‘More Than Just A Building’ a love letter to those who called Star Store home

This week marks the sad first anniversary of the abrupt and unceremonious closure of the Star Store building, which housed multiple studios and shared workspaces for many students of UMD’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. In addition, it meant the closure of the University Art Gallery, arguably then the finest in the city, and its ancillary exhibition spaces, Gallery 244 and the Crapo Gallery.

Without the courtesy of a warning from CVPA Dean Lawrence Jenkins or Chancellor Mark Fuller, the students, faculty and the community were blindsided with the sudden announcement. Gallery Director Viera Levitt first heard the news when she was vacationing in Europe, and I called to ask her to ask what was going on. She was stunned.

Students, many of whom came to the CVPA from across the country and from around the world, were enticed in part by the promise of well-equipped studios, wonderful exhibition possibilities and the intriguing lure of interdisciplinary cross-pollination with peers. No one was made to feel any better with the news that an empty Bed Bath & Beyond in a North Dartmouth strip mall would be retrofitted to become studio space, which was a fiasco unto itself.

 It was akin to a mean dad saying “You should just be happy you’re even getting that!”

The ensuing weeks led to demonstrations by students and many allies on the corner of Union and Purchase Street and on the Dartmouth campus, letters to administrators and officials all the way up to Gov. Maura Healy (who seemed to be a bit dismissive about the whole situation), the righteous involvement of Mayor Jon Mitchell, state Sen. Mark C. Montigny and others (all to no avail), and much press coverage. Nothing changed. The ship had sailed. And sank.

But something bubbled up. Last December, a few determined MFA students formed the Star Store Collective. They included unlikely and outspoken student leader Fallon Navarro (who came from Phoenix to work in the Star Store) and Anis Beigzadeh (who arrived from Kerman, Iran, to do the same). They installed “Works in Ceramics: A Student Exhibition” in an empty storefront at the northwest corner of Acushnet Avenue and William Street. Other shows were planned.

With the help of a few private donors who pitched in to cover the rent, the Star Gallery was born. The benefactors agreed to help out through May. We’re now halfway through August.

Maybe it’s because of some history and a good art community mojo in that space. In previous years, it had been the Navio Artisans Collective, led by ceramicists Charlie Barmonde and Seth Rainville. Later, it became Gallery 65 on William, an artists’ collective run by Nicole St. Pierre.

At present, the Star Gallery is hosting “Beyond the Star Store: More Than Just A Building” and it is an aptly named show. It was never just about the building.

It was about the camaraderie and the constructive criticism, it was about the solidarity and the support system and the culture and the community and the care. It was about romancing the past, revering the present and readying for the future.

Almost all of the exhibitors are alumni of the CVPA who worked in the Star Store building. Three are former faculty, including painting professor Severin “Sig” Haines, ceramics professor Chris Gustin, and printmaking instructor Marc St. Pierre.

There is a slight bit of melancholy hovering in the gallery as Haines died in June 2023 and St. Pierre died in December 2019. They both spent much time in the Star Store building and the space that has become the Star Gallery. Both were my teachers and good friends of mine. Their voices and their presence are still there in my mind.

There is a beautiful untitled painting by Alex Landry of a red bearded man, with his hand over his heart and his eyes closed, lying in the grass. Landry took her own life in the final weeks of her time as a graduate student at the age of 29 in April 2023. Her spirit lingers, too.

Haines is represented by two handsome small paintings, stacked one over the other, done in his familiar signature style. On top is “West Island,” rendered in subtle grays and blues; below is “Barney’s Joy,” a deceivingly simple and lovely landscape.

He often said that he did landscapes in service to painting rather than paintings in service to the landscape. But I called him out on that: he often endured summer heat, late autumn chill, mosquito swarms and waterlogged shoes to service the landscape. He smiled in quiet acknowledgement.

St. Pierre’s photo etching “Il Giardino della Minerva” (Minerva’s Garden) features a dozen or so brilliant goldfish in a fountain in Salerno, with a distorted reflection of a building adding a bit of mystery to the composition. His wife Nicole exhibits “Harborside, Maine,” a small bucolic pastel landscape.

Emily Moreau’s “Grandpa’s Kitchen” features her bespectacled grandfather with arms crossed and a bottle of Bud on the table in front of him. The acrylic painting is laden with little details — utensils near the stove, a red box of crackers, and a tiny picture of a pig on the wall. Moreau does something quite interesting with her painting, flattening the space out throughout and bringing everything to near the same visual depth.

Kat Knutsen’s “Drummers” is a love letter to the local creative community and to downtown New Bedford itself. Two men stand on the William Street side of No Problemo, casting a lavender shadow on the sidewalk. 

The man on the left is Johnny Neiman, astride his beloved bicycle who is the regular drummer for Pumpkin Head Ted and an occasional drummer for Jimi Goo. On the right, on his skateboard, is Ryan Burke, drummer for Long Swan and for Sonic Anomalies. Between the two is a snare drum.

Alison Borges displays two paintings, majestic in both scale and theme. One is a seated male with naught but a white cloth draped below his waist. With long black hair and a staff in his hand, he comes across as a god of antiquity. The accompanying painting, titled “The Visceral Force of Life,” features a statuesque woman in white, one hand on her hip, the other with a finger pointing downward to the mortal world. She may be Aphrodite or Hera or another Olympian goddess.

A mythological figure of a different kind is tucked into a corner of the gallery. A life-size three-dimensional figure with a mask of glowing blue light bulbs and a gown decorated with stars and celestial bodies raises her hand offering a strange flower. Called “Skywoman Waits…,” it is the alter ego of artist Kate Frazer Rego and she is part Wonder Woman, part Mother Nature and part Incan priestess.

A few feet away is “I Love Lamp” by Amanda Watkins. Seemingly inspired in part by vintage Art Nouveau, with tassels and ornate beads, there is also an element of 1950s sci-fi as sections of the lampshade are emblazoned with images of big-eyed extraterrestrials, flying saucers and the planet Saturn.

Master printmaker Kim Gatesman is a bit of an alchemist, easily shifting between art and science and finding a common ground. Her images seem to exist in some netherworld plane. She displays two electrostatic monotypes, including “As If in a Dream.”

There are two fabric artists on display. One is Ellery Ekleberry, presenting “A Spot to Rest,” a pink, lavender, orange and yellow amorphous shape, with two tiny pillow-like forms arising from it. Azin Majooni’s “Revival,” constructed from handmade paper, flax, kozo and denim, with its earthtones and an ocean of blues, speaks to her heartfelt concerns about the environment and political violence.

Navarro and Gustin each display a ceramic work that exists outside the realm of the functional and is comfortably ensconced in the contemplative.

Navarro’s red clay “The Space Between Us is Everywhere” references gates and grates and crates and functions as none of them. It is about the ability to see through things and in the same moment, it is about having vision obscured. It is put together with the flourishes of a calligrapher.

Gustin, who recently displayed work in the last show at the Dedee Shattuck Gallery, shows “Spirit Series, #2318,” a large-scale pneumatic sculpture that references the human form.

There are also ceramic works including Jenny Peace’s contemplative “Tidal Moon,” Molly Frantz’s lowkey “Passage,” Ryder Gordon’s subversive “Decadent Waffle,” Sean Lutz’s handsome “Deconstructed Cup Study,” Jordan Blackenship’s elegant “Espresso Cup with Cork Saucer,” Christopher Smith’s architecturally influenced “Structured,” and Corrinn Jusell’s untitled sculptural wood-fired bulb vase.

“Beyond the Star Store: More Than Just a Building,” which was curated by Navarro and Beigzadeh, will be on display at the Star Gallery, 65 William S., until Aug. 22.

The gallery fills a particular niche, run by people who are truly immersed in the city’s evolving culture. The closure of the Star Store building by bureaucrats, largely disconnected from the community that they were supposed to serve, was a tragedy and a travesty. 

But a phoenix can rise from the ashes. Perhaps the Star Gallery can persevere. 

It was never just a building. It was about the souls who inhabited it.

Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org