In just a little over a year, Easthampton's Blue Guitar Gallery has outgrown its original space. The response from the local arts community, evidenced by overflow crowds at many Easthampton City Arts monthly Art Walk events, has inspired Blue Guitar to usurp the real estate adjacent to its Northampton Street home.
The gallery—a combination guitar studio and art and performance space—takes pride in its burgeoning reputation as a place of firsts for local musicians and artists. Co-founder Christie Svane says, "The intention is to pull our social spirit back from the brink of zombie-dom, where there is so much burn-out and alienation."
The music part of the operation is administered by Svane's husband, Bill O'Haire, proprietor of The Bill O'Haire Guitar Studio located in the space. "He's usually the music coordinator or house band for the gallery's performances," says Svane. "Bill was already teaching guitar in the space, and since I am a performer by trade as well, we decided to go ahead and launch a gallery and performance space."
Named after the Wallace Stevens poem "The Man with the Blue Guitar," the gallery's mission is to create a gathering space: "It is a place to bring together musicians, artists, dancers and writers, hence the name. It refers to art through color, music, emotion and imagination. The desire behind creating the space is to offer a gathering place, a well, if you will, where we can come and drink from each other's inspiration."
The couple has had a lot of assistance along the way. Visual artist Karen Randall, in addition to being the first artist exhibited at Blue Guitar, offered her connections and inspiration, as well as the practical matters of a website, mailing list, and a how-to for promotion. Daughter Bridget O'Haire, a high school student and painter herself, has helped by interviewing artists in conjunction with her internship at Northampton Community Television, and has brought in great crowds of younger folks to both display their art and attend the gallery's events.
This is of vital importance for Svane, who is concerned for the younger members of society: "Corporations may have power over us in many ways, but the right to feel and celebrate each other's expression is still ours. The revolution begins inside, by reclaiming the quality of life from the power-mongers who have used the 'divide and conquer' approach on society. So to see these teenagers coming to express themselves makes me feel great."
The proprietors are confident that a larger gallery will not be hard to fill. O'Haire's music classes have expanded greatly, and he is teaching over 50 students at the studio. Svane says, "Bill's planning on using the bigger space not only for weekly performances, but also to give young people a chance to hook up with other musicians in band workshops. A voice teacher, Emily Edwards, is teaching at The Blue Guitar now as well, and I'm hoping the voice students will be interested in collaborating with the guitar students in songwriting, or in the band workshops."
A grand opening for the new, expanded space is scheduled for the next Art Walk on Aug. 9. The gala event will be replete with music and a collection of new art offerings. For more information, call (413) 348.5288, or visit www.theblueguitar.org.
