Garden growing

With the new FUTUREBR plan zeroing in on the Government Street corridor as a keystone for the city’s redevelopment, the Mid City Merchants’ largest annual event, White Light Night, offers a celebratory slice this month of all that the burgeoning neighborhood has to offer.

On Friday, Nov. 18, from 6 to 10 p.m., the area’s art galleries, restaurants, retail stores and businesses will open their doors to thousands and lend their walls to the city’s newest artwork.

A sticker proclaiming “Tax Free Art” welcomes visitors from its prime perch on the surface of the glass front door of the quaintly eclectic Mosaic Garden. Located behind Circa 1857 off Government Street, the 3,200-square-foot boutique, owned by artist Pam Steinsiek, is filled with local artwork, clothing, jewelry and vintage curiosities.

“Where else can you find a fish stapler?” she asks with a short laugh. “I try not to go too trendy with everything, and just think, ‘Is this something that I would like to have?’”

Behind her sits a triangular rack of hand-painted pool-ball tea light holders.

Steinsiek still resides in St. Francisville, but she moved Mosaic Garden to Baton Rouge in 2007 after Katrina slashed at the number of tourists visiting our idyllic neighbor to the north. Steinsiek practically gave up golf—she used to play four times a week—when she moved the business, but still she makes time to paint large-scale nudes and abstracts and craft ceramic wall sconces, lamps and torso figures.

She is readying several pieces for White Light Night and preparing to transform her shop into a welcoming venue that can handle such a large volume of customers. She’ll add a second register and hire six additional employees for the evening.

“As a shop owner, it’s stressful,” Steinsiek says. “We rearrange the whole shop, and artists are coming in the night before, two nights before, with new pieces. That’s the important part, though—presenting something new. Because even if it’s your regular artists, it needs to be fresh work.”

Steinsiek has seen the event grow exponentially in the four years she has participated, and her store attracts men just as well as women, if for nothing else than one simple service: free gift-wrapping. She expects thousands of art-lovers combing through Mosaic Garden for holiday shopping, wine and hors d’oeuvres.

“It gets packed in here,” she says. “But it is so much fun.”

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