Power in numbers

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When the Hoover school system shut down the Artists on the Bluff facility in Bluff Park toward the end of last year, many artists who were renting space there scurried to find a place to go.

School Superintendent Kathy Murphy gave them several months to find another spot, but for the artists, it was disappointing to lose the facility that had served as a hub for the arts community in Hoover for more than six years.

Some artists started working out of their homes, but others left the city, opening studios in places such as Homewood and Anniston. Metal artist and prop specialist Kenneth Spivey III moved to Atlanta, and painter Jayne Morgan is now splitting time between her home studio in Bluff Park and some jobs in Los Angeles.

But several artists have started leasing space in a group of buildings just south of Shades Mountain Plaza, creating a new artist colony of sorts, and other artists are beginning to join them.

Deb Paradise, a porcelain sculptor who does commissioned artwork for clients all over the world and even for the international space station, was the first to settle there. She moved into a space formerly occupied by the C.P. Rentals real estate company in a building just west of Shades Mountain Plaza around the first of October.

Paradise said she started looking for studio space the day she found out they had to leave Artists on the Bluff because she had orders to fill. She drove around Bluff Park and leased the space immediately the same day, she said.

“I could tell it was just exactly what I was looking for,” Paradise said. “It had a perfect amount of space for what I needed.”

Then in December of last year, zentangle artist Darla Williamson started leasing about 650 square feet in a building just south of Shades Mountain Plaza. Her spot formerly housed an investment company but had been vacant for several years, she said.

In January, artist Kendall Boggs, who does canvas art and jewelry among other things, moved into a 650-square-foot space next to Williamson.

Then in July, Rik Lazenby and his daughter, Jennifer Lazenby, started leasing a 4,000-square-foot building next door that formerly was home to Carto-Craft Maps for use as their decorative arts studio. Painter Melanie O’Keefe is subleasing space from the Lazenbys.

In October, artist Svetlana Belotserkovskaya began offering art classes from her Art Zone business in the same building housing Williamson and Boggs. She has been taking up about 400 square feet but plans to expand into the remaining 900 square feet of space in the building once the owner finishes using it for storage, she said.

'CHOMPING AT THE BIT'

All the artists came from the Artists on the Bluff facility, except O’Keefe and Belotserkovskaya, both of whom had been working in their homes.

“We’re all happy to be here together,” Williamson said. “We were all chomping at the bit to get in.”

Williamson had been at Artists on the Bluff for five years and moved to Bluff Park after she started working there. “We fell in love with the neighborhood,” she said.

After the school superintendent said the Artists on the Bluff facility was definitely closing, “I knew I wanted to stay in Bluff Park because it felt like the community really supported us.”

She really likes the new location because Shades Mountain Plaza, especially the Piggly Wiggly, brings a lot of traffic, she said.

She and the other artists especially like that there are performing arts businesses (Mason Music and Dale Serrano Dance) in Shades Mountain Plaza, she said. They both teach a lot of students, and most of the artists teach classes as well, so they can feed off each other and create some synergy, she said.

“We would really like this area to be known for the arts,” Williamson said.

ROOM FOR MORE

There are still some empty spaces in Shades Mountain Plaza, so she and the other artists said they would love to see more artists fill those vacancies.

Chris Gauldin, who owns the side of the shopping center that includes the Piggly Wiggly, said he would be open to that as long as the artists can pay the type of rent he is seeking.

Several artists said they also would like to have a coffee shop for parents to enjoy while waiting on their children to finish art, music or dance lessons.

Boggs said she would love to have some regular street festivals at Shades Mountain Plaza, where both the artists who lease space there and other artists who want to rent booths can showcase their wares. Maybe they could have it the third Saturday of every month or a certain weeknight each month, she said.

“It’s the perfect location,” Boggs said. “We’d like to get more people here to make it a real art village.”

She was at Artists on the Bluff only about eight months before it shut down, but said she didn’t like the idea of having to work from home. “Being a working artist is somewhat isolating anyway. If I stayed in my home and did it, I’d never go anywhere,” she said. “It’s important to have camaraderie for creativity.”

O’Keefe, who for the past five years has painted full-time from home, agreed. “I paint six to 15 hours a day. It is lonely,” she said. Plus, having a studio away from home gives artists a better place to show their work, she said.

Rik Lazenby, a former art teacher, principal and central office administrator for the Jefferson County school system, has been making his living from his artwork since retiring in 2000. He does mixed media art and has made a name for himself in the decorative arts world, having some of his work featured on the cover of American Painting Contractor magazine and recently stepping down after three years as president of the International Decorative Artisans League.

He and his daughter do decorative finishes on things like walls, floors, domes, countertops, cabinets and furniture.

LOSING ARTISTS ON THE BLUFF

Lazenby said he was a little bit hurt by the decision to close Artists on the Bluff. He had been there since it opened and had put a lot of work into physical improvements in the building and saw how far they had come with the facility and how much it was being used.

“I believed Artists on the Bluff could have been huge,” he said. “I was disappointed it ended the way it did.”

He looked at numerous sites for a new studio, including Leeds, downtown Birmingham and Cahaba Heights near The Summit, but eventually decided to come back to Bluff Park, he said.

He and his daughter and O’Keefe moved into the former Carto-Craft Maps building in July and have been busy slowly renovating the building when they’re not working off-site on jobs, he said. They have created an art gallery in the front of the building, and their studio and shared teaching space are in the back.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in just a few months,” he said.

Paradise said she, too, was very disappointed to see Artists on the Bluff close. She had been trying to get a spot there for 1½ years and moved to Bluff Park from Helena and worked from her home until a space opened up. She had spent a lot of money getting the space ready and had been operational only two to three months when the news of closure came.

But, she likes the new artist community that is forming. It has great access and great parking, and most, if not all, of the artists are doing their work professionally and not just as a hobby, she said. “We have a lot of talent, a lot of experience.”

Belotserkovskaya has been teaching art classes at the Vestavia Hills Recreation Center for 16 years, the Hoover Recreation Center six to seven years and the Birmingham Museum of Art for two to three years until the museum quit offering classes when the economy went down.

Since she lost the museum space, she has been teaching at her home off Tyler Road until a neighbor complained, she said. She found her new studio space while out walking the neighborhood one day and hopes more artists will come to that area, she said.

MAKING SOMETHING SPECIAL

Lazenby said he hopes the Hoover City Council will get involved to help encourage an arts district there.

Councilman Curt Posey, a member of the new Hoover Arts Council, was among a group of people who explored turning the former Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church site into an arts center for those who had to leave Artists on the Bluff, but that idea faded due to concerns about the city’s finances, Posey said.

Posey said he thinks it’s great what the artists are doing next to Shades Mountain Plaza and he sees the potential to do more there.

Alabama law allows a city such as Hoover to create up to three arts and entertainment districts, which create a more hospitable and flexible environment for special events, concerts, art shows and outdoor consumption of food and beverages. 

Posey said that’s certainly something for city officials to review.

Lazenby said he wants to make a sign that gives the group of buildings next to Shades Mountain Plaza a sense of shared community, similar to what they had at Artists on the Bluff. The name the artists have been considering is Artists on the Plaza.

A lot of people still don’t know where they are, he said. “It’s a little off the beaten path, but they’ll find us just half a mile up the road here,” Lazenby said. “We’re trying to bond together and see if we can do something to make Hoover proud.”