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2x2xU opening in New Bohemia neighborhood

By Loren Keller

For the nonprofessional artist, putting a painting on display in a gallery can be an expensive and intimidating process.

2x2xU takes the artwork outside.

“It’s accessible to anyone and I think that’s part of the charm,” says self-employed Cedar Rapids artist John Schafer, honorary chairman of this year’s 2x2xU community art project.

More than 90 artists—professional and amateur alike—have decorated 2-foot-by-2-foot plywood boards with their interpretations of this year’s theme, “My River.” Their artwork has been mounted in the New Bohemia District of Cedar Rapids—mostly outdoors along Third Street SE between Eighth and 12th avenues and also on Tenth Street SE—and will remain on display throughout the summer.

“For whatever reason, maybe because it’s an outdoor exhibit, it puts people who are not artists at ease with doing something fun and creative,” Schafer says. “It’s removed from any kind of a gallery setting or anything that’s really formal and serious. It’s not judged, it’s not a juried thing, it’s not a contest.”

An opening reception for the 2x2xU project will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday in the vacant lot next to the White Elephant in the 1000 block of Third Street SE. Artists will be on hand and live music will be performed by the local indie pop band Happy Go Lovely.

This is the fifth year for the project; this year’s “My River” theme follows prior themes of “My Face” and “My Dream.”

“I do think the caliber of work we have this year is the strongest we’ve ever had,” says project co-chair Mel Andringa, an artist, performer and co-founder of Legion Arts.

“Part of the appeal is both that it is an open show that anybody can enter,” Andringa says. “The other element of it is that it’s an open hang. We don’t put things in special places because they’re special artists. It’s a grade school kid next to an established artist next to somebody else and the work just stands on its own merit.”

The 90-plus artworks submitted for the project represent a range of interpretations of the “My River” theme.

“We told them it could be anything from ‘my stream of consciousness’ to literally the Cedar River,” he says. “We’ve got one guy who got his river design from Google; we got people that paint very representational pictures of the Cedar River banks; we have people who collected debris from the Cedar River and made it into artwork.”

Schafer said he was unable to complete his own 2’ by 2’ artwork, though he created this year’s 2x2xU logo, which is displayed among the artwork.

“It’s good for the neighborhood,” Schafer says. “It provides some color and some interest in what otherwise would be kind of a depressed -looking area. “