The Path Toward Greater Exposure: New gallery just the first step in building a welcoming space for the creative set

In the City of the Arts, is there room for another art gallery? Jim Tedder and Paul Pento think so.

The two are the co-owners of the Community Arts Cafe, an online magazine devoted to Triad artists, and they plan to open the Gallery of the Arts on Saturday at 411 W. Fourth St., with a celebration from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Their plans are grander than that, though -- within the next year, they hope to add a theater where performing artists can show off new music and dance, a bookstore stocked with the works of local writers, and a bar serving tapas, North Carolina cheeses, wines and craft beers.

"Everything that we do is centered around developing and promoting the local arts," Tedder said. "There's so much traffic down here in the restaurants in the evenings, I feel like it will benefit even Trade Street by us being here, and extending the arts district around the corner and down this way.

"As the City of the Arts, I don't feel like we can have too many of these things."

Tedder and Pento said they are staggering the opening of the arts complex to get the business established -- and to help attract potential investors.

"Actually opening the gallery first, I think it will help us get some exposure," Pento said. "The town has come alive to such a point. Even though the economy is not the greatest, it's the right time because of all the other things going on."

The gallery will feature work from artists who pay to lease space through membership fees. The gallery will take a 20 percent commission on works sold, and in exchange, will promote and market the artists. Thirty-four artists are already signed on, but the gallery has room to show about 80 at the same time, Tedder said.

Memberships will be juried by Tedder and other staff members.

Tedder and Pento want to use the gallery as a space for events, too, such as artist demonstrations, book-signings and talks.

The next phase will be to build a bistro and bookstore in the building's basement, then add a cafe and theater on the second floor and a media center with a digital and video studio and an artist-development group. Plans call for the theater to seat 200 to 300 people and be modeled after the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, a small club and restaurant that features original acoustic and country music.

Tedder said he has been working on this project for four years with his wife, Cathy, starting with the Community Arts Cafe magazine that he began publishing in July 2006. The magazine dropped its printed copies in December 2007 and became online only (www.communityartscafe.com) because of a lack of ad revenue, but Tedder would like to print again.

Competition for the eyes and ears of downtown audiences is only going to get tougher

The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County is building a 300-seat theater as it renovates the Sawtooth Building between Marshall and Spruce streets into an $11 million Downtown Center for the Arts. The space is specifically for smaller-venue drama, film and dance productions. And at 311 W. Fourth St., construction is humming along on Aperture Cinema, a two-screen independent movie house.

The recession has hurt the local art market, said Sharon Nelson, the executive director of Associated Artists at 301 W. Fourth St. They are relying more on gift-shop sales. "We've seen lower-priced items still moving, but larger pieces hanging on a wall are not."

Fourth Street's distance from the galleries on Trade Street, though relatively short, hasn't helped the situation. Many people still aren't comfortable walking downtown unless they can see their next destination, Nelson said, even on the first Friday of each month when Trade Street galleries are open late for the Gallery Hop. "We don't get people from the Gallery Hop here. We will occasionally do an event that precedes the Gallery Hop, and that will work out OK."

Rather, it's been new businesses on Fourth Street, such as Quiznos and Kernel Kustard, that have helped increase foot traffic and bring more people in, she said.

Though his plans are ambitious, Tedder has some key things in place, said Richard Emmett, the arts council's chief operating officer. "He's built a little community around what they are doing and that always is a precursor for starting something like this. We're supportive of the gallery.… The rest of it is speculation at this point. As far as the other parts of the plan, you need to wait to see how the gallery phase does."

lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com | 727-7302

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