The banners, which read “Art Breathes Life,” draped several buildings along Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue Southeast. What do they mean, you wondered.
Briony Hynson and Beth Ferraro ultimately solved that mystery. The two women work at Honfleur Gallery and the Gallery at Vivid Solutions. The flags indicate a movement, begun by their boss Duane Gautier, to transform Anacostia.
You remembered Gautier’s name. He’s been active in the city for decades, principally as the founder and chief executive officer of Arch Training Center and Arch Development Corp. But for the past three years, he has been helping to create a “new Anacostia.” He — with his team of visionaries — has been bringing tangible and potentially lasting change to the area.
“The government has twenty feet of plans to develop Anacostia. I didn’t want there to be another plan and it gets [placed] on a shelf,” he told you when he reached out to you by telephone from the Jersey shore. When Gautier was in Russia years ago, he created artists cooperatives. He realized then that if he could get a “core number of arts and arts-related organizations into a neighborhood, [they] could be used as a catalyst” for economic change.
So, back in the District, he has implemented that plan: He opened Honfleur Gallery, a fine arts exhibition space that rivals any in New York’s Soho district. Then came Gallery at Vivid Solutions, a photographic center with a digital processing lab. New apartments serve as artists’ residences. Soon the Blank Space Gallery will open, providing rental space for organizations and individuals. A small business incubator called the Hive is expected to open later this year,
You are amazed as the speed at which Gautier has executed his strategy. “In three years, seven to eight galleries will have opened,” he said, cautioning that the arts aren’t the “be all and end all.”
But they can bring investors. In the 1980s, you remembered artists and arts organizations anchored 7th Street Northwest, creating a unique district that eventually lured the Shakespeare Theater and high-end galleries. They made a believer out of others, including Wizards’ owner Abe Pollin, who eventually built his sports arena. The rest is history.
There is a buzz around the new Anacostia. The galleries have sponsored concerts, poetry readings and an annual judged exhibit that showcased artists who live in Anacostia and other parts of Southeast.
Gautier said those events have attracted a very diverse crowd both racially and geographically. While some locals are “concerned about gentrification,” he said, “many young people are tapping into this idea,” including artists, business owners and average residents.
There’s only one problem, said Gautier, “There no place to [sit down] and eat.”
But if the results he and his team have been able to produce are any indication, you don’t expect that to be an issue for very long.
Jonetta Rose Barras’ column appears on Monday and Wednesday. She can be reached at [email protected].
