Page 46 - the NOISE October 2015

NORTH BEND STUDIOS, ART FOR COTTONWOOD’S FUTURE
STORY BY the selections that have been displayed at North Bend Studio. ALLISON KLION
The art by Chadwick Uptain (left) and Chanelle Cook (right) is among
In the past seven years or so the City of Cottonwood has confidently placed most of its eggs into the viticulture basket, which has in turn begun to revitalize the once depressed Old Town into a pleasant, if not yet vital hub of wine tasting rooms and relatively sophisticated eateries. Until quite recently, it has not been on the radar for art makers and buyers in the Verde Valley, at least compared to its neighbors Jerome and Sedona. There is however, a burgeoning art community in Old Town Cottonwood that, anchored by the wine tasting rooms, has found a hub at Kelsey Uptain and Chanelle Cook’s North Bend Studio.
It began one afternoon in 2013 when Ms. Uptain “accidentally” drove through Old Town on a trip up from Phoenix. The space the studio occupies, around a northward-turning curve in Main Street, was empty, and at the time used only for the landlord’s weekly chanting sessions. The imprint of the space, with its high ceilings, spare concrete floors, and New Age mural on the outside wall stuck with Ms. Uptain, because a year later, while planning a move to Sedona, she found herself in Cottonwood with a retail space and no idea what she wanted to do with it.
Shaken by the extremes of the seasonal population, North Bend nearly closed after its first month. A saving grace came with Chanelle Cook, an artist and woodworker who moved to the Verde Valley in 1981. In search of a new gallery for her own furniture and wooden wall hangings, she stopped in to North Bend one afternoon and purchased some tables made from shipping pallets. From the way that Ms. Cook and Ms. Uptain speak about their business partnership, the rest was history. Their personalities complement each other, and make the gallery run smoothly. Ms. Uptain is full of bubbly enthusiasm, and seems to attract everyone involved in the arts community with ease. Ms. Cook is more reserved, with a close attention to detail, and years of retail experience. Neither appear to have any ego that gets in the way of the success of the gallery. Their focus is on the growth of the arts in Cottonwood, and the success of the town. Rather than competing with the other businesses in the area, Ms. Uptain and Ms. Cook seek to collaborate and cross-promote as much as possible. When they first opened, they sought the help of the Cottonwood wine tasting rooms, Arizona Stronghold, Pillsbury Wine Company, Fire Mountain and Burning Tree Cellars. As Ms. Cook explains, “Right in the beginning when we were opening we put jewelry in one winery, we put furniture in another, paintings in a third winery, and they all promoted us, and sent people down here.”
Unlike any other shop in town, the gallery stayed open late to keep people engaged in town even after the other shops closed. Additional programming, such as independent film nights and monthly figure drawing classes, engages local artists seeking to expand their practices, who have found a sense of community at North Bend. Ms. Uptain believes that “art communities are necessary and inevitable in growing and changing cities and towns.” She and Ms. Cook aim to build a reputation, not just to make Cottonwood a place for people to buy contemporary art, but a place where the artists feel welcome and accepted to make challenging new work and push their practices into new territory.
Their program resembles the model set up by other galleries in Sedona, Jerome, and Flagstaff. They showcase the work — visual art, sculpture, jewelry, home décor, furniture, and small handmade gifts — of a hefty roster of local artists, and each month one to ten are highlighted as featured artists with their work displayed in larger arrays in the front half of the gallery. However, unlike the majority of these galleries, Ms. Uptain explains, “we don’t have a board; we don’t jury [artists] in. [Our selection process] is all about the artist’s energy, not necessarily their style. I think our open vibe encourages new artists to try us first. If they’re intimidated by going to the bigger galleries in Sedona and Jerome, they’re not when they come here. We’re giving emerging artists the attention that they deserve, and we’re open to seeing where they go from there when they have an opportunity to grow.” Ms. Cook adds, “If we’re feeling it, then we’ll do it. We don’t necessarily choose things based on their commercial appeal.”
46 • october 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
As a result, with all due respect to the dealers who specialize in them, there are no Grand Canyon paintings and no Sedona landscapes. When the Southwest does appear, it’s not with the romantic adherence to nature that’s so familiar here. Lalo Cota, a Mexican surrealist painter currently based in Phoenix was featured at North Bend in September. In one of his paintings, three flying saucers hover in a swirling blue sky over an arid desertscape seen through a vignetted fisheye perspective, as if seen from the window of another spacecraft coming in for a landing. The fuzzy quality of his lines suggests a street artist’s proficiency with a can of spray paint. His urban desert is strange and hostile, but its colors are poppy and vibrant.
A dark, perhaps vulnerable, edge seems to run through the work of most of the visual artists who have been featured at the gallery. Ms. Uptain’s brother, Chadwick Uptain, an artist and jeweler based in Tempe, perhaps has shaped the overall aesthetic of the gallery. In September North Bend featured large scale charcoal drawings on large white panels of supermodels making their way through a burnt out, post-apocalyptic Phoenix, like ‘80s Marlboro ads meets Cara Delevigne as “The Boy” in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. His past work in the gallery has included figures from Old Master paintings transformed into zombies, all in an ochre and black chiaroscuro. North Bend has also shown the work of Mingus Union High School art teacher Tyler Novak, whose asymmetric, death-obsessed paintings were featured in North Bend’s first opening in May 2014. Anthony Averbeck, a Sedona-based artist featured in September makes small-scale drawings and prints that recall the characters that people the work of a foundational Surrealist and former Sedona resident, Max Ernst.
However, there is no single style that dominates North Bend Studio’s aesthetic. Both Ms. Uptain and Ms. Cook refurbish vintage furniture. The space is filled with one-of-a-kind pieces made from salvaged metal and wood. One of Ms. Cook’s newest pieces is a table on hairpin legs made from an antique ammunition box. Her woodworking demonstrates an eye for color- combinations and complex geometries. As their reputations have grown, they’ve found that many in the community have wanted to chip in to assure their success. On some mornings they will arrive at the gallery to find piles of wood or strange antiques for them to make things from.
Last spring, Trevor and Nancy Gottschaal, proprietors of the Old Town Frame Company on Main Street, floated the idea of starting up an Art Walk in Cottonwood. Ms. Uptain solicited every business on Main Street for their support, and in due time, every shop from The Manheim Gallery and TL Gallery and Studio all the way to North Bend started staying open late on the second Saturday of every month. With the promotional support of Annabel Sclippa, Cottonwood’s Art Walk has already distinguished itself from the others. The wineries and North Bend attract a youthful presence that’s often missing from other Art Walks in the area. A local population of dedicated bohemians reliably comes back each month to support their friends and peers.
On an Art Walk night, North Bend Studio buzzes with energy. When the rest of the restaurants and shops have shut down, warm light shines out of their storefront, and The Pixies play softly in the background. In July they hosted a cocktail hour with Ms. Uptain’s homemade Kombucha and fresh herbs from the organic garden in front of the shop. Local creative types gathered late into the evening sharing their upcoming projects and making plans to collaborate.
North Bend, 1124 N. Main Street in Old Town Cottonwood, will be open for the next Cottonwood Art Walk on Saturday, October 10, from 6PM to whenever the party ends. The art they’ll be featuring will be a surprise, but that doesn’t worry Ms. Uptain and Ms. Cook. This loose, spontaneous approach to programming, coupled with their go-getter fearlessness, is what makes North Bend Studio such a refreshing place. facebook.com/northbendstudio 480/593-4449.
| Allison Klion is the train comin’ round the bend. arts@thenoise.us thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news • OCTOBER 2015 • 43