T he center of South Deerfield isn’t what you’d call bustling. Unless you’re sitting in the afternoon traffic backup at the lone four-way stop, you hardly notice the businesses and offices congregating around that focal point. Just up North Main sits Greenfield Savings Bank, and on nearby Sugarloaf, there’s the building that used to be Bank of America. It’s no longer money that occupies its vault and partitioned sections, but art. Lots of art.
Step inside, and you can see the remnants of its staid financial past. There’s a vault in the back, old teller windows, a drive-up window. Lobby chairs still await the reflective visitor. It’s a beautiful bit of repurposing. “We had to have custom stuff built for the walls in front of the windows,” says Gallery owner Jane Trigere.
The custom stuff in question comprises smartly designed sliding panels that offer multiple configurations of wall space and windows. Where once tellers stood at windows, visitors will find an art supply and gift shop, and off the front of the building juts one of the gallery’s most engaging features. It’s called the “ATM Gallery,” and it offers an ever-changing lineup of artwork—visible from the street—complete with dramatic lighting. The drive-through window is full of objects, including a massive globe, guaranteed to confuse any absent-minded customers who might arrive hoping to make a withdrawal.
The Arts Bank is not the first Valley art institution to put its stock in such a former enterprise: Northampton’s R. Michelson gallery occupies an expansive and impressive old bank, too. But the Deerfield Arts Bank offers a smalltown chic that makes the artwork (most of which is up for sale as well as unpaid appreciation) seem all the more accessible.
Trigere is no stranger to repurposing—she and her husband, book dealer Ken Schoen, live in the former firehouse next door. “They didn’t leave the pole,” she says, a bit wistfully.
It’s also not the first time she’s run an exhibition space. Trigere oversaw the now-defunct Hatikvah Holocaust Education Resource Center at Springfield’s Jewish Community Center. “That gave me a taste of something I knew I could do.”
After she left the Hatikvah Center, Trigere says, she wanted to find a place to put her creative abilities to use. She became an artist, something she hadn’t necessarily planned to do—she had studied art history, not studio art. Trigere says she wasn’t quite certain what would come next, and she hadn’t found a spot for herself in the conventional museum world. When the bank next to her firehouse home went up for sale, she and Schoen decided the time was right to create their own venue.
That was in November of last year. Once the project to turn the bank into a gallery had gotten into full swing, Trigere’s plans were dealt a surprising blow: she got a cancer diagnosis. Treatment, she says, really sapped her energy, and her work on the Arts Bank slowed.
That’s when, Trigere adds, a friend lent a hand. At the “pre-opening” party in November, she met Terry Rooney, an artist and freelance curator. “She put up the first shows,” Trigere explains.
She also credits friends in the community for help in the Arts Bank’s early days—she is a longtime Deerfield resident, and as part of the Deerfield Historical Commission, has long worked with others pushing for the revitalization of South Deerfield’s village center. “What I discovered in my time when I was not well was that the community supported me completely,” Trigere says, “They even came out to paint the walls and fix the floor tiles.”
It’s remarkable now to hear Trigere’s recent history. She may have been seriously ill not long ago, but she glows with energy, excitedly showing off the artwork on the walls and talking up the Arts Bank’s next moves. The calendar at the Arts Bank is packed—there are the usual exhibitions, of course, but Trigere provides lots of reasons to visit other than the art itself. While we chatted, a couple of people came up from the basement, where they’d been enjoying a ukulele lesson. Visitors who came to see the recent Chair Dreams… interpreted got plenty of excuses to return, including a lecture on chairs in design, a “con(chair)to” of music among the chairs, and a chair massage session.
That kind of unusual thinking seems to come naturally to Trigere. She quickly found that one of the usual ways to get artwork for her gallery just didn’t fit her style. She tried a call to artists, in which the artists pay to have their work considered for exhibition. For her, looking at small virtual representations of someone’s art left out a key part of the process. “I’ve gone into this in order to meet people—I want some pleasure out of this,” she says.
“I don’t want to sit in front of a screen and say, ‘Yes, I like it’ or ‘No, I don’t.’” She would rather see artists’ portfolios in person.
It may sound like the Arts Bank, sitting back from the road in a sparsely populated town center, would be a lonely location. In fact, repeat visits reveal that the gallery is often a crossroads. One of Trigere’s grandkids might run through; an artist might arrive to drop off work; a group of visitors might chat in the corner. Trigere’s desire to foster community seems to be paying off already, just a few months after the Arts Bank’s first exhibition.
“There was a day when six or seven people were in the room, and none of them were related to each other!” Trigere marvels.
Still, she says, there are slow points. “To cross a theshold is hard. It’s hard to get someone to come in. That’s why I set up the sitting area up front—basically to say, ‘Come in.’ It’s a gesture to the community—‘This is your space, please sit.’”
Trigere’s affable presence has played a big role in filling the Arts Bank’s walls with art, and she likes to talk about what she and others might do in the rest of South Deerfield’s center. Right now, the main drag holds a few restaurants (including Jerry’s Place and MRKT), a liquor store, hair salon, gas station, a bar, offices and other small businesses. Trigere hopes the future might bring the town more arts and culture destinations, and her ideas for that future are as intriguing as what goes on inside the Arts Bank.
Places like Northampton and Amherst, she says, are big enough to have arts walks. “We just have two places with art, here and the Daylily [gift shop]. So I think we should at least have an Arts Crossing. You know, hire a crossing guard and everything!”•
Deerfield Arts Bank: 3 Sugarloaf Street, South Deerfield, (413) 665-0123, deerfieldartsbank.com.
Art to Wear, by Nona Hatay: through Nov. 14
Small Art 4 Big Holidays: Nov. 20-Jan. 3, 2015