Photograph by Nick Schnelle
In one way or another, most artists depend on artifacts — specifically, the tools of their trade. In that respect, the visual-art equivalent of an old-time hardware store recently opened on the South Side: City Art Supply.
"I thought it was peculiar that there were no art-supply stores within the city limits," remarks its soft-spoken owner, Dana Smith, who himself works in acrylic and marker. That thought led him to this aging brick building amid brownstones on Cherokee a block north of Gravois Park.
The notion for the store (which had a "soft" opening early last October and its grand opening November 7) first came to Smith in July 2007. In scouting locations, he conferred with knowledgeable friends, who were coincidentally rehabbing a former auto-parts shop in the Benton Park West neighborhood — and one thing led to another.
Beneath a pressed-tin ceiling, City Art Supply's steel shelves and pegboards brim with Sharpie markers and X-Acto knives, brushes and brayers, rainbow after rainbow of paints and inks and pencils. In fact, a small but impressive inventory occupies the store's 1,000 square feet, which includes the workshop/studio of painter Jeremy Rabus. Rabus crafts custom canvases at City Art Supply and also clerks there, while Smith's wife, Angel Bates- Smith, provides accounting and legal support.
Smith's overarching goal? To encourage creativity in the community. In that light, he hopes also to use the store as an exhibit space. "I'd like to do something each month and focus exclusively on local artists," he says. "A lot of local artists, for whatever reason, don't get an opportunity to show off their work. Generally, openings would be on the second Friday of each month, if everything works out." Spotlighted this month, for instance, is mixed-media artist Eric Gray (ericgray.net). Other events, like poetry readings and sound collages, may come in time, Smith adds.
In the final analysis, though, he emphasizes the store's convenience for artists living in the city, who would otherwise have to trek to Brentwood's Artmart or Clayton's Blick Art Materials for supplies. "If someone runs out of chromium oxide green at 6 p.m. on a Thursday," Smith says, "they can just go down the street and get it."
Visit City Art Supply at 3215 Cherokee. For its hours and other information, phone 314-771-5375 or direct your browser to myspace.com/cityartsupply or cityartsupply.org.
