Liz Maugans

A community artist, curator of this campaign, and fellow neighbor.

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About the artist

Liz Maugans is the Director of YARDS Projects, and Curator of the Dalad Collection at Worthington Yards in Cleveland’s Warehouse District. She is co-founder of Art EverySpace and the Artist Bridge Coalition, former Executive Director of Zygote Press and founder of Collective Arts Network and the Artist Trust (The Cleveland Artist Registry). Maugans was instrumental in bringing the Rooms-to-Let Project to Slavic Village and acts as a consultant and participant of the temporary installations that take place in foreclosed houses. Maugans is on the Board of Trustees of the Collective Arts Network and teaches Artist-in-Communities as an adjunct at Cleveland State University. She has taught printmaking and drawing intermittently throughout the years at the Cleveland Institute of Art.  

For over twenty-five years, she has organized one-person and thematic exhibitions featuring regional, national and internationally known artists. Her curatorial specialization is her devotion to emerging art, social justice and local experimental practices that broaden access through social networks, inclusion and community-building initiatives. An advocate for artists and the visual arts, Maugans has served as a consultant for numerous community development organizations and creative business start-ups. Her passion for cross-disciplinary partnerships includes collaborations with the North Shore Federation of Labor, The AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland, Community Assessment and Treatment Services, Gordon Square Arts District and the Support for Artist Planning Team through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.  

She received her BFA in printmaking from Kent State University and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1992. Maugans’ work is 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. Maugans was awarded an Ohio Arts Council’s International Residency to Dresden, Germany in 2009. She was honored, along with her Zygote co-founder, Bellamy Printz, the Martha Joseph Prize for Distinguished Service from the Cleveland Arts Prize in 2012. In 2013, she was awarded a $20,000 Creative Workforce Fellowship from Community Partnership for Arts and Culture. 

Maugans lives in Bay Village with her husband, John and three kids, Olivia, John and Will. She is represented through HEDGE Gallery at 78th Street Studios

Two Cents for Arts & Culture

Commit 2% of the $500 million+ Cleveland is receiving in federal ARPA funds to Arts & Culture!

Covid has hit the creative sector hard.  An ARPA investment of $10 million helps protect and brings jobs to EVERY neighborhood.  We are creative businesses. We are cultural nonprofits. We are individual artists and so much more. We remain anchors for neighborhoods all over the city. ARPA funds will protect one of our greatest assets that is central to Cleveland’s economy and identity.

Artists for ARPA

Led by creative people, for creative people, we’ve created 18 unique and vibrant postcards, featuring artists of all disciplines in all 17 Cleveland City Wards. Take a look through the art below.

Right now, we have the opportunity to acquire more funding for our Creative Workers. Our city has received $511 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, a pandemic support program enacted by President Biden. We need your help in asking Cleveland City Council to dedicate $10 million of these dollars to our Creative WorkforceThis is only 2% of the ARPA funds Cleveland received – that’s only 2 cents on the dollar!

Let’s flood City Hall with powerful postcard messages! Attend an ARPA Postcard Party on Feb 24 or March 3 and Tweet + Email your City Council Member today.

We’re making progress

Recently, Mayor Bibb included a recommendation in his transition report to allocate $10 million to arts and culture. This is an exciting step, but we must help Cleveland City Council understand why their vote in favor of this recommendation is a smart choice. Your voice matters.