This fall WNIJ’s Yvonne Boose is tagging along with a few northern Illinois artists to learn how they create. The first stop on her artistic journey is 317 Art Collaborative to talk with its director Laura Gomel.
LG : Hi.
YB: Hi Laura. How are you?
LG:
I'm good. Nice to see you.
YB: You too. What are you working on?
LG: We’ll, I’m trying to paint this sign.
Music is the backdrop at 317 Art Collaborative. The walls are filled with art from the collaborative and some from Gomel herself including a picture of Ruth Gordon who played Minnie Castevet in the movie Rosemary’s Baby.
“In the movie," Gormel said, "she's like, her and her husband are, like the lead devil worshiper people and so, like, what I love about that is that no one ever sees a little old lady coming.”
Gomel sat at one of the stations working on a sign for a new segment in the gallery.
“We have a new art collectible cool store in the back,” she said. “It's got all this stuff that no one has in town, and it's all like, artist designed collectible toys, sculptures, art books, like, just really unusual stuff.”
Weirdo opened in April of this year. Gomel said most of the things came from a company called Dispersed.
The store also carries creations from local artists like Chinacat663.
“She made this backpack too,” she added. “And we have a couple of her bags as well. Um, yeah, these. These are super high collective up. Some people get really into these, like, get real excited about them.”
Gomel and Jenny Matthews took over the gallery in 2019. She said Matthews left around the pandemic and Gomel continued with the mission. The art gallery switched over to being a nonprofit and changed its name to 317 Art Collaborative last year. There are six resident artists at the Collaborative.
Gomel was born in New York. Her family moved to Elkhart, Indiana when she was three. She started creating as a child.
“And then, from high school, I went to the American Academy of Art in Chicago, and I graduated from there with an illustration degree,” Gomel explained, “because I was, you know, you couldn't, like, well, ‘how am I going to make a living, right?’ But I don't really think illustration was for me, at least at that time.”
Gomel said being a full-time artist sometimes has challenges. She explained that prepping for a show takes time and may interrupt the artist’s opportunities to make money.
“I just finished applying for a grant yesterday, you know, all that stuff,” she said. “And then, you know, trying to coordinate the people for ArtScene, trying to coordinate the people for the show, trying to make sure the bills are paid, you know, make sure we got some social media posts. I mean, there's like, a bazillion things to do.”
She said grants help keep the art engine moving. Gomel has another organization called Smarty Pants. This is where she teaches her craft to others.
“I teach classes every Saturday morning at the studio there, and then I also do, you know, kids’ parties,” she said. “I do camps when there's schools are out. And so that's all coming straight out of that studio, which is really convenient for me, you know.”
Gomel is a wife and a mom. Her husband is from Indonesia. The family visited the country earlier this year.
As we walked around, Kathleen Deasy stopped in. She’s a 78-year-old artist. She said she came to the studio to see its latest show and the space. She is looking for a new work area –- specifically about twenty-five hundred feet.
“I work in oils and mixed media, and then I work on paper with pen and colored pencil," she said, and, but most of my paintings run, like, three by four or four by five. I like big canvases.”
Gomel referred the creative to the Rockford Area Arts Council.
Gomel’s intern Dorea stopped in. Then we all headed over to the Rockford Art Museum to help stuff artist envelopes for the Greenwich Art Fair that took place last month.
When we returned to the art gallery Gomel went back to painting the wooden sign that she was working on when I first stopped in. It is an advertisement for the Collaborative’s store. Dorea added a few strokes.
Gomel then transitioned into another project. She was preparing for Fall ArtScene. She’s doing a group show called “Partners in Crime,” so she decided to paint John Waters and Divine. She called them partners in “art crime.”
The visit is a visual delight, and a history lesson all wrapped in one. Gomel explained that the building for 317 Collaborative has been a hub for artists for over 100 years. It was owned by a Rockford illustrating company.
“After that, basically, pretty much Deb Newton bought it,” she said. “That was back in, like, the 70s, and she lived here, and she had a bunch of artist space. She used to live up on the top floor. And then there was different artists who lived and worked here.”
Ironically, Womanspace honored Gomel by giving her the Deborah Newton Award this summer. The award-winning artist plans to continue to create, teach young artists and pour her creativity into the community.
Catch WNIJ's Fall Art Crawl each Wednesday during October!
