The buckets of bright, bold paint in the future Valley Center for the Arts won’t be going on a easel, at least not anytime soon.
It’s a different kind of art project that the members of the Valley Arts Council have in mind: refurbishing the old Hotchkiss Hose Company firehouse on Caroline Street to house studio space for local artists.
Council president Rich DiCarlo got the old firehouse from the city last year for a $1 per year lease. The building had been vacated by the Spooner House homeless shelter, which used the property for 28 years.
As a result of the large amount of traffic, the 85-year-old building was in disrepair.
DiCarlo first encountered an old, leaky plumbing system prone to freezing. Later, when a part of the ceiling collapsed in the front of the house, belongings, presumably those of one of the former shelter clients, fell out.
He found similar holes, secret doors and hollowed spaces within many walls that also contained peoples’ personal effects.
“No exaggeration, we must have patched 1,000 holes,” DiCarlo said. “We went through 20 gallons of spackle.”
In addition, not a single light in the building worked when DiCarlo came in. As it is, he and a group of volunteers have only replaced two of the fluorescent bulbs, and let natural light from the windows do the rest.
Speaking of windows, nearly every one in the building is bolted shut. One of the second-floor windows that wasn’t bolted shut fell out and onto the pavement below during an interview with another reporter, DiCarlo said.
DiCarlo credits the work of the donations and volunteers for helping the project get off the ground.
On Satruday, three teenage volunteers, Kaitlyn Prunotto, a sophomore at Derby High School, Amanda Faiella, a junior at Ansonia High School and Lexi Pisco, a junior at Derby High School, had been painting a first-floor bathroom together for nearly three hours, but weren’t ready to stop just yet.
Prunotto said she planned to keep coming and painting, and didn’t seem to mind the long hours in the sweltering building. Neither did Pisco and Faiella.
“It’s fun,” Faiella said. “At least, I’m having fun.”
Ryan Olsen, a volunteer from Shelton, had spent the past few days minding the VAC’s Elizabeth Street gallery, but jumped right in Saturday morning to help scrape paint and edge ceilings.
Olsen, who has been an artist since his days of “messing around with Power Rangers drawings,” has experimented with landscapes and acrylic recently, so painting walls and ceilings was a new thing for him.
Volunteer Betty Barriga, who describes herself as an art lover rather than an artist, also found herself doing something new as she painted walls in an upstairs bathroom.
“We’re trying to make it happen here,” Barriga said. “And it will happen, it just might take more time.”
The Seymour resident noted that even some of her neighbors had turned up their noses at being part of such a new artist community as the Valley Center for the Arts.
“Some people don’t want to be part of the Valley [artist community], since it’s not as elite as [established artist communities in] New Haven or Westport,” she said. “It requires more work, more effort, but why wouldn’t you want to be part of a birth?”
As far as donations go, the paint was donated by Home Depot, the flooring by Lowe’s. In addition, Lowe’s gave the VAC a $1,000 grant, and UI did the same.
The Valley Community Foundation came through with a $2,000 grant for signage.
“Every little bit helps,” DiCarlo said. He added that he planned to rent out the studio space for between $150 and $300 a month to local artists to help pay the bills, and charge nominal fees for classes at the center.
This income would keep the center from being dependent solely on grants. DiCarlo said he had already seen interest in the rental studio space from several local artists.
The biggest challenge for the VAC is yet to come. DiCarlo says he may not be able to have children take art classes in the building because of a lack of sprinkler systems.
However, fire codes will allow him to teach adults at the center, which is a start.
DiCarlo had hoped to get everything going in time to hold classes this summer, but the bottoming-out of the economy slowed donations and slowed work on the center. Now, he hopes to have everything up and running by mid-September.
“We’re one of the smallest organizations in the state with one of the most ambitious projects, and in a bad economy no less,” he said.
The grand plan for the center includes art classes for children and adults in classroom space downstairs, in addition to rented studio space upstairs. DiCarlo also wants to bring in speakers, and be able to go into schools to work with children as well.
“Everything art will happen here,” he said.
To contribute to the project, send donations to:
Valley Chamber of Commerce
Valley Arts Council
2nd Floor
900 Bridgeport Avenue
Shelton, CT 06484
Or contact Rich DiCarlo for information about volunteering or renting studio spaces at: 203 – 906-4343 or studiochid@sbcglobal.net
