A national trend among young contemporary artists is displaying their work in alternative spaces, outside traditional museums and commercial galleries. As a result, websites devoted to this trend, like temporaryartreview.com, have sprung up. And Arkansas is no exception to the trend. While central Arkansas is strong in art space (with the Arkansas Arts Center as an anchor and an array of galleries in North Little Rock’s historic Argenta District and dotting Little Rock’s downtown, Heights, Hillcrest and west Little Rock) at least two alternative art spaces - one in a North Little Rock suburban garage and the other in a downtown Little Rock Colonial Revival house - have recently popped up, holding regular gatherings.
NOT YOUR FATHER’S GARAGE Haynes Riley, 29, who grew up in North Little Rock, became a curator when he converted the garage of his older brother Zach’s 2,336-square-foot lakefront house at 4400 Edgemere Road, in North Little Rock’s Lakewood subdivision of mid-20th-century brick, ranch-style houses.
Inside the traditional circa-1956 single-car garage, the walls and ceiling have been painted crisp white, awaiting the next art installation.
“It’s just a flexible space that allows artists to direct how they want to their work to be seen,” Riley says. “The space becomes theirs.” The artist has the entire space in which to work and compose the elements of an exhibit, he says: “In addition to having art on the walls, they have had it on the floor, on the ceiling, and even attached to the garage door so that when it opens and closes, the art moves.” Riley, a sculptor and designer, completed his undergraduate work at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and received his master’s degree in fine art from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.
Upon returning to his hometown, he determined that local venues for contemporary art were too sparse and, in response, founded Good Weather (goodweathergallery.com). The first show was held there in October 2012 and since then, several artists from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Vancouver in British Columbia, have exhibited there for about a month each with an opening reception followed by appointment-only scheduling.
Riley’s unique gallery faces challenges beyond funding. Currently working as visiting faculty at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Riley organizes the exhibits long-distance, with family and friends helping with the details.
“The artists sacrifice to get here and get their work here,” he says.
The effort is appreciated by patron Zico Smith, 30, of Little Rock, an insurance agent who majored in art history and attended the latest opening.
“This space is incredibly unique in that it offers an artist a place that is entirely their own, and most of those who exhibit here create art that is made exclusively for this space,” Smith says.
ROLLING UP THE DOOR
The latest exhibit in the garage, “Plaza,” by Lauren Cherry and Max Springer debuted Oct. 27 (it can be viewed, by appointment, through Nov. 23). with an opening reception. Within the first hour of the event, more than 40 people had arrived to see the installation.
“The garage provides an opportunity for emerging arts to have an entire space to work within,” explains Cherry, 29, who met Riley when they attended Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She and Springer, 33, now a married couple, live in Los Angeles. A printed statement about the pair’s exhibit describes it as a combination of “a constructed view of the outdoors (a built/altered nature) and a contained indoor space of found and created objects.”
In a documentary by Jordan Wayne Long and Matt Glass of Half Cut Tea, a LosAngeles-based film team that travels the country in search of artists and their stories, Riley shares how he came to create the gallery in the home, two blocks north of the Old Mill.
“[My brother] bought the house about five years ago and he’s never used the garage,” Riley says, adding that the Little Rock area is unique when it comes to the arts.
“It’s completely different from Chicago, New York or Los Angeles; it doesn’t have an art school scene or a builtin crowd of people that love contemporary art. So it [Good Weather] is really educational in that way.”
He says it’s hard to define exactly which category his for-profit, self-funded gallery, which includes a sculptural garden in the yard, fits into.
“There are artist-run spaces which are nonprofit or noncommercial and commercial galleries which are bigger; New York-based, L.A.-based, where it is about making money,” he says.
“It’s a gallery that happens to be in a garage. I think there’s a balance between both of the worlds of those spaces - artist-run spaces and commercial galleries - that Good Weather fits in and utilizes that triangle and the Internet as a place to look at art.”
The reaction from the local art community has been positive, he says, adding that in the future he would like to add artists’ talks to the mix.
ARTISTS’ PAD
Meanwhile across the river in downtown Little Rock, the Garland House, 1114 Garland St., features works and performances by younger local artists and musicians.
Phillip Rex Huddleston, a 27-year-old North Little Rock native and a middle-school art teacher at eStem Public Charter Schools, shares the rented Victorian-era house with four roommates - fellow artists and musicians Mark Thiedeman, Tom Nally, Kelly Kish and Tyler Nance.
The circa-1902 two-story yellow clapboard house is picturesque, with an expansive front porch and a large, lush magnolia on a front lawn sprinkled with red surprise lilies. But it’s an urban setting, one block north of the Salvation Army on Markham Street, with the rear of thehome abutting busy LaHarpe Boulevard, its facade facing a large law office, and a mammoth billboard crowding the home’s eastern wall.
“We started holding shows earlier this year after one of our roommates moved to Boston and we put on a little gallery show,” Huddleston says. “We sold a bunch of pieces and thought we should do this again.”
In May, they began organizing regular monthly gatherings, usually on the first Friday, featuring several artists’ paintings, drawings, photographs, and prints - and also music and hors d’oeuvres (one roommate is also a chef and last month’s offering was a candied-nut-coated banana wonton filled with brown sugar and chocolate).Each show follows a different theme with visual arts displayed upstairs, music performed in the downstairs living room, and food in the kitchen (guests bring their own beverages) with a collection taken to help pay for the hors d’oeuvres. In recent months, literary readings by local authors have also been included.
From 7:30 to 9 p.m., the focus is on the artwork; the musicians begin performing at 9. The next event is set for Nov. 15 with attendees notified word of mouth and social media - a Facebook event page and YouTube video.
“There’s a sense of comfort that comes from our house; it’s less of a gallery setting, being in someone’s home,” Huddleston says. “And I think there’s more of a cooperative spirit with the artists, us, and the guests,” he says, adding that the collection taken up rarely covers the costs of the event.
“We don’t consider ourselves to be an organization or a nonprofit,” Huddleston says. “This is completely outof-pocket on our part; it’s just a labor of love.”
One of the rewards: becoming better acquainted with friends.
“So many people I know have said, ‘I’ve been hanging out with this person a long time and I didn’t know that he created art like this or made music like that, ’” he says.
ROLLING OUT THE WELCOME MAT
For the artists, the alternative space offers an entry into the work of art. John Kushmaul of Little Rock, 41, has been painting and selling his work for more than a decade but still considers himself a budding artist. He displayed about 10 of his smaller works at the Garland House’s gathering in August.
“Having your work displayed somewhere like a museum is the ultimate goal,” he says. “But you can’t just walk into the Arkansas Arts Center and say, ‘Hey, I’d like to have an exhibit here.’
“When an artist is starting out, smaller galleries like Gallery 26 in Little Rock have been good about offering people an opportunity to exhibit, especially at something like their holiday show.”
But, he says, the Garland House shows offer artists an even more casual environment in which to display for just one day, three days or a week instead of several weeks or months. It’s also a place to discover the very newest artists who haven’t made their way into a gallery yet.
And it’s often a place where art can be found at bargain prices.
“You can go to a house show and find a new artist whose work is affordable - $50 to $100 for a small piece,” Kushmaul says.
Renee Williams, owner of Gallery 26, believes everyone benefits from having alternative art spaces such as house or garage shows: “I did home art shows before opening the gallery.
“They are good for everyone; they give artists real life experience and help promote art in general in a community.”
Good Weather gallery, 4400 Edgemere Road, North Little Rock, goodweathergallery.com, (501) 680-3763. Opento the public during opening receptions and by appointment only (schedule them by emailing desk@goodweathergallery. com) during the month-long exhibits.
The Garland House, 1114 Garland St., Little Rock, garlandhouseshows.com. Open to the public during shows, usually held the first Friday of the month. Email: garlandhouseselects@gmail.com.
Style, Pages 29 on 11/05/2013