Cool things in hidden places
In overlooked neighborhoods and behind the heavy doors of once-empty warehouses, local creatives are finding unused spaces to try something new or quietly churn out their work on the outskirts of downtown. We highlight a few examples below.
Slabber, butterfly joint, solar kiln—all words Andrew Moran tossed around as he sipped coffee from a giant thermos one spring morning while showing off his woodworking shop on 19th Street. He started renovating the old Book Exchange building near North Boulevard three years ago, where he works on large, rustic pieces like tables and benches for offices and private clients. Some of his work is on display at Denicola’s.
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He gathers wood, literally, from felled trees around town, swooping in before the city can chop it up. “Everything here has some sort of sustainable background,” Moran says. An elm from Prairieville that fell during Hurricane Gustav, a sinker cypress fished from Lake Pontchartrain, a palm tree trunk he’s not sure what to do with and more are all resting in a greenhouse-like solar kiln out back where they dry for a year or more.
Once dry, that’s when the slabber comes in. “It’s like a breadslicer,” Moran says, pointing to the giant sawing machine and the stacks of expertly cut slabs of tree trunks several inches thick. The pieces can be trimmed into smooth tabletops with contemporary right angles, or stained as is with all the gnarly edges and curves intact.
“I’m going for one-of-a-kind pieces,” he says. “They are all going to be different.”
Moran grew up in a woodworking family—his grandfather used to own a cabinet shop on Government Street. When Moran acquired the building, he began repairing the ceiling, adding a second level for a possible apartment. He yanked out book shelves that had books and porn wedged behind it. He found an old cash register. Outside, the building still maintains the fading Book Exchange lettering, as well as the even more faded lettering from when it was a Cuban liquor store.
When the monthly Stabbed in the Art event was looking for a new home, Moran offered his building for a night. The joke was that anyone looking for the pop-up art event need only search out the big house on 19th Street that burned down a while back—the Book Exchange is next to it. Before the building was torn down, he had been eyeing the burnt rubble, wondering what kind of wood he could excavate from it.
While he spoke with 225, a construction worker walked over suggesting he fish out what he could before they bulldozed it. So we left him to it. Who knows? In Moran’s hands, some of those scraps might become a sturdy coffee table with a great story behind it. midcityhandmade.com
During White Light Night last year, a shuttle service brought patrons of the Mid City art scene up and down Government Street to visit galleries. Another shuttle brought people to Stephen Wilson’s stained glass studio on Laurel Street next to the railroad tracks. Though he and his wife Claire say several people came by that night, it was still out of the way of all the action.
They’ve been in this brick building since 2003 and have watched the neighborhood struggle with its seedier side over the years.
On the ground floor facing the street is a windowed space where they’ve hosted fundraisers, their own exhibitions and rented out for other artists’ shows. “We thought it would be more viable as a gallery,” Stephen Wilson says. They named it Vanguard Gallery after their son, Van, a Navy Seal who died in 2006. On Thursdays, an employee at the state office next door hosts yoga classes in the space.
Behind the gallery is the workshop, where a busy handful of employees cut and dye glass. Most are church windows, but a recent design was for a window in an entryway at Pennington, expertly weaving the double helix with recreation and other hidden images. Scattered about the room are small ornamental designs and experiments combining driftwood and scraps of metal and stained glass.
For these smaller projects, Wilson employs a process called gemeaux, combining colored pieces of glass with epoxy to form a solid glass panel that looks almost like a painting. Most of these pieces are sold in-house. “Our main thrust is the commissioned work,” Wilson says. “This is kind of our side thing.”
And keeping with the beehive of activity, Wilson has several artist studios upstairs at capacity. The business may seem out of the way, but they’ve created their own opportunities to attract visitors. stephenwilsonstainedglass.com
Upstairs at a warehouse on Main Street, artist Raina Wirta is standing atop a very tall ladder, adjusting the lighting above a giant, furry (yes, furry) dome-like structure that hangs from the ceiling. The LSU MFA candidate unveiled her exhibition “(un)familiar” to a crowd on a Friday night in April. Earlier that week, she was busy putting together the finishing touches.
Wirta was the only MFA candidate this spring to opt for an off-site location for her thesis exhibition, and she picked the vast warehouse space above the Capitol Area Corporate Recycling Council’s building because of past experience. It’s where the artist collective Wirta helped establish, Elevator Projects, held its first event, which drew an art-loving crowd despite being on the borderlands between downtown and the less inviting blocks of Mid City.
“When we were setting up, we talked about how awesome this place would be as an artist studio,” Wirta says, though she’s quick to point out that on hot days, the un-air-conditioned upstairs space might be uncomfortable.
Fortunately, the weather cooperated the night of her opening, attracting a crowd to see her wallpaper collages, a video projection and that giant, furry centerpiece hanging from the rafters, all with downtown in view from high windows.
Her show continued the next week, finding Wirta basking in the success and figuring out where to take the pieces next. The recycling center bustled below, and through the heavy warehouse door that led to her show, she could hear the workers shouting and chiding each other as they sorted used electronics.
Wirta talked about plans now that she’s done with school and about future Elevator Projects events, which just might show up in this warehouse again—she’s already developed a good relationship with the CACRC. She reflected on the question she gets all the time, even from her thesis defense committee: Why stick around Baton Rouge?
“I feel like you could say that about any city,” she shrugs, remarking on how quickly downtown and the surrounding area has changed, providing more possibilities for artists like her. “I keep reminding myself that this is not my last show. It feels like it’s the beginning.” facebook.com/ElevatorProjects
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