[
{
"name": "500x250 Ad",
"insertPoint": "5",
"component": "15667920",
"parentWrapperClass": "",
"requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
}
]
In 2006, sculpture artist Wayne Martin Belger turned a 500-year-old Tibetan skull into a bejeweled, working pinhole camera. He named the mechanism “Yama” after the Tibetan god of death. In most art galleries, this would be the most interesting piece, an evergreen conversation starter.
But “Yama” lives at ArtisanWorks — and there, “Yama” is just another wonder in a collection of 500,000 pieces.
The whimsical arts space on Blossom Road has long blended fine art with kitsch and collectibles; a giant wooden toothbrush sculpture sits next to a Salvador Dalí painting, yards from a restored Lincoln Continental and vintage Kodak signage. These items (and thousands more) came to ArtisanWorks over the last quarter century via the dogged work of its founder, Louis Perticone.
“He believed enough in himself that he could take a beaten-down, dirty old warehouse and lots of neglected areas and turn them into this psychedelic paradise,” said artist April Laragy Stein, facilities manager at ArtisanWorks.
Perticone died July 1 after a battle with metastatic pancreatic cancer. In the years before his 2022 diagnosis, Perticone built ArtisanWorks into a “Disneyland for art,” as he described it to CITY in 2012. The organization makes most of its money from renting out space for events and through a lease-to-own art program.
But Perticone had a knack for finding the art in the first place, and for displaying it. Stein first met Perticone in 2004 when she pulled up outside the space with a trunk full of 20 unframed paintings she’d made.
“Louis saw just the one on the top, and he goes, ‘Yep, I want all of it,’” she recalled. That began a decades-long partnership in which Stein created dozens of pieces for ArtisanWorks. “I used to do a painting for everyone who got married there, and we sometimes would have 100 weddings in a year,” she said.
Stein called Perticone a “Montessori curator,” stressing his specialized approach to each artist. Some needed studio space, of which he had plenty to give. Some needed a job, so he put them to work building walls for new rooms inside the warehouse. As such, everything inside reflects his own creative vision, even through the various unique works of the artists he championed.
“He never liked to call it a museum, but it was a museum of Louis’s life out loud,” Stein said.
In light of Perticone’s illness and death, ArtisanWorks’s CEO and co-founder Kimberly Trenholm has stepped into a more central role. She spoke about her longtime collaborator in the present tense, and throughout the many themed spaces inside the 46,000-square foot hall — the “Casablanca” room, the 1960s firehouse, the Victorian dining room — he remains.
“The trajectory of my entire life was changed when I met him,” Trenholm said. “I didn't know anything about art, really. I was going to become a social worker.”
Instead, Trenholm became Perticone’s trusted partner in making sure ArtisanWorks thrives. “He used to say, ‘All I did was build it. Now you have to turn it into cash.’”
“My only mission,” she continued, “is to make sure that this place outlives all of us.”
The burly voice of Luciano Pavarotti, Perticone’s favorite, belts from a room dedicated to Rochester pioneers like Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony and George Eastman. In the corner, a wooden display houses another local titan: Louis Perticone himself.
Trenholm spent the last two years of Perticone’s life readying his final resting place inside ArtisanWorks. Stein painted angel wings on the wall in front of an easy chair outfitted with his personal effects: a black fanny pack, a small transistor radio, a pair of New Balance sneakers, bourbon and cigars.
Perticone’s ashes reside in a beautiful floral vase that sat in their shared office for 30 years.
“When I put him up there and closed the doors, I just felt like he was home immediately,” Trenholm said.
Since his death, a central question in the arts community has been: What is ArtisanWorks without Louis Perticone? Trenholm and Stein both highlighted how collaborative the organization has always been, which helps now. Though everyone has a “different recipe” in their head for how to make decisions, Stein said, all the ingredients came from Perticone.
For Trenholm, the future holds the chance to continue building upon the foundation Perticone laid.
“I don't think it really changes the fabric of the vision,” she said. “It opens up a lot more possibilities because we can stay aligned with all the visions that were in place — experience, creativity and all of those things.”
Trenholm gestured up to the 36-foot high ceilings.
“But we can also take the platform that he's built, because he's really a builder. You can see it,” she said. “We can take that platform and turn it into a lasting place in Rochester for people to be able to come and experience it and keep creating.” ArtisanWorks hosts Thursday activity nights — soap-making classes, yoga, mobster-themed bingo, tie-dye workshops, printmaking — as well as Sunday thrift sales of its own pieces from 12-4 p.m. In a warehouse where “there's no space anywhere and every drawer is filled,” Trenholm said, thrifting is both necessary and a great bit of community outreach.
She picked up a set of sterling silver Japanese earrings for sale and briefly marveled at them.
“Where did these come from?” she said. “How do we have these?”
It’s a fitting scene. If the co-founder, who helped create countless artistic arrangements and who is currently ArtisanWorks’s de facto vault of knowledge, can still be gleefully surprised at the collection, imagine what could happen to someone stepping inside the space for the first time.
Stein knows the feeling well.
“Everybody wishes they could live their first kiss again,” she said. “I think a first kiss with ArtisanWorks is the first time you walk through and say, ‘Oh my god.’ What Louis did is he kept creating those ‘oh my gods.’ He let everybody have their first kiss over and over again.”
Patrick Hosken is an arts writer at CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].
But “Yama” lives at ArtisanWorks — and there, “Yama” is just another wonder in a collection of 500,000 pieces.
The whimsical arts space on Blossom Road has long blended fine art with kitsch and collectibles; a giant wooden toothbrush sculpture sits next to a Salvador Dalí painting, yards from a restored Lincoln Continental and vintage Kodak signage. These items (and thousands more) came to ArtisanWorks over the last quarter century via the dogged work of its founder, Louis Perticone.
“He believed enough in himself that he could take a beaten-down, dirty old warehouse and lots of neglected areas and turn them into this psychedelic paradise,” said artist April Laragy Stein, facilities manager at ArtisanWorks.
Perticone died July 1 after a battle with metastatic pancreatic cancer. In the years before his 2022 diagnosis, Perticone built ArtisanWorks into a “Disneyland for art,” as he described it to CITY in 2012. The organization makes most of its money from renting out space for events and through a lease-to-own art program.
But Perticone had a knack for finding the art in the first place, and for displaying it. Stein first met Perticone in 2004 when she pulled up outside the space with a trunk full of 20 unframed paintings she’d made.
“Louis saw just the one on the top, and he goes, ‘Yep, I want all of it,’” she recalled. That began a decades-long partnership in which Stein created dozens of pieces for ArtisanWorks. “I used to do a painting for everyone who got married there, and we sometimes would have 100 weddings in a year,” she said.
Stein called Perticone a “Montessori curator,” stressing his specialized approach to each artist. Some needed studio space, of which he had plenty to give. Some needed a job, so he put them to work building walls for new rooms inside the warehouse. As such, everything inside reflects his own creative vision, even through the various unique works of the artists he championed.
“He never liked to call it a museum, but it was a museum of Louis’s life out loud,” Stein said.
In light of Perticone’s illness and death, ArtisanWorks’s CEO and co-founder Kimberly Trenholm has stepped into a more central role. She spoke about her longtime collaborator in the present tense, and throughout the many themed spaces inside the 46,000-square foot hall — the “Casablanca” room, the 1960s firehouse, the Victorian dining room — he remains.
“The trajectory of my entire life was changed when I met him,” Trenholm said. “I didn't know anything about art, really. I was going to become a social worker.”
Instead, Trenholm became Perticone’s trusted partner in making sure ArtisanWorks thrives. “He used to say, ‘All I did was build it. Now you have to turn it into cash.’”
“My only mission,” she continued, “is to make sure that this place outlives all of us.”
The burly voice of Luciano Pavarotti, Perticone’s favorite, belts from a room dedicated to Rochester pioneers like Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony and George Eastman. In the corner, a wooden display houses another local titan: Louis Perticone himself.
Trenholm spent the last two years of Perticone’s life readying his final resting place inside ArtisanWorks. Stein painted angel wings on the wall in front of an easy chair outfitted with his personal effects: a black fanny pack, a small transistor radio, a pair of New Balance sneakers, bourbon and cigars.
Perticone’s ashes reside in a beautiful floral vase that sat in their shared office for 30 years.
“When I put him up there and closed the doors, I just felt like he was home immediately,” Trenholm said.
Since his death, a central question in the arts community has been: What is ArtisanWorks without Louis Perticone? Trenholm and Stein both highlighted how collaborative the organization has always been, which helps now. Though everyone has a “different recipe” in their head for how to make decisions, Stein said, all the ingredients came from Perticone.
For Trenholm, the future holds the chance to continue building upon the foundation Perticone laid.
“I don't think it really changes the fabric of the vision,” she said. “It opens up a lot more possibilities because we can stay aligned with all the visions that were in place — experience, creativity and all of those things.”
Trenholm gestured up to the 36-foot high ceilings.
“But we can also take the platform that he's built, because he's really a builder. You can see it,” she said. “We can take that platform and turn it into a lasting place in Rochester for people to be able to come and experience it and keep creating.” ArtisanWorks hosts Thursday activity nights — soap-making classes, yoga, mobster-themed bingo, tie-dye workshops, printmaking — as well as Sunday thrift sales of its own pieces from 12-4 p.m. In a warehouse where “there's no space anywhere and every drawer is filled,” Trenholm said, thrifting is both necessary and a great bit of community outreach.
She picked up a set of sterling silver Japanese earrings for sale and briefly marveled at them.
“Where did these come from?” she said. “How do we have these?”
It’s a fitting scene. If the co-founder, who helped create countless artistic arrangements and who is currently ArtisanWorks’s de facto vault of knowledge, can still be gleefully surprised at the collection, imagine what could happen to someone stepping inside the space for the first time.
Stein knows the feeling well.
“Everybody wishes they could live their first kiss again,” she said. “I think a first kiss with ArtisanWorks is the first time you walk through and say, ‘Oh my god.’ What Louis did is he kept creating those ‘oh my gods.’ He let everybody have their first kiss over and over again.”
Patrick Hosken is an arts writer at CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].
Latest in Art
More by Patrick Hosken
-
Harvest Moon Festival aims to bring AAPI communities together
Sep 16, 2024 -
A grand old city
Sep 11, 2024 -
Album Review | 'Live Noise'
Sep 9, 2024 - More »