Abstract
Jeffry Chiplis shares his experiences growing up in the Tremont neighborhood during the 1950s and 1960s. Born in 1952 to Greek immigrant parents, he discusses the cultural heritage and values instilled in him by his family. Chiplis reflects on his education at local schools, the significance of community gatherings, and the role of the church in his upbringing. He describes the vibrant neighborhood life, including friendships, recreational activities, and the challenges faced by families during economic changes. The narrative also addresses the impact of urban development on Tremont and Chiplis's eventual move away from the area, providing insights into the neighborhood's transformation over time.
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Interviewee
Chiplis, Jeffry (interviewee)
Project
Tremont History Project
Date
2003
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
64 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Jeffry Chiplis interview, 2003" (2003). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 223052.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1392
Transcript
Interviewer [00:00:00] All right, now just to start off, Jeff, could you spell your name for us?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:00:05] First name is Jeff. Go by Jeffrey in a formal situation. J, E, F, F, R, Y. Last name Chiplis. C, H, I, P, L, I, S.
Interviewer [00:00:22] Alright. And Jeff, you lived here in Tremont since I believe you told me 1980?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:00:27] Yes, I moved in in 1980 after I lived over in Shaker Heights for a couple years and happened to come across this building when one of my fellow workers at the Holtcamp Organ Company said, let’s go get pierogies. And being a Hoosier, I didn’t know what pierogies were. So we went over to the Jefferson Inn, which is at a corner across the street here, and we had pierogies. And on the way out he said, oh, by the way, that building over there is for sale. And at that time I was thinking about looking for a place to live and didn’t know anything about the South Side at the time. Didn’t know what a wild and crazy place it had been, still was. And so I naively went and saw this guy who was the young guy in the deal. He was 83 years old and we looked at the house and I thought it was a great place. It had a nice studio storefront here, so I could be able to do some work in there. And so anyway, negotiated with the old guy in the deal. He was, at the time, he was 104 and-
Interviewer [00:01:39] Are you serious?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:01:39] I’m very serious. Very serious. He was 104 years old and was very much aware of everything. He said, this is the percentage rate. This is how we figure it out. This is what your payments are going to be every month. Go see my lawyer and we’ll be all set. So he was doing all the math. Yeah, he was just an amazing character. And I would go see him once a month and drop off a check to him. And this- He was staying at the Little Sisters of the not so Poor when I, as I refer to him. But he went in there when he was 90 years old and they gave him a life lease and they figured, well, he’s 90, how long is he going to live? Well, yeah, anyway, when I met him, he was 104 and 107, actually, lived to be a week from-
Interviewer [00:02:23] Wow.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:02:24] Amazing. But anyway, I used to take him. We went out to- He had some relatives that lived out in Footville, which is out Chardon Road a ways, and it wasn’t on the map. So he says, yeah, well, let’s go find it. So I’m like, sure, whatever. So we went and drove out Chardon Road and started asking directions for Footville. And some people didn’t know, and other people, well, it’s out there somewhere. So anyway, we finally found somebody who knew where it was, and it was just crossing the roads, and we went there and there was this very old house that was up on the side there. And we went and says, yeah, that’s where my cousins used to live. And so we went up there and knocked on the door and lady came out. And I says, well, this is Mr. Hubert Borling, and his cousins used to live here, and he just wanted to come and have a look. And I said, well, he’s 105. And she’s like, pretty amazed and, you know, so he had a look around and it was pretty fun. But he was- He was quite a character. But anyway, that was how I came to be here.
Interviewer [00:03:27] And did you- Was the neighborhood pretty abandoned when you first got here? You said it was sort of a bad neighborhood?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:03:33] Well, it was- It was not. When I told people that I was moving to Tremont, I don’t know if it was actually known very, very well at that time as Tremont, but there was- It was probably more known as the South Side. And I never really referred to the South Side, but lots of other people did. But anyway, I told him I was from Shaker. To the west side people, isn’t that like moving from riches to rags? And I go, well, yeah, maybe, but at least I’ll be the owner of my destiny over there. Which is definitely not the case over in Shaker. But anyway. Yeah, so it was at that time I used to tell some people have blamed me or associated me or attributed me the honor of being one of the first artists over here of the current generations that are here, ask you that. Yeah, right. And they- People have, you know, and so what I did when I moved over here is, you know, in order to, you know, hopefully boost the neighborhood and, you know, the quality of life over here, I was telling all my artist friends that, hey, you know, come over to Tremont. You can get- You could buy a house for the price of a good used car.
Interviewer [00:04:55] Yeah.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:04:56] And people were like, oh, really? And so a lot of people came true.
Interviewer [00:05:01] I mean, oh, you, basically you could.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:05:02] Yes, yes, you could. You could. You could get some real, real deals back in the day. But anyway, that doesn’t happen very much anymore now, so. And things have changed. But yeah, so a lot of the artist types were moving into the area and so slowly began to evolve. And there were a number of people who came in and did well.
Interviewer [00:05:28] When you were living in Shaker Heights, were you living in a rented apartment?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:05:32] Yeah, it was a third floor of a house. You know, just like nothing special.
Interviewer [00:05:37] And you just want to just build, like, form something on your own, get a house and-
Jeffry Chiplis [00:05:43] Right.
Interviewer [00:05:44] Something that you could control.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:05:46] Right. Someplace where I could get a better investment. A bit of an investment and be able to, you know, if I wanted to make a mess and if I spill paint on the floor or something like that, it’s like no big deal, you know, you clean it up and whatever, but just a matter of, you know, being able to do what you want.
Interviewer [00:06:08] So then some of your artist friends that you knew back in the old neighborhood, they started moving here.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:06:15] I didn’t really know them from old neighborhood. I knew some of them from the early days of SPACES.
Interviewer [00:06:20] And you were involved with SPACES since how long?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:06:25] We’ll say year two for them.
Interviewer [00:06:27] Okay.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:06:28] And they’ve been around for 25 years now. So I’ve been with them for a long time. So it was people who I’d met there and I just originally started going there because I had just come out of art school and I was new to the city and was looking to meet other people, other artists and, you know, got involved with them and, you know, you know, painted a couple of walls for them and, you know, they asked me to be on the board and the rest, as we say, is history.
Interviewer [00:06:57] And where’d you go to art school at?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:06:59] I went to a major midwestern university, IU, Indiana University in Bloomington, and got my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture.
Interviewer [00:07:08] Okay.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:07:10] In the year that the Bobby Knight won his first of the NCAA championships.
Interviewer [00:07:18] Do you like basketball? Did you get into that?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:07:22] No, I didn’t really get into it. There it was, you know, my mom’s a huge fan, but I’m like, eh, I’m thinking to leave it. I check a ball score, but I don’t like, spend hours watching it.
Interviewer [00:07:32] Alright.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:07:35] Oh.
Interviewer [00:07:36] Do you think there’s any connection between the old steel mill community that used to be, that used to make up Tremont and the more creative community that has developed in Tremont now?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:07:53] Yeah, I don’t know that there’s- I mean, when I came here, the mills were certainly on their way down and there was still a lot of industry in the neighborhood. But I think the. And there were a lot of the old families, the old Polish, Ukrainian families were around the neighborhood, those that hadn’t moved out to Parma or moved elsewhere, There were still a few of those that were still here. But as far as- I mean, I think the people that were working the mills and doing basically manufacturing jobs, whatever, they have a very specific task that they need to perform. Whereas I think being an artist, you have, you know, you may have a task performed, but it’s a task of your own design and your own making. So I don’t know that they were really that. That related other than that, you know, they were working with their hands. But, you know, I don’t think that they were doing any much actual thinking behind what they were doing. So I think. I think it’s a little. You got. You got two different. Yeah, two different things going on.
Interviewer [00:09:11] Sort of like craft versus art.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:09:14] Even craft. You even craft. You’re thinking about design and you’re thinking about, you know, other things to, you know, in making your product, where, whereas- And you’re- And you’re still thinking about aesthetics. Whereas with, you know, if you’re, if you’re working in a factory job, you know, banging out big old slabs of steel, you got one job that you’re doing. And, yeah, you may see your end product, but is there much, you know, creativity going into that? I don’t think there’s a lot, really, on the personal level.
Interviewer [00:09:53] Alright.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:09:53] I mean, you may- You may come home and you may, you know, make birdhouses in your basement and have a little birdhouse garden out in your yard and relate to the birds. But that’s, you know, it’s, you know, apart from what you would ordinarily do, you know, cranking out, you know, big rolls of steel.
Interviewer [00:10:13] Okay. What do you remember when Carl Stokes was elected mayor? That was before you got here.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:10:21] Before my time. Before my time.
Interviewer [00:10:22] That was in the seventies.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:10:24] Right. I actually. Dennis Kucinich was mayor when I came here. I came here in 1978.
Interviewer [00:10:31] Okay.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:10:32] So actually, maybe it was like the winter of ’77, because I remember that first winter there was that amazing snow blizzard that shut down the city.
Interviewer [00:10:43] Yeah.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:10:44] And I went to work anyway that morning, and it was like- And this is when I was commuting from Shaker, and I’d get on the train every day and take me an hour to get to work. And it was like I got there and I realized that ain’t nobody working today. So anyway, I turned around and came back, but it was- Yeah, I just remember there’s, like, big boatloads of snow that winter.
Interviewer [00:11:05] And where did you work?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:11:07] At Holtcamp Organ, which is- I built pipe organs for a living, which I considered to be large musical sculptures, and got to travel a lot with them. And so it was nice to work with your hands, do some woodworking and stuff, make these things. And you know.
Interviewer [00:11:32] Was that in Ohio City? There’s an organ building in Ohio City that I think it’s-
Jeffry Chiplis [00:11:38] Yeah, that little storefront over there. Yeah, no, that’s- That’s another guy who does it as well. But no, Holtcamp has been around for 150-plus years and they’re over on Meyer and- [interruption in recording]
Interviewer [00:11:49] Okay.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:11:50] And his- It’s actually been- It’s now in his fourth generation of owners and they were quite world-renowned when, the son who has it now, when his grandfather was a designer and builder. They were huge. They were very famous.
Interviewer [00:12:10] Okay. And they’re still going?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:12:13] Oh, yeah.
Interviewer [00:12:13] Okay.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:12:14] Yep.
Interviewer [00:12:21] Are you, are you welcoming the fact that Tremont is now drawing these outsiders from the suburbs and there’s more high-end stores and restaurants and housing, or are you sort of- Do you see this as sort of now, the neighborhood is now going downhill?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:12:41] Well, it’s certainly not going downhill. And people always say to me that, you know, gosh, property values are really skyrocketing over there. You must feeling rich and everything. And I’m like, well, not really because, you know, if I were planning on moving, if I was gonna like wait until the market peaks and then sell and move on to something else, that would certainly be a factor. But I’m not going anyplace.
Interviewer [00:13:05] Yeah.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:13:05] Because I’ve looked, you know, I always look when I’m out driving around doing stuff, doing whatever, and I don’t see anything that gives me what I have here as far as a workspace that is a manageable size, piano, a living space in the same building. And you know, and plus I have to move all this crap, be able to- [crosstalk] Yeah, right, exactly. If that ever happens, I’ll close the door and let somebody else worry about it. But no, I don’t plan on going anywhere. So as far as all the gentrification goes, no, I don’t- I have a problem with people coming down, enjoying the neighborhood when they are looking where they’re parking and they block my driveway. That kind of irritates me. But, you know, and lots of people come down for the, for the Art Walks on the second Friday of every month. And it’s amazing how that whole thing has sort of evolved over the past 10-plus years that it’s been going on, and back in the, you know, early middays, whatever, they had, there were a lot of, you know, legitimate galleries that were happening. Whereas now it’s, you know, the restaurants, the bars, they do their little thing and, you know, there’s- You know, there’s a couple of galleries - Jean Brandt, Asterisk, and even Downing Thomas across the street over here - that are doing things, and people like to come down and look. And people, you know, and they come down and they eat at- You know, if they’re well off, they eat at Lola’s or Theory or Fahrenheit. And if they’re maybe not doing so well, they’re doing, they’re doing okay, let me say they’re doing pretty good, they might go to La Tortilla Felice or the Lava Lounge or, you know, or Grumpy’s or someplace like that. And if they’re eating on the cheap, they might go down to Pat’s and have something down there.
Interviewer [00:15:10] Yeah. Where you get breakfast on Thursdays.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:15:14] Breakfast on Friday mornings. Friday mornings. Or you can get it on Thursday, but I won’t be there.
Interviewer [00:15:19] But, yeah, anyway, it can be had.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:15:20] Breakfast can be had. So as far as people come, you know, I certainly have no problem with people coming down and enjoying the neighborhood, but it’s just all the new construction they’ve done is- I feel that it’s too- Too dense. If they had- If they had built on every other lot instead of every lot that they had to give these houses some room around them to, you know, then I- I know that wouldn’t be cost-effective for these builders. But still, as far as for density goes, I, you know, it just seems to me that it would have been a little nicer.
Interviewer [00:16:13] Yeah.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:16:14] But these guys are in- You know, the builders are here to make money.
Interviewer [00:16:17] Yeah. [00:16:18] And, you know, I think one of those houses just sold for $400,000 or something.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:16:24] They- Yes.
Interviewer [00:16:25] Or are they condos? The Tremont Ridge.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:16:27] The Tremont- Tremont Ridge, I believe those are all for sale, regular houses and even stuff with- Yeah, the Tremont Ridge. And. But the thing is, like, okay, so even you got a $300,000 house, you’re gonna end up paying, over the course of 30 years, close to a million dollars for the thing. And first of all, is that really worth, you know, a million bucks? It’s like, I don’t think so. And the other thing is, is, like, I don’t feel that the quality of the materials that they’re using is going to be, you know, be around in, we’ll say, 50 years.
Interviewer [00:17:14] Yeah.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:17:16] Like the building that we’re in here, this, this building is 90 years old. Is any of those places- Are any of those places going to be around in 90 years? I don’t think so.
Interviewer [00:17:26] Yeah.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:17:27] And the fact that they would tear down- There was, there was down there next to the Literary Food and Beverage, whatever it’s called down there, there was a great solid brick building there. Knocked it down, built up whatever it is they got down there. And it’s, it’s just, you know, great building-
Interviewer [00:17:51] Yeah.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:17:52] Would have been- I’m sure that building was close to 100 years old also. And what they put up there, is that gonna last 100 years? No.
Interviewer [00:18:01] Yeah, but what was in that old building? It was housing?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:18:05] It was house- Yeah. It was a housing unit. I don’t know if there was. It could have been even a four-suiter at one time. And a lot of these, these old buildings had, you know, they would be four efficiency apartments and they would have the bath out in the hallway because back, you know, back when these things were built, people would go down to the bathhouse to take their bath and they would have- They would have- They have a john out in the hallway and that would be it. So anyway, needless to say that, you know, it needed to be upgraded or whatever, but still, to take something, you know, solid brick and bulldoze the thing is like, yeah, it hurts.
Interviewer [00:18:55] I think there was an interview with Joe Cimperman. He was talking about how that’s the best thing that’s happened to the neighborhood.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:19:02] The Tremont Ridge?
Interviewer [00:19:03] The Tremont Ridge, I guess as far as bringing money into the neighborhood.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:19:07] Yeah, sure, it’s brought a ton of money into the neighborhood, but they could have been more-
Interviewer [00:19:15] More thoughtful of the rest of the neighborhood?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:19:17] More thought- Well, even if that area down there- It could have been less densely built, could’ve had a reasonable sized yard going around people’s houses, and they could, you know. I don’t know, in the perfect world, and if I were doing it, it would have been different, but it’s, that’s, you know, beyond my control and- But I mean, yeah, granted, there was a lot of open parcels of land down there and housing stock had, you know, had gone down. There were lots of, you know, houses that got demoed back in the day. And even when, back when our neighborhood arsonist was here back in the early ’80s, who would, who would buy these things and rent them and, or would insure them and then burn them. He’s since spent his time in Mansfield and whatever.
Interviewer [00:20:17] But there was a specific guy that used to.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:20:21] Oh, yeah.
Interviewer [00:20:22] I knew- I’ve heard about a lot of arson in the neighborhood, but it was mostly this guy?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:20:25] Yes. It was primarily one individual who - and a couple of his flunkies - who go out and do the work for him. But. Yeah. Anyway, he got-
Interviewer [00:20:36] This was in the ’80s, early ’80s, right?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:20:39] Yeah. And anyway, he’s- I don’t know what he’s doing now. I don’t even- He might even still be in here, but I doubt it. But anyway, so he was responsible for creating a lot of the empty lots. But anyway.
Interviewer [00:20:59] Do you ever go into the local bars around here besides Pat’s in the Flats sometimes. You got the Treehouse and the Lincoln Park Pub.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:21:08] Oh, sure. I know Tom Bell over at the Treehouse. I mean, I’m sorry, over at the Flying Monkey. I’m sorry I confused the two, but Tom Bell over at the Flying Monkey and I certainly admire his, you know, the work that he’s done over there that has turned that pigsty, former, you know, convenience store, into the, you know, fine establishment that it is now. And he’s really spent some time and spent a solid year working on the thing, redoing it from the ground up. And you would never guess that it was the same place before is what it is now. So. Yeah, I go in there once in a while and Dempsey’s, Edison’s, Dempsey’s, we used to go to years ago when Mr. Dempsey still had it, Mr. Dombrowski. And we used to go in there. I used to go in there with my parents and get frog legs for dinner, which were tasty. I haven’t been in the- The Gillespies own it now. And I haven’t really been in there that much more than once or twice. But they do have some good neon in there. They have the- When it- Back when it was the Oasis, the-
Interviewer [00:22:36] It’s not yours, right?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:22:37] No, no, no.
Interviewer [00:22:37] It’s not my signs, but I’ve seen that.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:22:40] Yeah. It’s got the palm trees and the Thank you and call again. But anyway, I, you know, they’ve got- I’ve always wanted to take some of the- You know, they have the Camel, the neon camels from the Camel ads. And I always wanted to take a bunch of those in there and put them underneath the palm trees, just because I thought that would be cool. [crosstalk] Because it makes sense. Exactly. It’s obvious. It’s really dumb and obvious, but still, I thought it’d be great to have all these blue camels underneath these beautiful, you know, green and gold palm trees. But I haven’t convinced them of that idea yet. So maybe if they read this, they’ll, like, say, oh, yeah, great idea. Come on down. So anyway, where else we- Oh, the Literary is another great little place. Nice little hideaway. I don’t know. Some of the other places, the High and Dry, I mean, you know. Sure, there’s a whole list of places.
Interviewer [00:23:40] There’s a ton of them now.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:23:42] Yes.
Interviewer [00:23:49] The art that you’re doing now with the neon lights, when did you start getting into that?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:23:55] It was actually after I got out of school. It was after I moved to Cleveland. And I didn’t do any neon when I was in school. But I always admired the quality of light and the whole atmosphere, the whole ambiance. Yeah, there was a good word that goes along with neon. So, anyway, I remember that there was this service station island in Bloomington that had these neon borders around this service station island. And I went back there in a rainstorm and got a ladder and climbed up there and swiped the neon off this abandoned service station island and brought it back to Cleveland in my Chevette. And there were these long pieces. In fact, those are them up on the wall up there.
Interviewer [00:24:46] And they were working?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:24:48] Oh, yeah.
Interviewer [00:24:49] You took them down, right?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:24:50] Well, they- They were intact.
Interviewer [00:24:53] Okay.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:24:53] They hadn’t- I don’t think anybody had them on probably in 10 years, at least.
Interviewer [00:24:58] Okay.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:24:58] But the piece of the glass was still intact, and I brought it back and went to a neon shop here in town and said, how do I make these work? He says, well, you need one of these, this transformer thing here, and you need some wires, and you plug it in and bam, there you are. Gee, I can figure this one out. This is- This is fun. So anyway, got them up there, mounted them up on the wall there and then plugged them in and discovered there was two different colors. Even though they look the same when they’re not on, when you turn them on, it’s like two different colors.
Interviewer [00:25:29] And that just has to do with the gas. The kind of gas that’s in it?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:25:32] Yes, the kind of gas that’s in there. And so I thought that was fun and started looking around for other abandoned signs, talking to people, reading about neon and, you know, how to make it work. And so. And then that was about the time that I moved into the building here.
Interviewer [00:25:56] Okay. [00:25:57] Was Bruce Nauman doing some of his neon stuff? Have you- Had you seen that?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:26:02] Sure. No, I hadn’t really paid any, really, any real attention to that. I mean, I think I might have seen some of his things from time to time. I certainly knew about Dan Flavin, but he’s- He was doing more fluorescent than neon. But I, you know, and it wasn’t the fact that I wanted to learn how to bend the glass. I just wanted to use the product, the end product there to make, you know, to make sculpture, to make, you know, to turn that pieces and parts of a sign into something other than what it was originally meant to be. So it’s-
Interviewer [00:26:46] And have you ever- Have you ever stopped using the neon? Has it been neon medium all the way since then?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:26:53] Since then I was also working on this series of artificial satellites. And I’ve, you know, I sort of play around with those still occasionally, but mostly it’s been the neon, just because it’s something I enjoy working with and it’s fun.
Interviewer [00:27:13] Now, what are artificial satellites?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:27:14] For example, up here. There’s another one in the backyard. But artificial satellites are no tech. I call them NASA decoys, in that they look like they could be floating around up in space there, doing something. But, you know, and, you know, people always, you know, the one out in the backyard, you know, people are, you know-
Interviewer [00:27:39] Wondering what the hell you’re doing with that.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:27:41] They’re wondering what.
Interviewer [00:27:42] And who you’re spying on.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:27:44] Right, exactly. And I tell them it’s a, you know, I’ve got this secret government contract that I can’t talk about and that NASA is, you know, involved, but yeah, we can’t talk about that.
Interviewer [00:27:57] Alright.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:27:57] Yeah.
Interviewer [00:27:57] This is going on the Internet.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:27:59] Right, right. Oops. Anyway, they usually leave me alone after that. Yeah, they just think I’m nuts. And. Yeah, that’s fine.
Interviewer [00:28:10] How have you- Have you run into much trouble? Not really with the City of Cleveland, but with Cleveland in general and being an artist in Cleveland and maybe Clevelanders not being receptive to artwork or to new things because Cleveland sort of got a hard-to-change type mentality, conservative type?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:28:38] Right. Well, the work that I do with the neon is not easy. It’s not easy stuff in that it’s not like a painting. You get tired of the painting, you take it off your wall, you throw it in the closet, and, you know, maybe if you change your mind or you think about it, you might bring it out again later. Once my stuff goes up, it pretty much stays, unless somebody breaks it or, you know, or, you know, you really want to move it. But anyways, so it takes more of a commitment than a painting, a drawing, a photograph, something like that, where it’s contained in the frame. And so my people who have my work are committed to having the work. And yeah, the- Well, I was lucky back at the beginning of this year, at the end of last year, where somebody saw my show at the Asterisk gallery last year and said, let me see what I can do for you. He liked the work. He liked the idea. And he saw the sign down at Pat’s. He saw some of the other work that I had in the neighborhood here at the Literary and outside in the back at Edison’s and some of the other places like that. And so he got turned on to the idea of neon in a sort of a non-commercial, non-signage kind of way. And it fascinated him and he said, Let me see what I can do for you. And sure enough, six months later, I had a show in New York, and it was pretty damn exciting. But people of Cleveland, there are people that know what I’m doing, and whenever they see my things, they usually recognize it as my work, which is fun, except for sometimes people get confused by, like, the sign on the top of SPACES, which is not mine.
Interviewer [00:30:54] I thought it was. I just assumed it was because I found out you were on the board.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:30:58] Exactly. No, it’s not mine. I did work on that project and help coordinate the electrician, the crane operator, the construction people, the other kind of people. But the design is not mine. The sculpture is not mine. That is artists from down in Columbus by the name of Xan Palay. And she-
Interviewer [00:31:17] Can you spell that? Just so we know.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:31:18] X-A-N, Zan. Palay is P-A-L-A-Y.
Interviewer [00:31:23] Okay.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:31:23] Anyway, she, she- There was a call for proposals for that. And they- And she was the one that won that call. I didn’t actually even enter that because once again, I was too close to the project and in that I’m on the board and- Yeah, but, you know, I find it flattering that people think that’s my work. [But no, it’s not. I mean, even though we did help out, but it’s- It’s a very- I like her work a lot. So. But there are other things around, like the piece we just took down at the, at the Arcade that people know and also at the Lake View Cemetery project was, you know, so there’s been some things around that people see.
Interviewer [00:32:18] So there’s nothing, there’s really nothing that would make you want to move because of people not being interested or not caring about art?
Jeffry Chiplis [00:32:30] No. Well-
Interviewer [00:32:30] You have a good enough base of people that know what’s going on.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:32:34] Right. They- It’s- There are some, certainly some intelligent people. And no, I’m not, you know, I’m not gonna, you know, if I were rich and, you know, had some bottomless pocket of money, that I could move to New York and have a space and do the work there, that would certainly be great. But, you know, that’s not the reality of the situation. Yeah, no. And I find I like Cleveland because it’s got a lot of ethnicity, which is more than what I can say about Indianapolis, which is where I’m from. And there’s just, you know, there’s things going on here. People are always, you know, downplaying it and saying, you know, what a not great place it is. And I find it to be just, just fine. You know, of course, I’m in a good place in that I have a nice place to live and, you know, the studio and I associate, try and associate with, you know, intelligent people and, yeah, so that’s, you know, and there are lots of other complainers who- And I say, hey, that’s on you if you can’t, you know, figure out, you know, what to do.
Interviewer [00:33:55] Have you- Well, I guess you’ve been here since ’80, but within the last 10 years or so, have you noticed more of a push in the arts? I mean, there seems to be. Since I’ve been here.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:34:06] Right.
Interviewer [00:34:06] More galleries going up.
Jeffry Chiplis [00:34:08] Sure.
Interviewer [00:34:08] And MOCA’s doing more and better stuff. And the art museum is going to be rebuilt and they’re gonna-
Jeffry Chiplis [00:34:14] Oh, yeah, you know, definitely. And speaking of Joe Cimperman, we were talking about briefly before, he certainly recognizes the fact that the arts are an important part of what’s going on and the impact that they can have on neighborhoods and the community. So, you know, and once you got, you know, your political leaders seeing that and paying attention to that, then, you know, that’s going a long ways. But, yeah, there’s- I don’t know, it’s a very affordable city to live in, and it’s a city- I mea
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