up calling him, we ended up putting something on Facebook and trying to spread the word, and we had our first meeting and there were probably 50 people there at the first meeting. And so our second meeting is happening at the end of the month and we are going to make something out of nothing. And that's just the way I look at it. Maybe it'll work, Maybe it won't, maybe it'll be one year, like can was supposed to be. Maybe it'll be something that scales and grows and burgeons, and 28 years later, you know, I'll have my bifocals and I'll be like holy mackerel. This and we call it quest for the best. So that's sort of what sort of road we're taking and, um, and I don't want it to be my project, I don't want to be the poster child we're building it democratically, uh, um, from the grassroots and trying to figure it out together.
Andy Heise:Which is harder to do than you, just doing it than you just doing it.
Liz Maugans:Community organizing is messy work and trying, especially, I think, after the pandemic, with people who don't feel that they can make change or that they have any say in the matter, that things, that things that they have any say in the matter.
Liz Maugans:There is a lot of complacency and and I I believe that we can that table that might be set already and those people that are sitting at it. Let's go another direction and let's build our own table. And I have been feeling way more liberated myself and maneuvering into that direction and, just as Dave Ramsey said, I could say whatever I want to say. I'm not beholden to not getting a grant from a foundation because I was outspoken about non-transparency or policy decisions, and that's really beautifully liberating. And I think, particularly now I do a lot of work with the Greater Cleveland congregations. It is part of my life, you know, faith in trying to support people that are unfairly treated, people that are most vulnerable, and that we need to be, we need to help support with resources which is showing up. So all that stuff, I think, leads into this other work and I've learned a lot about community organizing from them, right.
Nick Petrella:So you're represented by 78th Street Studios. We're going to give a shout out to Hillary Gent, who's been on the podcast. Do you have any advice for young artists looking for representation?
Liz Maugans:Show up, go to the shows, get out there, ask how you can help, ask how I can volunteer. Can I help pour the wine? Could I help you install the show? Do you need any help in the office? Do you need assistance with anything that you do?
Liz Maugans:And that is the gateway and the pipeline for opportunities for exhibiting in group shows or member shows or, and then, next thing, you know you're a part-time staff or you're an intern, that you're getting paid a little bit, and then you start to just like, keep, keep getting more galvanized in that network and you get to meet other people through the interface that you have. And it's just the only way to go. It's my biggest advice, it's my only advice, and you can't cold call and hope that people are going to come to you. The field is so saturated. Now it's those people that say I want to help you, how can I get involved? I want to participate in what you're doing. And those are the types of things, again, like being in my classroom in the print shop as I'm teaching printmaking, and having my students see me that that they're really understanding that kind of connection and really just seeing what is out there and the offerings that exist and to kind of know what that landscape is and to research themselves. And to kind of know what that landscape is and to research themselves.
Liz Maugans:What do I want to be a member of? What interests me? What is tickling my belly to make me want to go for a visit during an open gallery that they have or make a specific meeting with them? I also love when people reach out to me and they see who I'm connected to and said would you connect me to this person? I might have different things that I know that they're doing, are doing, and I love email introductions and it's also another kind of buzz that I get from doing that. And so I always tell students I am your new person that is going to recommend you for anything, but to do that, you need to be recommendable. So I need to see your excitement and I need to see your drive and your energy, and so I can only have an honest recommendation, and I tell that to all of my students you have me, I will recommend you, but you need to be worthy of it.
Nick Petrella:That's a great strategy. Hope isn't a strategy. I hope it's not.
Andy Heise:I think it was Janice Lesserman Moss, textile artist from Kent, who said something that artists visual artists primarily don't do necessarily. That is sort of inherent, for musicians is going to the hang, musicians go and see other musicians. That's just kind of what they do. But maybe you kind of have to be a little more proactive to do that as a visual artist. But similar to, what you're saying. Get out there and go to things and participate, like you said.
Liz Maugans:I mean, I think that's why I went into printmaking. Printmaking is a highly collaborative collective. You know, you need all the chemistry, you need all the presses. You get to waddle over to see what they're working on, which is usually different, yeah, and you get to sort of learn something new about how they're approaching it. And being a painter not so much, yeah, you're alone in your studio a lot, yeah. And so I really gravitated to printmaking for those reasons.
Liz Maugans:And so a lot of those people who are isolated in their studios, they have to go out and see what other people's recipes are. They have to get really close and see, you know, those micro moves that they're making and meet those artists and understand the drive, the momentum, the psyche and sort of what made them hang. And when you have that hang time, I think I always think about that when you go to a museum, even a Picasso, the average person, the average person stays three seconds and I think how can I prolong that hang time, like catching a wave, and so those for me are like really interesting as an artist to think about, about how are you going to do that? And I'm, I use my personality, I use my bad jokes, um, and I use a lot of my uh bartending skills to be able to uh connect without judgment um judgment, to hear their stories and to learn from them and to better understand the human condition in all of this. Yeah, that's great.
Andy Heise:Well, liz, we've reached the point of the interview where we ask all of our interviewees the same three questions. And the first question is what advice would you give to others wanting to become an art entrepreneur?
Liz Maugans:and the first question is what advice would you give to others wanting to become an art entrepreneur even though I know it's really difficult for introverts to connect with people, and they do it in their own way opportunities that are, like, you know, riding a bus or taking an elevator when there's another person in it.
Liz Maugans:When you have those regular everyday moments as an entrepreneur, you know that's your market, that's the people that are going to potentially be one day the people that you're going to affect, and so I would say that having an extravagant welcome to what your interests are and also finding out what their interests are, would be uh, would be, uh. My number one, um, uh. A piece of advice for people, um is to uh see them and um and to uh to see what those opportunities are and to see the people who are doing them and to understand as much as you can uh to, to bring back to you and to be able to meditate on. So I think that that, for me, would be the number one thing that I've tried to do and that I would recommend.
Nick Petrella:Great. What can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience?
Liz Maugans:I think we have to make it more fun. I think we have to take a lot of the bougie elitist barriers and break them down. I think we need to make opportunities that don't have. I'm very interested in this conversation right now with this festival because the juried shows and the curated shows and the different kinds of opportunities leave a lot of people out. There's fees and participation stuff that goes in with that.
Liz Maugans:It has something to do with these spaces and places that have become these like tombs of stoic, like you have to be dressed up or, you know, you have to be quiet, and so I love hearing a lot of my museum studies and museology and collections students talk about where art can be shown, and I think it can be shown anywhere, and so I think that is one of the important things that I think could flourish much greater people to interface with what we do and any time that you can show how things are being made and that they can participate in it, and that it's not just about the looky-loos, but like, hey, let's do this together. Like here, just roll the ink out on the surface with this roller and next thing you know they have a smile on their eye and a smile on their face, because many of them have never done this before, and so once they get a taste of it, it's really addicting.
Announcer:Right.
Andy Heise:Lastly, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice you've ever received?
Liz Maugans:So this one's going to go back to Hillary, who has been on the show before, who is the director of Hedge Gallery, and she and I both had the same painting professor at Penn State University named Craig Lucas. Craig was a wonderful, complicated, amazing artist and he looked at me one day with maybe a beer or two in him and he said make sure that you get a really smart and beautiful person to sell your work.
Announcer:That is good advice, and I did that's great.
Andy Heise:That's good.
Nick Petrella:Well, thanks for being on, Liz. It's fun to hear how serendipity nudge you on your path to success, and I really love your energy and passion to promote the arts.
Liz Maugans:Thank you for having me, Nick and Andy. It's been a great pleasure.
Andy Heise:Thanks, Liz.
Announcer:Thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please subscribe. Visit artsentrepreneurshippodcastcom to learn more about our guest and how you can help support artists, the arts and this podcast.
