There’s a new bright spot on South Broadway. Not only is Opaque Collective, the new screen printing shop and arts space at 7401 S. Broadway, bringing more community-building and art-making efforts to The Patch, but it’s doing so decked out in bright white and safety orange.
The space will officially welcome its neighbors and the broader public with a grand opening on March 20 to celebrate the opening of Route 69, an exhibition featuring the work of local artists Janie Stamm and Brittany Mosier. Inspired by Midwestern gas station culture, the exhibition is a riff on the Route 66 centennial celebrations that are planned across the region in the coming year.
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The bright gallery space, with its historic foil tiles, high ceiling, and abundant natural light, welcomes visitors into Opaque Collective and will be the most public-facing of the art space’s many projects. First and foremost, Opaque is an employee-owned, union screen printing shop. But it’s also a graffiti-centered art supply store and education space. And an event space. And a showroom for artisan-made furniture and decor. And the future home of a movie series. A nearby garden space is set to host additional programming. It’s set to become many things to many people, and that sense of potential is part of the point.
“We’ve just been inviting everyone that wants to come in through, giving tours, talking to people about what we want to do,” says Opaque executive director Lizzy Efferus. “We’re just trying to make everyone feel welcome, even if it’s not as a [collective] member necessarily, but as a community member. Just showing people, everybody has these strong reactions of like, Oh, there’s so much possibility here.”
Currently the collective membership includes Efferus, master screen printers, a printing apprentice, and a curation team, with plenty of additional help from partners and friends who have lent guidance and expertise to the project.
Marina May Schleicher, who has experience in media relations, writing, and gallery direction, lives in the neighborhood and came across Opaque during a walk with her baby daughter.
“I just walked into the space, and I was amazed that something like this existed here, specifically in Carondelet/Patch, on South Broadway,” Schleicher says. “I moved to the neighborhood about two years ago, and I knew it from some of the punk scene. I knew that there was a legacy of things happening, and in the echoes of my mind, I was like, Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was an exhibition space on South Broadway? I walked in [to Opaque], and it was kind of everything.”
Schleicher is now one of two art curators for the space. Her specialty is fine arts (contextually speaking—an experimental, DIY ethos runs through everything at Opaque) while another curator works on DIY projects. Both Schleicher and Efferus emphasize the influence that past DIY art spaces such as Grease 3, fort gondo, and Blank Space have had on their integration into the St. Louis arts scene and their goals for Opaque.
“I want to acknowledge the work of the people that have come before us and also invite them to participate in the space as well,” Schleicher says. “We’ve talked a lot about honoring the history of the spaces that have come before, because we couldn’t exist in the way that we do without the work that they did. I genuinely don’t think I would live here if Blank Space hadn’t existed.”
“I was introduced to Blank Space like when I came here during Ferguson doing direct action training,” adds Efferus. “Blank Space allowed us to hold workshops there all the time… I’m trying to honor that legacy. I really want to honor that tradition here as well.”
The hope is that Opaque can be a new home for emerging and experimental artists to show work and engage with the community, as well as an entry point into The Patch and Carondelet. Neighbors and nearby businesses have already welcomed Opaque with open arms and discussed ways they can coordinate programming and bring more folks to the area.
“There’s people out all the time. There are so many young families that have moved in, and little kids with their moms, and their grandmas are just sitting on the porch while kids are riding bikes around the neighborhood,” Schleicher says. “It feels like a real neighborhood. Broadway has been forgotten about for a myriad of reasons. But I think once people start to see what’s happening, what has been happening, it’s a lot easier to get the buy-in.”
With its gallery work supported by the commercial print shop, Opaque has the freedom to take risks with its curation. One key goal for the collective is to provide show space for early-career artists who need help getting that first opportunity.
“It seems so insane to be opening a gallery at this time,” Efferus says. “But we’re an industrial, employee-owned, unionized print shop. We run union jobs. We have big clients. So that really allows us the freedom of leaving [the gallery] empty or making it flexible or doing pop-up shows or inviting students or holding workshops or doing whatever we want to do. We’re not dependent on that programming paying for itself, so it can be a little bit more flexible.”
While much of what Opaque plans to do with its space will be artist-centered—equipment access, training, platforming, etc.—the collective will also offer so-called “normal people” the opportunity to experience work from new artists and engage with subcultures, such as St. Louis’ underground graffiti community, to which they wouldn’t typically have access.
“If you’re interested in our history of graffiti film series, by all means come on down. If you’re interested in doing a color theory workshop, by all means, come on down. It’s a community space that is centered around a commercial print shop, and if you’re interested in printing, by all means. If you would like for them to print your things, by all means,” Schleicher says. “But we want to make sure that the collective benefits, that they can still use the space. So we’ll be open for exhibitions, for events, for programs, for community engagement, things like that.”
Artists and other members of the community who are interested in what Opaque Collective has to offer—be it exhibition space, equipment usage, or a new project—can reach out to Efferus via an online contact form. Outside of that, they’re keeping things strictly face-to-face. There’s no social media presence and no digital marketing. Word about Opaque Collective is spreading through word of mouth and among the DIY and underground communities of which its members are part.
“Everything that we do is to promote the welfare of the members of the collective and the communities that we belong to,” Schleicher says. “We are flexible. We are always open to talking, to having a dialogue, to having a conversation. We want to meet the needs of where we are, and we are excited to be in the lineage of all of the spaces that have been on Broadway and all of the DIY spaces that have come before us. And hopefully, we’ll platform as many people, artists, and programs as we can.”
Visitors can experience the gallery and learn more about Opaque Collective during the shop’s Grand Opening Celebration on March 20 from 6-9 p.m. Opaque will also host artist talk with both Janie Stamm and Brittany Mosier and an opportunity to meet and chat with collective members on March 21. Sign up online to receive updates about upcoming events and announcements.
