Today we’d like to introduce you to Coral Green Studios
Hi Coral Green Studios, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Coral Green Studios is an artist-run collective based in South St. Louis City. We are coming up on our third anniversary this April. Our goal is to support historically under-recognized artists, including women, mothers and LGBTQIA+ persons, through annual exhibitions, special projects and community programming.
In 2022, we (Amy Reidel, Amelia-Colette Jones and Andrea Henry Tharian) began shopping around for commercial properties that could double as a personal art studio and working gallery space. Coming fresh out of the pandemic, we were craving an area outside of the home where domestic partnership and/or caregiving demands often were front and center, leaving little time for creative exploration.
During our first year we had an Open House for the community. In our second year we were able to exhibit the work of four local artists, Aleta Lanier, Dail Chambers, Sukanya Mani and Janice Wallace through support from The Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, which awarded us grants in 2022 and 2023. We believe in paying exhibiting artists for their time and energy (a practice not common in the art world) as well as letting the artists keep 100% of their proceeds from sales. Aside from exhibition openings, we have hosted an Annual Holiday Sale for the last two years. Right now the artists in our space include Amy Reidel, Andrea Henry Tharian, Greta Coalier and Carly Ann Faye, all working artist-mothers.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Opening the space was a valuable growth experience. We were learning how to procure permits from the city of St. Louis and pass inspections. Then construction within our space had a few bumps as Andrea suffered a foot injury while building walls for our individual studios and we were cited by the city. Through the help of architect friends and many other generous folks, we found our way through these challenges within only a few months.
Another challenge comes from the fact that none of us are making a full-time living from our artwork. Two studio artists have full-time jobs in academia, another one is a part-time educator and our fourth studio mate sells work intermittently. The life of an artist requires a lot of compromise and varying interpretations of art-making. The four of us occupying the space are also all mothers. One of the hardest things is to balance the demands of life – particularly when it comes to caregiving – with those of our own artistic practices.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The four of us currently sharing the space are visual artists, ranging from photography to drawing and painting as well as ceramic and fiber sculpture. A little bit more about our individual practices below:
Through an interdisciplinary approach including painting, drawing, installation and sculpture, Amy Reidel uses abstract and figurative imagery to illuminate the bittersweet conditions of caregiving along with the duality of desperately loving another person during a time of global turmoil.
The work of Andrea Henry Tharian centers on creating paintings and drawings with watercolors, pen and ink, and oil pastels. She is intrigued by the complexity of relationships – those in her personal life and larger systems. Andrea’s current body of work investigates her marriage and household melding of two cultures- that of her partner’s Malayalee family with her Midwest upbringing.
Greta Coalier is a painter and sculptor with a deep love of textiles. Her work merges the history of handwork with contemporary implications of what has value and ideas of safety in response to trauma.
Carly Faye is a photographer and painter who explores sacredness and simplicity. She is a mother and creator that has found a home in the Midwest.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
One of the most important lessons we have learned is to keep going! We have not received grant money in the last year after sending out multiple applications. While this is disappointing, it has caused us to zoom out and reflect on what we are trying to create at Coral Green Studios.
The studio is first and foremost a space for us to be our true creative selves. The public exhibitions and curated shows are significant to our mission but they also require a lot of work and labor – from installation and marketing to shopping for snacks and goodies for the openings, all of this takes significant time. In this busy season of life, and without current financial support from granting entities, it has felt beneficial for us to take a minute to focus on our individual work and cultivate a healthy art-making space for ourselves. We believe when the time is right, this approach will position us as a strong support for our community as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.coralgreenstudios.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coral_greenstl/
