Naples Art District celebrates 15-year anniversary and double-digit growth

Linda Sollars is so glad you came to her art studio and gallery this morning. Later in the day, she might need to meet you in blue pressed slacks and jacket, captain’s headwear and winged lapel pin, ready for her other job: She’s a pilot for JetBlue Airways.

Sollars shares her Shirley Street gallery and studio with four other artists whose careers may have been just as far removed from the creative realm. Cross the street from their studios and you’ll find Sticks and Stones, the dream store of Cori Craciun. Her love affair with naturally artistic wood furniture followed a very different life as a restaurant partner. 

Joel Shapses, sculptor of luminous glass-and-stone abstracts, was a dentist.

It’s a different kind of treat to quiz the tenants of the Naples Art District about their past lives, While a few, like abstract artist Tammra Sigler and ceramics artist Richard Rosen, traveled the singular path of an artist, a good number have waited for their own retirement.  

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But how they arrived is less important that they are here. The Naples Art District is figuratively cutting the cake for its 15th birthday this year. It has, its members believe, become a model for city art districts even outside Collier County. That comes from relatively affordable rent; commercially outfitted spaces that allow for movement of large items and equipment; and, best of all, a happy partnership with each other and the commercial home design businesses around them.

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New Artist, Dora Knuteson adds a finishing clear coat to her newest painting. The Naples Art District celebrates its 15th anniversary this year with a membership that is grown exponentially to include a diversity that includes a Jet Blue pilot sculptor, a silversmith and a multitude of fabric artists. The artists have created a positive and encouraging work and selling environment that the community can share in.

To celebrate, the district has unveiled a splashy new website — naplesartdistrict.com — offering daily “Spotlight” bios of its artists. The group lobbied for, and won from the county, art district identifying signs on the two major thoroughfares. There’s a pendemic-sensible resurrection of its Art Alive! artist open houses, with social distancing and requirements to keep visitors safe. The next is Saturday, Feb. 13 (see the accompanying information box).  

The district has been overwhelmingly successful at attracting artists, even in a pandemic, Paula Brody, the district’s president said: “We had three move out this year — and 10 move in.” In four years, their numbers have doubled from 35 to 73.

The district even has an ancillary industry: art instruction. Education ranges from shoe painting workshops to pottery, encaustic painting, oils, raku, watercolor, batik, acrylic and collage. The size of most of the studios here keeps classes personal, at around four or five. 

“I believe all of us have an inner artist,” Brody declared. “The art district is a wonderful place to discover that artist within.” 

Nearby sit at least a dozen little canvas baby shoes with goldfish bubbling, or gators strolling, across their palm-size toe boxes, examples of the kind of work Leigh Herndon does with her shoe painting classes. Brody’s “flow” art on a center divider offers models for her own students. 

Brody pointed out the paintings of Tara Funk Grim, hanging where students can see as many as 15 layers of acrylics on her abstracts: “It’s quite a different experience to take your classes where your teacher does her own work.”

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The district is still looking for the magic that makes it a neon glow in everyone’s head when the topic is art, she observed.

Everyone has an answer: More marketing. Stand-alone banners. A landscaping program. A shuttle bus among the district’s various subdistricts for its “Art Alive” open houses, perhaps? Perhaps it has to be all of the above, Brody conceded.

It’s the place Soho once was

In one of the subdistricts known as “The Alley,” 5880 Shirley St., Sollars is working on some amazingly lifelike sculptures. Her striking silver earrings were made by an artist barely two units away, metalsmith Carolyn Desch.

Sollars works in bronze, ceramic and resin, creating busts and scaled figures, one of the district’s rarer offerings. Reflective of her life, one sculpture is surrounded by baggage.

“I called it ‘Suitcase Me,'” she said.

As a pilot, she has a more rigid timetable than the other three artists who have recently joined her in Gallery 206. But then, she has the ability to schedule a class with master sculptor in a city where she is on a layover with JetBlue. 

Sollars is in Naples, and in this space, by choice. “I have a beautiful place in a great location, but not a lot of space.” The units in the neighborhood with loading bays are just as desirable to artists as to commercial businesses.

© Andrea Melendez/The News-Press/USA Today,Florida Network
Paula Brody,Êthe district’s president, with some of her own art she hangs and creates in the gallery at Inspirations Gallery. She and a handful of other artist can be seen creating and selling their art work here. The Naples Art District celebrates its 15th anniversary this year with a membership that is grown exponentially to include a diversity that includes a Jet Blue pilot sculptor, a silversmith and a multitude of fabric artists. The artists have created a positive and encouraging work and selling environment that the community can share in.

“But part of it was I wanted the camaraderie and the support. There are a lot of great artists here,” she said. “I came to Naples for the arts — both the performing arts and the visual arts.”

The response to her move into the art district was beyond what she expected. 

“People I met were like, ‘Oh, you know, if you buy the place and you need renters, I can get you information on leases and insurance.’ Everyone just stepped right up and welcomed me.”

Julie Spencer, an East Coast refugee who works in a number of media, said this figured into the family decision to move its company here from New York: “It was really wonderful to find such a welcoming group of artists.

“You can’t find this in New York and New Jersey. Or afford it. The days of Soho are long gone.”

This is the reward for other careers

Cori Craciun has chased stones over several continents, and her Sticks and Stones gallery shows the results of that love affair in its creations. There are undulating polished sculptures of stones not often seen here. Wood furniture exploits the natural lines of the tree or its roots. Sometimes it’s a double thrill: Craciun adds rivers or pools of stone to the recesses of the wood.

This store is Craciun’s reward for toughing out the early years as a Romanian immigrant in the U.S., cleaning Kmarts, selling real estate. Even when she found a spots in Naples for her dream rock shop, within days of signing a contract, she got a call from her sister, Daniela: She was coming to America. Would Cori help her open a restaurant?

So for another eight years Cori Craciun worked with her sister to create Daniela’s, a favorite Eastern European restaurant. But she set a limit: no more than 10 years. These last two years have been her dream almost come true. She needed marketing power, and feels the art district is helping with that.

“Huge difference. It made a big difference,” she said of her membership. The Art Alive! studio days brought foot traffic that had been non-existent otherwise, she declared.

© Andrea Melendez/The News-Press/USA Today,Florida Network
Paula Brody,Êthe district’s president, talks with a few of the artists who’s spaces are part of “The Alley”. The Naples Art District celebrates its 15th anniversary this year with a membership that is grown exponentially to include a diversity that includes a Jet Blue pilot sculptor, a silversmith and a multitude of fabric artists. The artists have created a positive and encouraging work and selling environment that the community can share in.

“Shirley Street is not the most walking-friendly place, Craciun added, teasing Brody. “Actually, I was going to bring that up. If we could get a sidewalk, that would be amazing. Just saying.”

Brody nodded.

The district is still looking for the magic that makes it a neon glow in everyone’s head when the topic is art, she observed.

Everyone has an answer: More marketing. Stand-alone banners. A landscaping program. A shuttle bus among the district’s various subdistricts for its “Art Alive” open houses, perhaps? Perhaps it has to be all of the above, Brody conceded.

As busy as the first 15 years of the Naples Art District became, no one’s likely be resting on their laurels yet.

Harriet Howard Heithaus covers arts and entertainment for the Naples Daily News/naplesnews.com. Reach her at 239-213-6091.

‘Art Alive!’

What: Naples artist open houses, during which visitors can see artists creating new pieces as well as completed works on two days per month through season. An informational map and guide are available from each gallery.

When: First Wednesdays, 1-6 p.m. March 3, April 7, May 5; Open studio Saturdays, 1-5 p.m. Feb. 13; March 13 and April 17

Where: Studios and galleries of the Naples Art District, bounded by Airport-Pulling and Pine Ridge roads on the east and south, and Shirley Street and Trade Center Way on the west and north

Admission: Free

Information: naplesartdistrict.com or 239-249-1977

Something else: Social distancing will be required for visitors which will limit gallery entry at some times

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Naples Art District celebrates 15-year anniversary and double-digit growth