The following is an extended version of the article that appears in our November 2023 issue.
(From left) Art Works owner Glenda Kotchish and Gallery Director Jessie Boyland celebrate 20 years of the Manchester exhibition space. (Photo by Chris Schoen)
A confluence of happenstance occurred 20 years ago that prompted Glenda Kotchish and Paula Demmert to buy a former Westvaco warehouse in Manchester and transform it into a hive of activity they named Art Works.
Much has changed since then.
Art Works now stands next to a fenced-in grassy lot that until recently contained the multiuse art facility, Plant Zero, which is scheduled to be developed into a six-story, mixed use building. What was once a parking lot is now the Hatch Local food hall and The Current residential and office complex.
Through these transformations, Art Works remains, perhaps busier than ever with the activity of 87 artists, juried exhibitions and Fourth Friday openings.
Kotchish has deep roots in Manchester. Her family moved to the Oak Grove neighborhood from Charlottesville when she was 5. Although she demonstrated early talent as an artist, Kotchish worked in banking and received mentorship in information technology.
“There are two sides of my brain,” she explains. “One side craves business, IT, technology and math; the other side wants to be free and organic, and enjoy the splendor of art.”
The STEM side of her brain led to a Capital One consultancy. Her art side prompted her to take ceramics classes and rent a studio at the former Shockoe Bottom Arts Center. When that facility closed in 2003, Kotchish deliberated on where to go next. Fortuitously, she was on a three-month leave from Capital One to maintain a subcontractor status when her business and art sides merged to form a new opportunity.
“I was only going to make pots, but I ended up drafting a business plan,” she says with a laugh. The vision was to take the SBAC model and graft it onto another space for artists. Joining forces with Demmert, a photographer, the duo acquired the Manchester property that would become Art Works, opening it on a fourth Friday in September two decades ago. Kotchish and Demmert devoted themselves to the venture full time.
“I didn’t think more than 10 years out,” Kotchish says. Eventually, “Paula felt she’d want to do something else, and so seven years ago I bought her out.” In 2020, Demmert took over ownership of the Fan ice cream shop Scoop. “Which is really cool,” Kotchish enthuses, displaying her relentless optimism, “but I figured, ‘What else am I going to do?’ The benefit is I get to be around these wonderful creative people. It’s so much easier than going to business committee meetings.”
Kotchish staffed the place with people possessing arts backgrounds to manage the studios and curate shows. One longtime Art Works figure is Gallery Director Jessie Boyland. She’s a Virginia Commonwealth University painting and printmaking graduate who became acquainted with Kotchish and Demmert at Art Works’ outset.
“I started volunteering with them, and they hired me part time, now, here I am 19 years later,” she says. “My first official payday was their first-year anniversary.”
Boyland cherishes the close associations she’s developed at the center and the guiding philosophy of artists first, profits second. She says Kotchish’s business background, combined with her heart for the mission, is a unique blend. “She’s not afraid to sacrifice for something bigger.”
One of Boyland’s jobs is to book music for the Fourth Friday openings, and see what other elements can work, be they dance performances, improv comedy or films. The versatility of creativity inspires her.
Boyland acknowledges the changes in the surrounding neighborhood, and how the cultural tendency is that artists come into parts of town not as often frequented. “And then when it’s viewed as trendy and hip, the businesses move in, and rents go up,” she says. Key to Art Works’ survival despite various hazards is its ownership of the building and the commitment of those who work there, whether artists or administrators.
Boyland cites Art Works’ mentions in print and online articles bringing visitors from Washington, D.C., and New York, but also the more people living around the center has made Fourth Fridays busier. The increased numbers of gallerygoers is also better for those who show work there, either in their studios or by renting part of a wall.
Among Art Works’ resident creators is Terra Comer, a Polaroid artist and filmmaker. (Photos courtesy Terra Comer)
Siblings Tammie and Terra Comer are tenant artists, Tammie a painter and Tara a photographer and filmmaker, who feel the Art Works environment is inspiring and conducive to their work.
Tammie first came in 2018. The East Ender wasn’t as familiar with this part of town until during a day out with her brother Gregory, she became introduced. “I walked in and fell in love,” Tammie says in her upstairs studio, amid her portraits and images of Black history. She started out in a space downstairs, “but I outgrew it. And so [now] I have room to make work and to bring people in to view what I’m working on.”
Terra moved from Atlanta. When she’d visited her sister in 2019, she was impressed by the center’s sense of possibility, the variety of artists and the busy openings during which people visited Tammie’s studios and purchased work.
Terra describes herself as as Polaroid photographer. She’s working on a feature film, and on Nov. 15, from her Art Works studio, she is launching “Sista Cinema.” She’ll be speaking to people involved with filmmaking and discussing how they got through self-doubt to realize a finished work.
As the years roll by at Art Works, there have been challenges: the 2008 recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, and seemingly endless construction and roadwork. The center has navigated its way through these times by innovating.
What’s Kotchish’s vision now? Her main concern is to maintain affordability for the artists. She says, in a half-joking tone, “I want to add a couple more floors and put a dome on it.” Less dreamily, she’d like to add a coffee shop. Setting her business/arts mind to it, there’s no limit to what’s next for Art Works.
