ArtWorks ‘Art off the Walls’ brings art to life in unique fundraiser

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - Artists and community members gathered Saturday evening at the American Sign Museum to bring their art to life for the ArtWorks Cincinnati fundraising event.

Hundreds attended the annual fall fundraiser to create public art and provide career opportunities for local artists.

“We’ve been voted best arts nonprofit fundraiser,” Co-Chair for Art off the Walls “Let’s Get Campy” Lisa Saia said. “Historically, we’ve been doing these fundraisers for ten years now. We took a little hiatus for a couple of years for obvious reasons and this is our first year of doing an in-person fundraiser.”

This year, ArtWorks encouraged attendees to get creative and dress up as their favorite mural in Cincinnati.

“We’re so grateful for all of our supporters who are dressing up, bringing all of their creativity inspired by the beautiful public murals all over the city - over 250 large-scale murals,” CEO and Artistic Director of ArtWorks Colleen Houston said.

In addition to artists auctioning off their work, the event was full of food, drinks and live music for the “Let’s Get Campy” fundraiser.

“This is an entirely new theme for ArtWorks, ‘Art Off the Walls,’” Saia explained. “The challenge is how do we get people to learn about our murals and the stories behind our murals, so we chose our ‘Campy Washington’ mural as the theme tonight. So it’s ‘Art Off the Walls Lets Get Campy.’”

The Campy Washington mural is a “tongue-in-cheek” play on the neighborhood of Camp Washington.

To learn more about upcoming events from ArtWorks, visit their website here.

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