Butterfield Garage Art Gallery (beta 2015)

Butterfield Garage Art Gallery

by Sylvia Cerri-Bartels

            On the edge of downtown Saint Augustine, Florida, sits a building with a bright and inviting art gallery on the lower floor. In 1927 the space opened to be used as a filling station, parking garage, and showroom for cars. The car business has since gone out of business and the building had been sold several times, until Jan and Max Miller bought it in the 1990s and rented it out as apartments. Jan, who received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Saint Xavier University in Chicago in 1973, had a dream of opening her own gallery where the public could directly interact with the artist. She intended to call it the “Jan Miller Gallery”. One day, however, while cleaning up the second floor of the building, she found an old sign from the old car workshop saying “Butterfield Garage” and history was made. With a few other founding artist members, she opened “Butterfield Garage Art Gallery” in 1999. Throughout the last fifteen years this gallery cooperative has flourished and established the reputation of exhibiting remarkable works by local and nearby professional artists. With the words “art gallery” added to it, the old neon garage sign now hangs outside above the entrance.

            Some of the other original founding members are –in no particular order- Beau Redmond, Gene Roberds, Sam Kates, and Sidney McKenna. These artists, each very distinguished in their own subject specialties and mediums, have gone and come back to the gallery throughout the years. They currently are showing their work in the bright and spacious surroundings of the gallery. These days there are six board members: Jan Miller, Sidney McKenna, Karen Victoria, Ron Vellucci, and they recently voted Laura O’Neal at their round table. Since the gallery is open every day of the year, they take turns to be host or hostess whenever they can. The gallery operates as a cooperative, where members not only have equal voting rights, they also help each other advance in sales and the art world. Every month they meet and talk about the day to day business of the cooperation. They also tell each other about their work, what inspired them, and stories that go with the art, so that each of the hosts has a world of knowledge about anybody’s work and background, not just their own. This way of working and living shows great respect for each other, the people visiting the gallery, and other disciplines.

            All of the artists currently showcasing their work at the Butterfield Garage Art Gallery deserve mentioning and praise. There were too many great artists to all mention in this article. Some arbitrarily picked paintings and creations were made by Ronald Gibbons, Roxanne Horvath, Ebert Perez, and Laura O’Neal. Gibbons recently joined the gallery and is showing paintings done in acrylic depicting otherworldly scenes. Horvath, not only makes wonderful creations combining geometrical images with fabric materials, she is also an architect and the vice mayor of Saint Augustine.  Perez is a restorator, illustrator, and painter from Cuba who offers realistic works in graphite and oil paint which are striking and intense. Laura O’Neal showed me around the rooms of the gallery. Laura received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree for Art and Design from the University of Akron, Ohio. She is a mixed-media artist, as well as a great poet and lyricist. Her art is very upbeat, colorful, and at first sight whimsical. Upon closer inspection, however, one can feel her musings and spiritual ponderings behind the visual aspects of her creations. Although she finds inspiration in all things small and large around her, she gets deeply excited about written words. She often translates her spiritual inspiration into words, first in the form of poems and subsequently creating rich and vibrant but playful renderings of what her mind’s eye has seen, sometimes even with the words written right into the painting. Recently voted on to the Board of Members, she is now getting involved in organizing exhibits and co-writes press releases. Laura’s current work on display includes Girl in the Red Chair, which is a constant in her work, and The Forest’s Eye, based on a poem with the same name by Laura herself (also displayed).

            Apart from intimate nooks, corners, half-walls, and crannies, the gallery has a large and pleasant variety of sizes in available wall space. Overall, however, the showrooms have an open floor plan, which invites a visitor to keep walking and discover what treasures can be found around the next corner. Outstanding art from all fine art disciplines like painting, drawing, sculpture, as well as installation, jewelry and accessories, poetry, and some performing art can be found here and the walls are full of excellent works in different mediums. A few times a year, Butterfield Garage Art Gallery organizes a Featuring Artist Exhibition where members as well as guest artists get an opportunity to showcase more of their work and artistic evolvement in a room in the rear of the gallery specially dedicated to these occasions.

This month’s special exhibition is called the “Eggstravaganza”. For the first time ever, the board of members issued an open Call to Artists for Easter to offer all the wonderful artists in the community a chance to show their work in the special exhibition room of this popular gallery. They were pleasantly surprised to learn that one hundred and four local artists, of all ages and from all walks of life, had responded with fantastic works created on ten-by-ten canvasses. This was enough to fill the special exhibition room in two rows, with spill overs to an adjourning, equally bright room.

Another special occasion is the Art Walk, organized by the Saint Augustine Art Association. This happening occurs every first Friday evening of the month throughout the year. On the evening of the Art Walk, associated art galleries downtown will stay open late and offer snacks and beverages to guests. The Art Walk is a great way to increase awareness of the immense amount of local talent and art work for sale and the artist members of Butterfield Garage are right there in the showroom to greet and interact with their guests. This evening is very popular with the local residents as well as the many tourists Saint Augustine welcomes every year.

            Butterfield Garage Art Gallery seems like Jan Miller’s dream come true. The atmosphere in the gallery is welcoming, the ambience is open and bright, the art and artistry that greets you around every corner is remarkable and intriguing. The artist-hosts are professional and knowledgeable. I admire the professional but friendly and approachable way this gallery has been set up. Jan and the other board members have definitely achieved their vision of making the gap between artist and public smaller. The Butterfield Garage Art Gallery cooperative shows a strong symbiosis between the artists themselves, who in turn strive to be closely connected and helpful not just to the local public and the many tourists visiting this town, but also to other artists, professionals, and businesses who have an interest in their expertise and craftsmanship. Having been there many times, I can definitely recommend paying a visit to this wonderfully inviting gallery. I would also recommend to take some time talking to the artists themselves for they have a wealth of information about the art that one might like and they are a bottomless resource of inspiration and just good will. 

Find more information: www.butterfieldgarage.com

Sylvia Cerri-Bartels, April 2015