Artist was found dead at campsite last summer. His drawings of Lexington are for sale this weekend.
Jeff Maki was homeless, but he didn’t want that to define him.
Maki was a Lexington artist who drew intricate cityscapes on the Styrofoam cups he drank coffee from every day at the New Life Day Center.
And when he died suddenly last summer, he left a void there.
On Saturday, the New Life Day Center will host a craft fair to raise funds for the center, and prints of Maki’s art will be for sale.
All of the proceeds will go to benefit the center, which provides a safe place for the homeless to come during the day, along with a host of other services.
“We want to honor his life with it,” said Leigh Ann Reeves, a board member at the center. “I think he’d be over the moon that his art is being seen, and it’s going back to help those who helped him.”
Maki’s depictions of the Lexington skyline and of Kroger Field at the University of Kentucky will be for sale for $20 per print. Reeves said the center also has a limited supply of blank greeting cards printed with Maki’s work.
The craft fair is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 26 at the day center, at 224 North Martin Luther King Blvd.
Aside from Maki’s art, Reeves said the day center will be selling other crafts made by clients and volunteers at the shelter. Other vendors will be set up as well, and for children there will be face painting and a craft table where kids can make craft to take home.
Reeves said the day center is also holding a glove drive and encouraging shoppers to bring a pair of gloves to donate when they visit the craft fair.
Maki, who was in his mid-50s, grew up in northern Michigan, which he said helped prepare him for living outside.
He said he started drawing when he was 12 and went on to study marketing at Michigan Technological University.
He said he came to Lexington because he had an older brother living nearby, but the living arrangements didn’t work out.
He became a regular at the New Life Day Center, and it was there that his art was noticed.
But back in July, Reeves said Maki abruptly stopped coming. Workers at the day center became worried.
A staff member and client found his body at his campsite in a wooded area near the Legacy Trail. Reeves said she thinks the heat may have contributed to his death.
Before he died, Reeves said Maki gave his art portfolio to one of the volunteers at the center who had bought art supplies for him in the past.
Reeves said the idea for the craft fair came to her as a way to raise money for the shelter while also bringing community members in to see what the facility is all about.
“We got to talking about how can we offset maybe our van gas,” Reeves said.
She said UK gave permission for the day center to sell Maki’s image of the football stadium, since the UK logo is included in the drawing. Southland Printing donated its print services to the cause.
Besides providing daytime shelter, the center helps connect the homeless with other area services, offers a medical clinic, runs the city’s van to help decrease the number of panhandlers and helps people pay rental deposits to help them get housing.
Reeves said the center also has a van that takes people to doctors’ appointments and other important appointments Mondays through Thursdays, and on Fridays it takes them to a coin laundry, where the center pays for each person to wash one load of laundry.
