One popular Columbia-Tusculum art gallery opened a second location today, just steps away from Findlay Market.
The Collective’s new location, which contains a gallery, an art education space, a boutique and a gift shop, can be found at 218 W. Elder Street in Over-the-Rhine underneath the Findlay Garage.
Owner Aly Stacy has been creating art for over two decades now, but it wasn’t until 2020 that she decided to gather up 70 of her local artist friends and create an exhibition space where they could show off their work. The first location of The Collective was in New Richmond; Stacy later expanded the gallery to its current space at 3710 Eastern Avenue in Columbia-Tusculum. Today, the new location of The Collective hosts work from over 300 local artists — with everything from fine art to jewelry to pottery to locally-made soaps — and a special interactive room for prospective artists to experiment to their heart’s desire.
“Originally, it started with giving artists a space to showcase their work. A space like The Collective is more approachable to a lot of artists, especially new artists,” Stacy said. “But then with this new building, I was able to build this creative area. It allows the artists to have a space to be able to teach what they do and share it with the community.”
Community outreach is a major focus of Stacy’s — already, she partners with Meals on Wheels to put on monthly art classes for seniors, and regularly hosts classes for underprivileged children across the city. In the new space, she’ll host paid classes for prospective artists looking to learn a new skill; current paid workshops on the store’s website include art forms like embroidery, needle felting, and the ancient Indonesian dyeing technique known as batik.
“When people come in, I always hear how welcome they feel when they walk in the door. They leave feeling inspired, whether they’re making their own art or they’ve just found a place to find a unique gift. I really try to curate a collection for everybody, so anybody can find something they can afford, which is really important … shopping here, they’re supporting a local artist instead of a factory or a big corporation, which seems to matter to people a little more nowadays than it did before,” Stacy said.
A quick glance at the wall at The Collective’s Over-the-Rhine location presents art of all shapes and sizes, whether it’s a gargantuan painting of the city’s skyline or a group of fridge magnets full of Cincinnati-related puns.
“Welcoming a space like this to the area just feels like such a natural thing,” John Bird, Findlay Market’s director of market management and operations said. “It’s just a really cool spot with all kinds of great stuff at any price. You could come in here and spend $14 or four grand … it adds even more vibrancy to this beautiful market district and gives our shoppers even more reasons to explore.”
Stacy hopes that the bigger space will help to grow Cincinnati’s art scene even further.
“We want to bring people together. We have such an inclusive space, and people come in from all walks of life, and feel welcomed here. Even if you don’t have any money, you’re welcome to come in and just chill with the space and absorb it,” Stacy said. “And we want to help artists, too. Sometimes we’ll do little powwows where artists come in and meet each other and network and share their secrets or ideas, which is really cool too, because I don’t know that there’s too many local places where they can all just meet and hang out together.”
Overall, the goal of The Collective is to celebrate art in all forms.
“I feel like art is such a great way of expressing yourself and connecting with others. I hear people say ‘I don’t have an artistic bone in my body’ a lot, but to me, I feel there are so many forms of art. Like, art is gardening. Art is cooking,” Stacy said. “I really feel like everybody has it in them to do some sort of artistic thing. And when people come in here, I feel like they get very inspired, or they really connect with an artist and their work, and then they want to try to create something. And that’s really special.”
For more information, visit The Collective’s website.
