Revival on Rivermont: Upstart artists start trend

By Liz Barry

Published: September 3, 2008

It’s an old story: artists flock to rundown neighborhoods, lured by cheap rent and quaint architecture. Before long, a new bohemia is born, a center for all things hip.

Whatever you call it — revitalization, renaissance, gentrification — it’s happening in Lynchburg.

Lower Rivermont Avenue is emerging as the Soho of the Burg, a frontier where old school tradition meets the avant-garde. For First Friday, six galleries will be open in a two-block radius that runs between Belmont and Bedford avenues, a gritty area with a reputation for crime.

The pioneers of Rivermont are undeterred.

“I’m excited to be here for the start of a renaissance. We’re in the infancy of something that’s growing; there’s a momentum,” says Kelly Gravely Mattox, owner of Avenue Arts Studio Gallery, which opened last fall.

The shows of First Friday reveal a stark contrast between the old and the new.

Take the Lynchburg Art Club — one of the city’s oldest art institutions — housed for decades in a Colonial-style home at 1011 Rivermont Ave. Until recently, the art club stood as the lone sentry.

On Friday, its walls will hang with a century’s worth of history for the opening of its permanent collection, much of which was dusty from years in storage. For the most part, the 80-plus paintings are steeped in tradition, with landscape and still life dominating the palette.

At 1210 Rivermont stands Firehouse No. 4, a historic fire station turned three-bedroom apartment inhabited by a changing cast of hipsters. On Friday, its two-truck garage, littered with mis-matched couches and the residue of stale beer, will serve as a makeshift gallery featuring eclectic art by 20- and 30-somethings and outsider artists.

Added to the mix are two new venues: Light Wings Gallery and Rivermont Studio. They join two others that opened last year: Avenue Arts and blackwater creek gallery. Each has a distinct personality and brings artistic diversity to an area steeped in tradition.

With six galleries, lower Rivermont is growing into an arts district distinctly different from the downtown galleries. Though there is no official title yet, “Rivermont Art Row” is the name that julio uchimura, owner of blackwater creek gallery, has dubbed the strip. 

“This area here just evolved,” uchimura says. “There was no designer.”

Most of the gallery owners are transplants. Mattox, a Richmond native, and Morgan, of Pittsburgh, were both part of the emerging art scene in Richmond before moving here. Gail Laurant is from upstate New York, while uchimura moved from California.

They all have a similar story: Take a dilapidated house or storefront, and transform it into a studio/art gallery.

For Mattox, the building was originally the Bibee Grocery Store, which opened in 1927. When Mattox bought it, she says, “Nothing was functioning; It was just a shell.”

She converted the 33,000-square-foot storefront into Avenue Arts, where she does her own paintings, and features abstract and contemporary art. She sees her gallery as just the beginning.

“My dream would be to have a really nice deli or cafe right in this area. People could use this as a little district to walk around in during the day.” Mattox says.

Next door is Rivermont Studio, a three-year construction project by Sweet Briar College art professor John Morgan. When Morgan bought the commercial storefront, it was vacant. In its past, it morphed from a pet store to a boxing club to a religious revival center, he says.

Using mostly recycled materials and his own two hands, Morgan gutted the space and built a sleek gallery/studio.

He was part of a second wave of artists to transform Shockoe Bottom, a warehouse district turned arts hub in Richmond. Now, he sees a tide of change in Lynchburg.

Using the contacts he’s accumulated through a lifetime in the arts, Morgan plans to showcase contemporary work by out-of-town artists. His goal is to bring more alternative art to Lynchburg and to educate the community on what’s out there.

On Belmont Avenue, Gail Laurant — a visionary/abstract artist and teacher from upstate New York — has created Light Wings Gallery in an old house.

“It was sad, absolutely sad,” she says of the original building. “The paint job was horrendous. You couldn’t see the grain on the wood floor.”

But behind the grit and grim, Laurant saw beauty. Now, the revamped house is painted bright purple outside, with warm pastels within.

Laurant has seen a community emerge among her neighbors and fellow artists.

“This end of Rivermont used to be really rundown and depressing looking,” Laurant says. “I think we’re coming alive. I think it’s a beautiful street.”

Two doors down is uchimura’s blackwater creek gallery, which features outsider, visionary and folk art. He sees the galleries on Rivermont as separate from the downtown scene. The art he displays is the antithesis of classical convention, works by mostly marginal and outsider artists — “sociopaths,” he calls them — who have no formal training or use unconventional techniques.

Uchimura, who lived in a “shoebox” in Venice, Calif., was drawn to Lynchburg because of its “gigantic historic houses.” He creates art with hand tools and found objects, much of which is a response to consumer waste.

Preferring a solitary existence, uchimura says he holds only one or two shows a year. He says his fall exhibition was a success, signaling that Lynchburg is ready for change.

“We share the need to show that there is something different, different than the normative,” uchimura says.

“Whether people like it or not, we are bringing some change. Hopefully, things will grow and people will show an interest in what we are doing.”