I ran into Mikee Huber at Front Street, Dayton’s largest community of artists and artisans. I asked her for a photo and a short interview. Mikee posed in front of some work by Mike Elsass. I thought that was fitting because the first paintings I ever saw by Mikee reminded me of some of Mike’s work.
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I visited Mark at his home in Dayton’s South Park neighborhood. There was no answer when I knocked on his front door so I went around behind. I walked towards a small frame building at the back of the lot that I thought that might be Mark’s studio.
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I photographed Shawna at The Betty, a gallery at Front Street in Dayton, where she’s had an exhibition for the last two months. .
“I put a group of my larger works in this exhibition” she told me. “They’re from several time periods.”
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Elisha makes mixed-media art at Front Street, in her studio on the first floor of the 100 Building that she shares with Kate Santucci. The first time I met Elisha she wasn’t making visual art. She was singing with the Blue Heron Trio. The group has been on hiatus since 2022 but you can still hear Elisha sing online. I asked about her shift from making music to making her multi-media art.
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I’ve been admiring Kate’s encaustic paintings online (https://www.katehusersantucci.com/) for quite a while but only met her last summer. She works at Front Street, in the first floor of the 100 Building, where she shares space with Elisha Frontz.
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I visited Tracy McElfresh of https://www.tracyssewingstudio.com/ recently. I know Tracy spends a lot of time teaching people to sew. I asked her how she learned.
“My grandmother came from Puerto Rico to New York City and sewed in the garment district there. She would bring fabric remnants from work and use them to make all of my mother’s clothes. So as I was growing up my mother didn’t want to just go to a store and buy my clothes. She taught me how to make clothes by deconstructing old clothes. I would go to thrift stores and buy things that were very inexpensive, take them apart, and reassemble them into clothes that I loved.”
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I first met artist Caitlin Cartwright at Dayton’s Front Street Buildings, on a night when more than three dozen studios and galleries were open to the public. Caitlin was the featured artist in the Color of Energy Gallery, and her vibrant painting-drawing-collages were creating quite a stir.
Caitlin explained that there was a narrative underlying each of her works, and I asked her to tell me a bit about some of them. Continue reading
I visited Jeremy Long in his studio in the Creative Arts Center at Wright State University. Continue reading
Mohammad Hanif is a refugee from Afghanistan who has landed in Dayton. I first met him about six weeks ago. Continue reading
Rebecca Sargent spends her days at K12 Gallery & TEJAS, Dayton’s leading arts education organization, which is in Dayton’s most colorful building. Continue reading
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