The Mind Blowing Vernon Street Studios

Anne Johnstone

Holland Dieringer

On a few different occasions over the years fellow art making pals invited me to go in on studio space at the Vernon Street Studios building. I would have LOVED to have had even the lowliest of closet type spaces there but, sadly,  it’s not live/work space -- just work. In the exorbitantly pricey Boston housing market, shelling out the cheddar for an apartment and separate studio just wasn’t in the cards.

Vernon Street‘s the real deal. The artists here, whether I’m keen on their style or not, are all (or almost all -- too many studios for me to check everyone out!) accomplished-city at what they do.

It’s a total art mecca. I’ve not found as much fabness in many of the live-in work spaces I’ve seen.

One of my pet theories on this: in the ‘80s and ‘90s all this ex-industrial, loft space became THE must have living space. The live/work spaces were snapped up (and condo-ized) by hipster MBA and lawyer types, along with the trust funder crowd and suchlike. These were/are the folks who want to FEEL like they’re artists without actually, ya know, having to create anything. Or maybe they just wanted to be around artist types because, I hear tell, we’ve always got the best weed.

Who knows.

So, on open studio days, I steer clear of places like Brickbottom. I KNOW there are actual real artists of note there but in the past, it’s been a colossal disappointment to arrive, ready to see loads of cool work, only to find half and more of the 'studios' shut. These are, too much, Bohemian wanna be/wanna seem loft-style apartments versus working artist studios.

Alyson Schultz

Bitter? Me? This is my usual post Open Studios state of mind. I do, however, always feel energized and excited after seeing some brill work and, boyhowdy, I saw some stellar stuff at Vernon Street.

The first socks-knocking-off, fall-in-love experience was when I walked into Anne Johnstones’ small space. Her paintings and drawings are lyrical, light filled, fun, warm and a little strange in an engaging way. These are works that will reveal a wee bit something more about themselves on each fresh viewing -- like a shy new friend. If I hadn’t shot my wad at Mudflat, I surely would have bought one of her pieces.

Kathryn Geismar

I enjoyed Alyson Schultz’s abstracts and would have liked to sit with them longer. With a glass of wine or two. And a nice slice of Bayley Hazen Blue on a rye crisp. Yup. That'd do me up just fine.

Holland Dieringer, like Anne Johnstone, could be a children’s book illustrator. OK, they’d be some seriously odd stories BUT still! Dieringer’s work is fun and a little bizarre -- the images dance, they do the Charleston and the Funky Chicken. They’re singing and this deaf broad can hear them. I gotta start saving the shekels so I can have a Holland Dieringer along with my Anne Johnstone.

Kathryn Geismar

More pieces I loved but, sadly, missed the artist's names

Paul Kroner and Kathryn Geismar were both molto impressive. I’d like to have seen more but, by the time Jen and I came to their respective spaces, we were starting to be plagued by total gallery/museum fatigue.

Here’s the thing, I could have taken a seat, had a cuppa vino (all the artists provided a nice little set up of snacks and adult bevs) and attempted to restore my picture viewing prana but I was well beyond my lipreading exhaustion level and was nervous that someone would come up and want to chat with me.

Paul Kroner

Why’s this a big deal? Eh, I feel guilty and horribly anti-social if I don’t give lipreading the old college try AND I’m shy about asking people to write down what they’re attempting to communicate. (Catholic school guilt much, Donna?) Often, it’s some small pleasantry and the speaker is disinclined or embarrassed to put pen to paper over something they deem inconsequential. Maybe it feels scantily insignificant to them (you) but, in not sharing this bijoux of a thought, I’m excluded from the social milieu.

I just HATE feeling left out!

But that’s another post for another time.

Bottom line -- next Somerville Open Studio weekend, I’m starting at Vernon Street Studios and spending the whole afternoon there. AND I’m going to bring my iPad with the slick word recognition software with me so I can thrust it into the faces of folks I can’t lipread.

Heh, I’m so bleeding smart!