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View ProfilesPublished September 5, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.
Thousands of Art Hoppers passing through the S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington's Soda Plant this weekend probably won't notice a significant change: Founder and creative director Christy Mitchell has passed the enterprise she calls "my baby" to artist Nikki Laxar. That baby is now an adolescent.
Even to the artist community and regular gallerygoers, the ownership transition has been nearly invisible. Burlington native Laxar, 38, maintains a studio at S.P.A.C.E., working in collage, ink and watercolor, and has been a gallery manager for nearly three years. Laxar is also the art curator for the South End Arts + Business Association — where Mitchell is executive director — and manages the annual Women's Festival of Crafts.
Not only is Laxar familiar, she has "a public-facing presence," Mitchell said in a recent interview. Laxar attributes her social facility to years of working in retail. "You have to build relationships with people," she said. "It's similar with artists. I really enjoy building connections and community, showing and sharing work."
Mitchell had not been looking for a successor, Laxar stressed. "I asked her for it," she said. "We are recognizing the heavy load we both have been carrying for the last several years to support artists, and we aren't getting younger."
Mitchell, 42, said it took her six months "to come around," but now she looks forward to addressing long-term goals for the South End Arts District — a city designation that she helped to achieve. "I still have a lot of ideas," she said, citing projects from better branding to greater inclusivity and accessibility.
Arguably the unofficial queen of the South End, Mitchell is a fierce arts advocate in the guise of a nice midwestern girl (she's from Indiana). Since graduating in 2003 from the Savannah College of Art and Design and moving to Burlington, she has set many ideas in action. Her allegiance to the South End developed while holding several jobs in the neighborhood — Conant Custom Brass, the Lamp Shop, Pine Street Art Works — and working in a couple of studio locations.
When Mitchell launched the S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in 2009, the world was reeling from a severe economic downturn. Opening an art gallery during the so-called Great Recession was not the most auspicious plan by anyone's reckoning — except hers.
Just before the recession began, Soda Plant owner Steve Conant said, he sold his former resident namesake business, Conant Custom Brass, liberating a capacious warehouse area in the building. (The next iteration, Conant Metal & Light, still exists in the Soda Plant; Conant recently announced its sale and his retirement.) "When Christy saw that space, she thought it would be great to move in," he said. "She was willing to take that leap and responsibility."
But Mitchell didn't have a typical white-box gallery in mind. Her vision was to support an exhibition space by renting adjacent studios, thus providing local artists with a place to make and show their work. Accordingly, she divvied up the warehouse with partial walls, creating a dozen studios that wrap around a gallery and contribute to a palpable sense of creative camaraderie.
Fourteen years later, despite inevitable bumps along the way, Mitchell can call the model a success.
Some 60 artists have utilized the studios, and the gallery has hosted hundreds of artists, including in popular theme exhibits such as "All the Feels" in February, a members' showcase in the summer and "Dark Matter" in October. Mitchell has reserved November for her own annual solo exhibit — "to remind myself I'm still an artist," she quipped.
S.P.A.C.E. stands for Supportive Places for Artists and the Creative Economy, though no one calls it that. Still, the acronym is something of a modus operandi for Mitchell. Over the years, she found and managed other artist spaces throughout the South End, as well. "At one time I managed 51 studios," she said. "I always covet an empty space."
In addition, she was the inaugural executive director for Generator, Burlington's makerspace, in 2014, and previously served as assistant director of SEABA before taking the helm in 2019. This will be her fifth Art Hop as executive director and her 20th year in Burlington.
Conant called Mitchell's commitment to the creative economy and the South End "second to none." Laxar also "is extraordinarily passionate about what she's doing," he observed. "It's great to see artists taking a leap in life."
Laxar attended her first Hop 10 years ago, she said. This year, she's been hustling to install artwork at all SEABA-curated sites. After December, though, she plans to focus on S.P.A.C.E. Though the business model won't change, Laxar said, she intends to provide more open gallery hours and in-person gatherings, including "artist-led workshops, figure-drawing sessions, critique nights and basic artist tutorials."
And maybe, she mused, "some weird winter movie nights if we source a good projector and a big enough bedsheet!"
Tags: Art Hop Guide, Art Hop, Christy Mitchell, Nikki Laxar, South End Arts + Business Association, SEABA, The S.P.A.C.E. Gallery
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