“I’m quite fond of him”, art rep Rick Schmitz says of friend Jeffrey Blacklaw, dedicated volunteer and pressman to The High Risk Gallery, “but I’m also fond of gout and hangover.” he chuckles as Blacklaw squints behind his thin-grained apostle beard. Blacklaw is considered tantamount to the doorman from “The Wizard of Oz” and print cannot expound the joy in his greeting to every High Risk visitor. An hour and a half interview has turned into three hours of piano-playing, lunch, candid discussions about our lives, and the scope of the dark gallery’s beginning and journey.
“You’re getting a better feeling for what the place is all about,” Schmitz winks, no doubt with the understanding he has been described as three 65-year-old men from the past, present, and future.
What began as a banquet hall with an impulse for 10 painters to display their work on the floor grew by word of mouth into a Mecca of the community for socialization through all forms of expression. This proverbial Taj Mahal for gracious owner Chad Fabruada on behalf of caterer Rick Schmitz has brought love to the city, insight for lovers, and envy to all who open a space to duplicate the displaying techniques and fervor revolving through a mercantile, which Schmitz tells me is built on the way the eye works.
“It’s not a puff puff attitude I have about our gallery. It is not just Chad’s but it belongs to the community. We represent over 180 artists, have 3 to 4 artists submitting per day via e-mail, seven people on the phone asking questions, and over 65,000 people having come and gone through this gallery in the past five years. People who come here take an emotional risk. The gallery is all about action, reaction, and interaction.
“If you want to become an artist, we will put you in touch with them to ask about their experiences. If you want to know about how a piece was created and I don’t know, I will find out for you. I think it’s time people stop dismissing artists. When people say they are artists, others should be wowed instead of asking about their day jobs.”
Fabruada is the artist here, and he is very concerned about how the artists’ work is shown and how their feelings must be protected. He’s just the nicest guy,” Schmitz says of Fabruada, the painter who has popularized the Milo the Cat series of works. But when the gallery opened, Fabruada was not a painter. He found the serenity of the gallery inspired him to do works which surprised him with his own hidden talents. Milo was a character he used to draw in grade school when he was feeling restless. Now Milo can be seen popping his head over fences all over the gallery.
“What has been so amazing to me over the years has been standing back and watching the reactions at openings. Now that so many schools are cutting their funding for art programs, it makes me sad many children won’t be able to have the education I took for granted long ago. I try to pick works that compliment one another and what would work into a show, whether I want abstract or realism. Artists tend to lend portfolios, but we want them to pick their favorite pieces to hang. The gallery’s goal is to get something for everyone and that’s why there is so much. There is such a diversity of wants.”
Regarding where art is going, I asked Schmitz what he and Fabruada are seeing in submissions.
“That’s a good question,” Schmitz ponders, “I love the wow factor when people come in here. Art is supposed to illicit one of three things: praise, ridicule, or indifference. If you’re indifferent, there is generally a failure on your or the artist’s part. Realism is back, but it isn’t. The shock in art today isn’t the way we knew it from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s horror art. There is realism with class value. There is less of the tasteless. You see nudity, but it isn’t to disgust. There is no question what is art here. All of it, like the gallery, forces one to look up. No matter how reserved. Everybody looks up.”
“Seeing all that has happened in the past five years, where do you see High Risk in the future?” I ask Fabruada.
“Well I certainly hope we’re around for another five years. Eventually we would like to open up in L.A. and New York. I would like to feature artists from all the states rather than just Chicago, although we do have exceptions from further away. I would say just come in and look at the art. And it looks much better from the inside. People sometimes just poke their heads through the window, and we really want to see and meet them, whether they buy from us or not. Just enjoy it,” he smiles.
• Artwork courtesy of High Risk Gallery
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