One would not expect a lawyer’s office to be a place to
enjoy visual art, but at Romano & Associates, that’s exactly what took
place on Thursday night. Naomi Bays,
who is the chair of the Arts Council of the Kanawha
Valley and who also curates the
space a Romano & Associates, said Shawn Romano understands the value of the
arts within the community and wants to help.
“Shawn really loves the arts and he’s quite well versed in
the arts. He just wanted to be able to give back to the community and this ways
his way of giving emerging artists the space to do that.”
For October’s ArtWalk, Bays chose local artist Nancy Louise
Mottesheard. An artist all her life,
Mottesheard was thrilled at the opportunity to participate.
“I am delighted as an artist, and always am, to be able to
have any place to show my work so that people can be exposed. My ideal and
dream is to uplift people. To have them
learn and be uplifted from my work. To
go within and find more of their spiritual parts.”
Whether it’s officially part of the ArtWalk or a spot
repurposed to help support the cause, other businesses and spaces used the
evening to attract exposure for artists.Nik Botkin, who runs Apartment Earth studios in the alley behind the
Annex Gallery at Taylor Books, wasn’t officially a part of ArtWalk, but offered
up his space during the festivities.
“The idea of this space is that it’s my working studio—it’s
where I actually make stuff. Whenever there’s an event in Charleston and I feel
I can get a little bit of exposure to
get the message out—it’s not really even about selling stuff, it’s about
getting the message out—I open my doors and let people see what I’m doing. This
time I decided to invite Jason Kiley along.”
Kiley, who currently lives in Huntington,
brought his ceramics work to Apartment Earth.
He works in a variety of media, but mainly focuses on functional
ceramics.
“I have a cup installation here right now. Each of the cups,
though there are some that going to look very similar to others, when I’m
making cups I’m not making them to try sell sets. I want to make that you’ll
fight over in your cupboard.
"My goal is to make your favorite cup. The cup that when someone comes over no one
is allowed to touch. I’ll do that through imagery and go through and use
Photoshop to manipulate images and then I make decals and apply them to the
cups.”
Dan Carlisle, manager of Taylor Books, put it succinctly
when he spoke for artists who show their work at the shop and at other stops
along the ArtWalk.
“The artists love it. It’s an
opportunity to get one, two, three hundred people into a gallery to see their
work, which, I think that’s something. Especially
in Charleston.”
ArtWalk in downtown Charleston takes place the third Thursday of every month except
for January and February. Dates
throughout the year are sometimes modified to coincide with holidays and other
events happening in the area.