A work of art

South River Studios is a collective of artists in an old textile mill in Waynesboro, which houses the artist workspaces of Marti Mocahbee, a clay artist; Phillip Nolley and Minh Martin, glass artists; and Fred Crist, a metal sculptor.

Next weekend, the South River artists will host their eighth annual open studios event to present their works and demonstrations to the community. The event will run from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

A fundraiser that the public could participate in will be the blow-your-own ornament activity, for a $20 fee, which will benefit the North Branch School in Afton.

Nolley, Mocahbee and Martin set up the studios, formerly known as Trinity Studios, at the old DuPont industrial site off Arch Avenue about eight years ago.

Nolley, originally from Staunton, who had his own studio, Quintessence Glass, from 1984 until 2000, worked at Sunspots Studio in Staunton. He met Mocahbee, who hails from Cincinnati, at an art show, and she followed him here to work at the Staunton studio. Nolley also hired Martin, who, though originally from the East coast, was working in California and moved to work locally in Staunton.

Ideas floated around about opening a group studio and led the trio to search in Staunton, but eventually they found that Waynesboro had a lot of old unused mill buildings.

Artist collaborations such as these, have popped up around the country, often in areas of blight, where industry has pulled out leaving myriad vacant buildings empty for use, which provide areas of growth and a core of individuals and businesses with which to begin community restorations.

Each artist at South River Studios is aware of how artistic communities are revitalizing dying downtowns and hope that their group can play a part to revive Waynesboro.

“We’re trying to keep the artists here,” Crist said, “even if the scale of the area moves up.”

“South River Complex has been very good to us,” said Mocahbee.

“It’s very cost effective,” said Nolley.

Not only that, but Waynesboro provides easy access to additional specialties.

“Resources are readily available,” said Crist, who lives in Charlottesville, “such as tooling, painting and machining shops. Charlottesville only has a few and they charge high dollar amounts.”

The artist collective is a three-way split of space and financial responsibilities.

Crist, a metalsmith, has his own studio in the same building, just down a short walk from the other three artisans. He’s been in Waynesboro for more than 20 years and had a studio in Basic City with a partner until 2007.

Martin works in wholesale, Nolley and Mocahbee in retail and Crist performs commission work. They also offer time rentals to other professional and amateur artists.

But business is not the only place the four seem to work well together. Their art reflects years of friendship and congeniality and the glass creators have begun infusing the steely reinforcement of metal.

“It adds a dynamic to the studio,” said Martin. “Borrowing ideas and learning how to avoid mistakes. It’s a good personality mix. It’s not supposed to work, but it does.”

Nolley said the original idea was just to have a larger space for them to work in, but, “Since 2008, it is difficult to survive as independent artists. We’ve shared space, time and expenses and it has enabled us to continue to exist.”