Published: October 16, 2008 08:57 am      

ART: A tour of smaller Niagara County galleries

By Ed Adamczyk



If art is everywhere, so are artists, and one would expect Niagara County — the county’s famous waterfall alone has inspired painters, photographers and orators for hundreds of years — to have something of an artists’ community within its confines.

Actually, it has several — Lewiston could be counted as one — and crucibles of art can be found all over the county. We found five remarkable places, large and small and none named Kenan or Castellani, wherein artists in any medium can find space, supplies, solace, instruction, opportunities to present, the company of peers and a place to work. All are thriving enterprises with that enthusiasm and optimism only perceptible these days with successfully-run arts management, and each has its own spin on bringing the practice of art to the masses.

At the Carnegie Art Center, a sturdy former library from 1903 on a leafy side street in North Tonawanda, the “Member’s Exhibition” in the spacious rotunda is closing and another show is going up.

An association with the center entitles an artist to “one item per year” in the exhibition, according to grants coordinator Lynn Albrecht, and access to an assortment of classes in technique (including Web design and digital photography) and professional development.

Upcoming shows include a one-night-only presentation by Stella Marrs, master of fine arts candidate at the University at Buffalo, and a joint exhibition named “Studio Secrets Revealed” beginning Nov. 1 by artists Bruce Adams and Richard Huntington.

“Most people here aren’t doing this for a living, but they do it because it’s what they are and what they love,” outgoing executive director Ellen Ryan said.

Consequently, the Carnegie provides guidance as well as exhibit space, serving as a “resource organization” for the local artist. Collaborations with businesses such as the professional photography gallery Pencil in the River Studio in North Tonawanda are arranged, as well as lectures by local luminaries on life in the arts (one upcoming Nov. 8 features Ron Ehmke of Buffalo Spree Magazine and Righteous Babe Records on publicity and promotion for artists).

Not far away in a storefront on Webster Street in North Tonawanda is Partners in Art, a small gallery that serves as exhibition space for the patrons of a supplies-and-framing shop across the street. Glenna Sternin oversees an enterprise that began with selling paint to artists and has evolved to art classes and workshops, and now a gallery.

“There are very few places that will take the casual painter,” she said, adding that that the space offers “a new show every month.” The current show features the work, mostly landscapes, of three local artists.

“We’ve turned into an important part of local culture,” said Sternin, a little surprised at her own comment. “There are not a lot of places to buy art supplies. We’ve been a presence here since 1997.”

The gallery is small but the work is earnest, and the feel is of dedicated amateurs presenting their passion.

The same can be seen, but on a bizarrely grander scale, at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center, housed in an abandoned high school in Niagara Falls not far from the city’s “Little Italy” neighborhood.

Picture 180,000 square feet of space in the arrangement of a 1924-vintage public school with classrooms, offices, auditoriums and the like, given over to a non-profit arts organization.

“We are a miracle, and a model, in a way,” said executive director Kathie Kudela of this 7-year-old project. “We acted as our own developer, and we’re embedded in our community.”

The center offers a dizzying array of classes in art, theater, dance and music. It also rents the classrooms by the month to artists in need of space to create (there is also event and conference space available).

“There’s a synergy here,” she said. “An artist, a woodworker, a voice teacher. It’s like a little city, a community of people.”

After-school programs, exhibition space and a recording studio (and occasional bocce tournament) keep the lights on all day and night.

“We are multiculturally diverse, and it’s been a great positive,” Kudela said of her colleagues.

The place thrives in part through a strong African-American and Native American presence that mirrors the neighborhood. The building no longer reflects sullen high school kids but rings with the mutual respect artists have for each other’s work. What could be a zoo of competing interests is a spacious and busy collage of creativity, “a rich artistic stew,” according to Victor Marwin, artist and self-described “token woodworker.”

Added marketing director Bob Drozdowski, “As an arts and culture center, we have a community aspect. Many of the artists give workshops. Any type of art that exists is under our roof.”

An art show by the Buffalo/Niagara Arts Association is in progress in one of the gallery spaces, a former cafeteria. An exhibition by NACC residents begins Nov. 21.

In Lockport, the Market Street Art Center offers a similar, if less massive and frenetic, arrangement with the area’s artists. Housed in a circa-1890 former block-and-tackle factory, space is rented to artists and exhibitions are presented.

“We have a one-woman show by artist Terry Mangen,” associate director Sally Bisher said. “Next is the Kenmore Art Society, who’ll be here for a month.

“Business is very good. We have a high tourist base in the summer and people from all over the world come in to visit,” she said, noting that the center is mentioned during boat tours on the Erie Canal a block away.

“We work to convince people that art is not a snobby thing, and we work to get a variety of art out to the community.”

Some 24 shows per year are organized in the two galleries. The artist’s spaces are like little apartments, the place to go when the back porch or the upstairs room isn’t enough for application of the creative process, and again, there is a respectful synergy going on: anime artist Ray Griffin’s studio is across the hall from that of golf course architect Scott Witter.

It’s done a little differently on Main Street in Newfane. At the Shoppe on Main, a picturesque storefront building from the early 1900s operated by Sue Neidlinger, more than 50 artists rent space by the shelf to present their work. This enterprise has become the go-to place in this rural community for art and handmade craft.

“We get busy around the holidays,” fiber artist Lisa McCausland said.

Classes are offered, and the shop has a schedule of events that range from classes in wreath making to book clubs and wine tastings (Newfane is in the heart of the Niagara Wine Trail).

There is a liberal interpretation of art here, extending to crochet, beadwork, furniture and bottles of locally made jams, but it is also representative of what might be termed functional art. Decorative and decidedly non-urban, it also includes the remarkable, nearly photo-realistic work of Newfane painter Geoffrey Harding and that of Jesse Honanburg’s deft and dramatic cuttings into stainless steel.

In every case, these idiosyncratic galleries are clear of mission, stand eager to serve both artists and art collectors and are proudly self-supporting. Except for the occasional award of a competitive arts grant, each pays its own way.

The amateur painter, an eager beginner with an easel and a box of paints, becomes a serious artist and more in venues such as these, and as more individuals discover the artistic possibilities of their cameras and computers, their need and value increase. These places deserve discovery.



Ed Adamczyk is a freelance writer from Kenmore.



IF YOU GO

• Carnegie Art Center — 240 Goundry St., North Tonawanda; 694-4400, carnegieartcenter.org

• Market Street Art Center — 247 Market St., Lockport; 478-0239, marketstreetartcenter.org

• Niagara Arts and Cultural Center — 1201 Pine Ave., Niagara Falls; 282-7530, thenacc.org

• Partners in Art — 74 Webster St., North Tonawanda; 692-2141, partnersinart.net

• Shoppe on Main — 2714 Main St., Newfane; 778-5273, shoppeonmain.com