Two years ago, when Timothy Gaewsky started the gallery Launch Pad Collective, he invited Andrew Field, a local poet, to write short, creative cutlines in response to the body of work that made up his first solo exhibition. The new layer of depth and a different perspective to his work made it an enjoyable collaboration. And, as he brought up in our conversation, visual artists and writers have systematically hung out together throughout history: so why not turn those inevitable brainstorming sessions into something tangible? And ever since then Gaewsky has pushed for Launch Pad exhibitions to follow that format, adding words to the art. But he wanted to take it a step further, giving the writers a chance to read longer works or establish a flow of short stories, poems, quick quips, even time to field questions — something that has been usually reserved for the Chuck Klostermans and David Sedarises of the world.
A new series of collaboration
That’s why the Collective started the Featured Lines Series, where, once a month, a local author or poet has the whole floor to themselves — and as much time as they need. Owens Community College Professor Leonard Kress is next in line on Monday, February 18 at 8 pm.
“We decided to approach our series by shining the spotlight on a single writer, rather than an open mic night or a reading series, where there could be five, six, seven, eight or more writers presenting their work,” Gaewsky says. “This allows them to have the time to present a body of work or a collection of poems and engage with the audience in a way where they wouldn’t be able to in some of the other formats.”
The goal is to also diversify the audience. For the most part, the Toledo arts community pulls for and supports all the mediums of art, genres of music and styles of spoken word in relatively equal fashion, but, obviously, different crowds are going to be attracted to certain events. By crossing over and mixing up events, LPC aims to widen the scope of the target audience.
“The series was a way to merge different circles together,” says Gaewsky.
A word of mouth thing
As of now, in its phase of experimentation, the event is very much a word-of-mouth thing. The crowds have been slowly growing and even a lot of the featured writers have been booked on referral. Take the upcoming Leonard Kress show for example: A friend of Gaewsky's mentioned that Kress, a creative writing and philosophy prof with a solid reservoir of poems and fiction, might be interested. Gaewsky contacted him, asked to read some of his pieces, was blown away by them and then worked on setting a date. After Kress’ presentation on the 18th, the series continues with Ryan Bunch in March, Andrew Field in April and Zach Fishel in May. And if you're a local author or poet, go check it out, make some friends and maybe you’ll earn some time on the stage. “We’re still searching for other people,” says Gaewsky. “We’re not really advertising, so to speak, but we're asking for samples and sort of going from there.”
Leonard Kress presents his body of poetry and fiction at Launch Pad Collective, 911 Jefferson Ave., on Tuesday, February 19 at 8pm. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.launchpadcooperative.com.