New businesses build up status of the Bayshore Arts District

Arts businesses are beginning to cause a stir in the Bayshore Drive triangle of East Naples. The area has claimed the title of arts district since around 2004, but only recently has it begun to show its colors.

The newest addition to the scattered art studios in the area is Amanda Jaron's jewelry boutique and design studio at 3784 Bayshore Drive, moved there just two weeks ago from its previous Trail Boulevard location.  

Jaron, who has been in Naples since 2004, has designed for Avon and the Home Shopping Network and creates jewelry across a wide price spectrum. She joined artists who have made what's called the Bayshore Triangle home for as long as 13 years, artists like expressionist tapestry maker Bonny Hawley, island-vibe painter Thom Millsap and pointillist fabric/soft goods designer Jane Vallejo.

Photographer/instructor Peggy Farren's studio, like Millsap's and Vallejo's, fronts Linwood Avenue across from the Wang Opera Center.

Tucked in along with them is Jack Molloy, who creates designs for companies like Crate and Barrel. None of them assume Jaron will be the last artist to join the group.

'I'm a mermaid'

Jaron made an immediate, literal splash by having muralist Marcus Zotter paint a mermaid lolling across the length of her building. Jaron said she thought it would be a nice tag to the nearby Gulf and might bring a few curious souls in. She was surprised at the strong reaction.

"Women were coming in and telling me, 'I'm a mermaid,'" she said. The identification has inspired her: She's planning a bench for a selfies spot and perhaps

At the same time, a confluence of  a fuller event schedule at the Wang Opera Center and Thom Millsap's inspiration to turn on display window lights on concert nights, led to a phenomenon he and Vallejo hadn't seen in the past: Foot traffic.

"People who were leaving there were coming by here," said Millsap, who has been painting in Naples for 30 years and at his 2377 Linwood Ave. location for the last eight. 

"You start out in your bedroom, you work in your garage and you keep on growing. I didn't think of this as an art gallery, but a studio," he said.

"But as of late we've started hanging things on the wall, and during season it feels like Fifth Avenue. Couples are walking in, and you're talking to them about what you're doing."

A major contributor to the walk-in business was moving from gallery-driven sales to art fairs.

"That changed everything. I did a few Fifth Avenue shows and people started driving here, and I was selling directly to people," he said. Further, he began using printing processes to apply his color-driven art to smaller items: cutting boards and tiles.

"It's a whole new market for people who can't afford a painting but like art and want it. It's a chance for them to have art in their homes without spending $3,000."

His sunny use of color also is eye-catching: "I love putting opposites purple next to yellow, blue next to orange, where they're supposed to fight, but try to bring them together, bring some sense of harmony." 

In the last two years, the Wang Opera Center began booking performances, from CAPA's Spectrum to its own Beaux Arts series, along with bluegrass and even Indian concerts. It also brought in young opera singers who for two weeks classes with diva Renata Scotto. Fairway Church used its space on Sundays.

Millsap began turning his windows into more of a display area and training lights on his color-forward works at night to catch the eyes of concertgoers heading for their cars.

That's been a plus, says Vallejo, his partner. She has been painting all her life, but in the last decade has gravitated toward aboriginal, Indian and Tibetan designs and florals in a pointillist style. Her work then made the leap from fabric wall art to clothing and cards . 

Now her JTB Design Boutique adjoins Millsap's and carries packable art clothing in palazzo pants, a variety of tops and skirts that start at $65. She also sells her designs on coasters and stationery.

"I still do the painting first," she said. "It takes LOT of dots..... there's dots on top of dots."

Gerry Goldberg, interim executive director of Opera Naples, was surprised, but pleased, to hear his crowds are migrating across and down the street. 

"We are open to all kinds of groups using our building, so I hope we can bring them even more business this season,"he said.

ajaron.com or 239-596-8610

millsapart.wix.com or 239-298-0865

www.jtbdesignboutique.com or 239-450-1302  

In the beginning

Kansas native Bonny Hawley, 62, came here first, actually moving down to 900 square feet from 2,000 because 2371 Linwood Ave. was close to her Royal Harbor home.

"I was driving by and saw that they were selling these pre-construction. I went right down to the real estate office here. I was the first person to close here and I was the first artist here," she said.

She has brought other artists in, like Millsap. The artists who have settled here, she said, are the most stable the Linwood Village businesses.

"A lot of the businesses here went into foreclosure during the recession, but the three art businesses are  going. We had contractors, a maid service — they all went into foreclosure," she said. 

 Hawley works largely abstract in large-walll tapestries, and she needs space — up as well as out. Her unit has an extra high ceiling so she can display her works. She has a 50-inch long table that tilts to give her a better vantage point. 

.

Hawley does a good deal of work for large homes and commercial spaces. Her angel greets visitors to The Arlington residence hall and a tapestry of Christ is in its chapel; her flowing diptychs and triptychs .

She's done 22 commissions since March because while there's traffic to her store, it's more manageable than the rest of Naples' shopping districts.

"I get people who walk in here. They know my work. It's not like Fifth Avenue," she explained. "I just love this location, and I think it's only going to get better."

www.bhawley.com or 239-649-1389

Spiritually infused

Walk into Jack Molloy's studio next door to Hawley's and you're likely to think you're in a small synagogue. Molloy leads a Jewish-Christian scripture study on Fridays and the front room has seats, a lectern and Judaica.

Walk into a back room and you'll know you're in an artist's lair. Molloy doesn't look for walk-in traffic. 

"I guess I'm primarily an illustrator," said Molloy, 62, whose doodles have appeared on papers and dishes offered by Crate and Barrel and Kate Spade. The California native's art skills include wood cuttings and engravings; Malloy once created them for  Marshall Fields and the New York Times. "That is and was a lost art," he concedes.

 But wait: There's a sewing machine here as well. When Molloy worked for a jeans company in California, he learned to make them, and he's in the process of designing dark denim pocket bags that can be clipped to shoulder straps or a belt.

He's in the Linwood Village for two reasons: His faith and his wife.

"I was looking for sufficient space because we didn't have our (previous) chapel on 10th (Street North) any more," he said.

The Bayshore Triangle business condo offered enough space for both meetings and Molloy's eclectic art elements collection, which includes a gumball machine filled with buttons, fabrics, printers and every kind of toy an artist would want. His wife, artist representative Joanie Bernstein, told him it was time to clear it all out of their home.

"Once I get into the house, I can't bring all this junk with me," he said, chuckling. 

joaniebrep.com/artists/jack-molloy/ 239-403-4393

www.shalom-peace.com or 239-263-7093