Alexis St. John, "Vantage."

Proctor residents would have been wondering lately what's going to fill the space left by Huff's Jewelers on North 26th Street, near Il Pomodoro. Huff's closed on New Year's Eve, after the owner died and none was prepared to take over. Being a local, I was all prepared to root for an alternative to Starbucks but this is even better: a new art gallery!

Proctor Art Gallery (3811 N. 26th St.) will be a mixed-media space, owned and run by painter Carolyn Burt. It will run as a sort-of co-op, each of the members of the Association working days in the space and having a say in management.

Who's in it? Some of my favorite muralists in town, for a start: Mary Mann, Joannie Joachims, Alexis St. John--only here they'll get to display their fine art work in other media. Some other painters like Sharon Carr, Sally Tjostelson, Bonnie Cargol, Andrea Greenfield, Sharon Crocetti; plus jewelers Karen and Norman Geiger, and Nancy Corey, who works in fused glass. All but two live close to the gallery. Burt is hoping to add more, and display the lot in a "home decorator" setting.

Here's how Burt describes it:

"Our goal is to have an inviting gallery with high quality professional fine art in a variety of media and styles which will appeal to a mix of tastes. Rather than hang each artist's work from floor to ceiling in a designated space, we hope to create a more "home decorator" effect by interspersing 3-d creations with 2-d art and clusters of an artist's work in various locations in the gallery,
encouraging people to wander through the whole gallery to see it all."

Proctor Art Gallery is set to open at the end of January. Stay tuned.