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Poughkeepsie Journal
Arts community thrives with support from visitors
Valley is home to many galleries
Owning their own pottery studio and gallery has been a long-time dream for Michael Humphreys and Jenine Repice.
The 30-something couple, who met at a large community pottery studio in New York City, opened Hudson Valley Pottery & Flux Gallery on the second floor of the Montgomery Row II building in Rhinebeck in April.
"Potters we've selected for the gallery are people who are our age whose work we really love," Repice said.
Hudson Valley Pottery & Flux Gallery is part of a bumper crop of new galleries and arts-related businesses that opened in the mid-Hudson Valley in 2005.
"I feel more like we're joining the crowd than blazing a new trail," Repice said.
Tourism increases
The arts continue to draw tourists and their spending dollars to the area, particularly the river cities of Beacon, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, and Kingston.
"Events like Art Along the Hudson have picked up speed, " said Karen Woods, former executive director of Dutchess County Tourism Promotion Agency.
On four separate Saturdays each month, art galleries and cultural venues in the river citeies stay open late for evenings, artist receptions, music and theatrical events.
"The number of galleries has grown, awareness has grown," Woods said.
Beacon was profiled in the fourth edition of John Villani's "The 100 Best Art Towns in America."
Shirley Botsford, owner of the Botsford Briar Bed & Breakfast in Beacon, said Second Saturdays have been quite a draw for tourists from New York City.
I have guests that don't want to book anything except Second Saturdays, " said Botsford, whose business is reopening for the season in March. "They are willing to wait a month."
Newburgh's pioneering Yellow Bird Gallery paved the way for Tom Cettino to open Vino100 next door.
His store which features 100 wines for $25 or less as well as wines from Hudson Valley producers, does its best business Thursdays through Sundays.
Yellow Bird's exhibition of sculptor Michael Steiner's work was a boon for Vino100, with some customers buying entire cases of wine, Cettino said.
Other shows feature lesser known "starving artists don't draw much of a wine-buying crowd, he said.
Still, Cettino said in January he had met his financial projections for the year, even though he only opened in June.
"It is good old-fashioned capitalism working hand in hand with the arts," said Michael DiTullo, president of Mid-Hudson Pattern for Progress.
$40 million generated
DiTullo, who chaired Dutchess County Arts Council's 2005 Arts Fund campaign, cited a 1999 study by the Bureau of Economic Research at Marist College that shows the arts generate up to $40 million each year in Dutchess County alone.
"Our sales were up this year," said Linda Hubbard, co-owner of RiverWinds Gallery in Beacon.
This year the gallery has increased the number of Hudson Valley artists it represnts and partnered with A.G. Edwards & Sons financial consultants in Rhinebeck and the Brass Rail restaurant in Poughkeepsie.
"It gives the artists another venue to show their work," Hubbard said. "The more you're known, the more people think about you."
Other arts/business combinations include the Gate House Realty and Charlotte Guernsey studio, Iron Fish Trading Co. and ParaSite gallery and The Art Gallery at Finders Keepers Antiques.
"What we're finding is that people who come to look at art are also looking for art objects," said Sara Pasi, president of the Beacon Arts Community Association. "People who have a discerning eye are interested in fine art and decorative art.
As of January 2005, Dutchess County was home to 592 arts-related businesses that employed 1,944 people, according to an analysis of Dun & Bradstreet's annual database by Americans for the Arts.
The 592 businesses fall under the following categories: museums and collections, performing arts, visual arts/photography, film, radio and television, design and publishing and arts schools and services.
Americans for the Arts, a national organization that supports the arts through private and public resource development, cautions that the figures should be considered a conservative estimate because they only represent businesses which have registered with Dun & Bradstreet. Nonprofit arts organizations and individual artists may be underrepresented.
Hubbard, who sits on BACA's board, rattled off a number of new businesses that opened in Beacon over the past year: The Mill Antiques, Beacon Natural Market, OII restaurant, Mountain Tops, Exposures Gallery, Wildwood Gallery, Hearts to Heaven and Feel Design Shoppe.
"From a gallery perspective we would certainly like to see more restaurants and more parking," Hubbard said.
Beacon Artist Union, an artist-run exhibition space, opened on Main Street in January 2005. There were, however, some Beacon galleries that closed last year.
Tess Trueheart closed and the owner moved out of the area. LoRiver Arts Gallery also shuttered after owner Kathleen Cooley "go a job offer she couldn't refuse," Hubbard said.
"We mourn the loss of that one," she said.
DiTullo advises owners of galleries and other arts-related businesses to conduct market research.
"Be more involved in the community," he said. "Make it relevant to the heritage and to the civic and community personality of the area."
Class tuition at Hudson Valley Pottery generates the majority of revenue for Humphreys and Repice who are paying more than $2,000 a month in rent for their 1,750 square-foot Rhinebeck business.
They hope Flux Gallery will become a shopping destination for those interested in buying work from up-and-coming potters.
"If we can get the gallery to provide additional income that would be great," Humphreys said.
Kathleen Wereszynski Murray can be reached at kmurray@poughkeepsiejournal.com
February 26, 2006
By Kathleen Wereszynski Murray