By John Benson
Despite the booze, broads and bravado experienced on Mad Men, the modern day advertising agency can be a little restrictive for the creative type. That’s exactly why advertising designer by day Derek Maxfield decided to establish BUCKBUCK, a mixed-use creative studio and gallery located at 3910 Lorain Ave. in Cleveland’s historic Ohio City neighborhood.
Along with his longtime friend Joe Lanzilotta, Maxfield is hoping to turn BUCKBUCK into something special in the neighborhood. The gallery’s debut event “Palookafest” proved to be a success a few months back and now BUCKBUCK has scheduled its first solo show called “PFFFT!,” which takes place Sat 7/7 at the Cleveland venue. The artists showing their work include April D. Felipe, Jes LaVecchia, Sage Perrott and Brad Pierce.
Cool Cleveland talked to Maxfield, a 2006 Lakewood High School graduate and Ohio City resident, about the unique path that led to the opening of BUCKBUCK.
Cool Cleveland: First of all, where did you get the concept for BUCKBUCK?
Derek Maxfield: I work at an advertising agency downtown and you don’t always get to do what you want to do at work. There’s not really many ways around it, so we were checking out spaces. We found this space on Lorain, but we weren’t really going to have a gallery. It was going to be more of a studio space so we could screen print and stuff. Then the guy from Palookaville next door asked if we’d hold an event for him. So now we got ourselves a gallery as well. We needed to find some shows so we didn’t have an empty gallery for a while. That’s when I contacted some people I knew from school for “PFFFT!.”
It sounds like even though you didn’t set out to have your own gallery, having such a venue makes sense.
It makes complete sense because the space is so big. We really didn’t know what we were going to do with the whole place. If we didn’t have a gallery, I’m not sure what the use would be. We don’t want it to be a typical gallery. We don’t want people to feel like we’re too good and they can’t come in. That’s why we’ve been trying to have more fun events rather than prestigious events.
Are there any other galleries in the Cleveland area that have the same sensibility as BUCKBUCK?
There are plenty of other galleries out there but I don’t know if we know ourselves what we want to be in the end. I think we’re open to change a lot more than other places maybe. We will have more serious events here but we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and we don’t want other people to take this space too seriously. It’s like a place where people can feel comfortable. I’d say it’s more out there, younger and maybe [a] more modern approach. I don’t want to put other people down and say what they’re doing isn’t awesome as well.
We have to ask, where did you get the BUCKBUCK name?
We took like three weeks trying to come up with a name and we didn’t want to be very serious. It was kind of a joke. Just kind of went with it and thought it would look good in print. We didn’t really care if people didn’t understand what it meant because we don’t really understand what it means. We just knew we liked it.
Finally, it sounds like you’re on a journey with BUCKBUCK, and the destination is unknown. Is that fair?
I don’t know what my expectations are for it. It’s kind of exciting. I probably sound like a complete idiot because I don’t know what we want to do. But I’m kind of happy with it that way, to just go with the flow for now and if something comes up later and we get a different idea or want to go in a different direction, that’s fine.
“PFFFT!” takes place at 7 p.m. on Sat 7/7 at BUCKBUCK, 3910 Lorain Ave., Cleveland. For more information, visit http://BuckBuckCle.com.
Freelance writer John Benson spends most of his time writing for various papers throughout Northeast Ohio. When he’s not writing about music or entertainment, he can be found coaching his two boys in basketball, football and baseball or watching movies with his lovely wife, Maria. John also occasionally writes for CoolCleveland.com.
Cleveland, OH 44113