Atelier Off Bay
Hidden Gem for Art Lovers
story by JEANNE REYNOLDS photos by JOHN WOLLWERTH
Studios and galleries offer unique opportunity to meet artists and see them in action
Art lovers can breathe a sigh of relief. Atelier On Bay is not gone. In fact, it hasn’t even moved.
But the unique collection of artists’ studios and galleries has changed its name to more accurately reflect where you can find it: Atelier On Bay is actually — and now, formally — Atelier Off Bay.
Atelier On Bay opened nearly a decade ago in the historic Lipsitz building on the corner of Bay and West streets. When the century-old department store and grocery store on the site closed in 2010, a local couple bought the building and decided to renovate the upstairs into art studios. Atelier’s entrance is indeed “off” Bay, marked by a bright red door at 203 West Street.
Fourteen different artists now share the space, each operating separate businesses in their own studios/galleries. A central main gallery displays a selection of all the artists’ work, or sometimes a personal show for one artist, and several artists also use it for teaching classes. And an important perk for artists: Many of the studios have windows because the area was once used as living quarters.
“As a gallery owner, it’s a steal to find studios with such good light and this amount of space,” says artist Jennifer Wharton, who co-founded a gallery while living on the Maryland shore. “We have camaraderie. I can get a critique any time — whether I want it or not,” she laughs.
A Close Brush with Talent
Beaufort, Port Royal, and the surrounding area are chock-a-block with art galleries, but “the Atelier is unique,” says artist and Atelier manager Mary Segars, one of three artists who’ve been part of the business since it opened.
“People can come up and meet the artists, see where they work and the materials they use, and ask questions,” Segars says. “I think people are intrigued by seeing the process.”
“It’s not a traditional art gallery,” agrees artist Michael Reibel. “We each have our own dedicated space and working studios/galleries. That’s our differentiation. We can explain the process and make a connection with people. I’m represented at other galleries, but I rarely get to meet the buyers. Here I can interact with customers, but I don’t have to be here every day because the artists help each other out with sales.”
The ability to meet art lovers and potential customers in person pays off in another way: commissions. “We do a lot of commissions,” Segars says. “This is where we meet people.”
More Than Brushes and Easels
Visitors are likely to be surprised by the wide variety of art mediums they’ll find at Atelier. In addition to oil, acrylic, and watercolor paintings, different Atelier artists create fiber art, ceramics, stained glass, fused glass, and murals. Wharton says that a jeweler would be a nice addition, although there are no vacant spaces at the moment (“There’s always a waiting list to get in,” she says). However, Reibel is helping fill that niche by devoting a corner of his studio to handmade fabric and paper jewelry that supports a good cause: 100% of proceeds go to cancer patients and their families in Beaufort County.
Another surprise might be the array of sizes of art pieces and how affordable original artwork can be. Pieces range from small paintings to wall-sized murals, and “prices can range from $200 to more than $10,000,” Reibel estimates.
And because Atelier is slightly off the main drag, it might surprise visitors in another way: the incredible talent, beauty, and professionalism of the artists and their work. Many of the artists boast long lists of regional and national awards, with work in high demand by both individual collectors and corporations.
“It’s worth walking up the stairs for the eye candy. People are going to see quality,” Wharton says. “It’s a hidden gem.”
Meet the Artists
Earline Allen — ceramics and painting
Allen is a lifelong artist and art educator with an extensive background in studying and teaching painting and ceramics. She developed the ceramics program at Marshall University, eventually retiring after more than 40 years of service. Allen says that teaching became her life, but she now hopes to create art that touches the lives of others.
Sandra Baggette — oils
Baggette combines her passions for gardening and painting to create whimsical still-life art. She enjoys creating vignettes in her gardens, connecting her favorite natural subjects, and capturing their essence in a vibrant impression of color and light. Baggette’s studies and travels throughout the United States and abroad also have driven her growth as an artist.
Cynthia Buckley — stained glass
Buckley combines her lifelong love of drawing and painting with an adult fascination with antique glass to design and handcraft unique glass art. She studied at the Diablo Glass School in Boston, an affiliate of the Museum of Fine Arts and Massachusetts College of Art, then worked for many years from her own studio in Cape Cod before relocating to Beaufort. In addition to stained glass, she creates using glass blowing, fusing, flameworking, glass sculpture, etching, sandblasting, and wireworking.
Laura Burcin — fibers
Burcin has spun a hobby of weaving and dyeing yarn into a career, creating wearable and decorative artwork from natural fibers such as cotton, wool, and linen. Her current focus is tapestries woven by hand on a loom using natural yarns, including some made with entirely handspun naturally dyed yarn.
Gloria Dalvini — watercolors and oils
Dalvini is a plein air (outdoor) painter of homes, villages, and flowers seen in South Carolina, Michigan, and Europe. After a 20-year career in advertising as a graphic designer, she began painting full time. Dalvini previously operated her own studio/gallery in Beaufort for 11 years and helped found Beaufort’s semiannual Gallery Walks and the Guild of Beaufort Galleries.
Lynne Fensterer — muralist
Fensterer specializes in custom hand-painted paper designs and mural wallpaper projects. With a background in advertising and graphic design and an interest in interior design, she began a career as a muralist painting in clients’ homes from New York to Florida to San Francisco. Her studio work now involves custom-painting murals on a liner applied as wallpaper.
Pam Hagan — water colors, acrylics, and mixed media
Hagan loves the creative process of making art using a variety of styles, techniques, and mediums, as well as teaching painting and drawing classes. She holds a fine arts degree from the University of Georgia, and has exhibited and taught throughout the Atlanta/Marietta/Roswell area and coastal South Carolina.
Carol Kamm — cold wax and oil
Kamm began her painting career in northeast Ohio while working as a graphic designer, with further art training through local art museums, institutes, and universities, as well as workshops with nationally acclaimed artists. As an abstract artist, Kamm’s work ranges from quietly understated to the extraordinarily complex, with a focus on graphic elements and employing metallics to add depth and discreet highlights.
Sue McCarthy — acrylics and oils
McCarthy came to Beaufort in 2011 after 40 years as an innkeeper in northern New England. In New Hampshire, she became friends with one of the area’s premier artists, and began years of studying and painting with her. Now, McCarthy finds continual inspiration in the beauty of the Lowcountry sea islands and skies.
Marty Nash — stained glass
Nash began working with stained glass in the 1990s when his town was converting a century-old church into a community center and offered to send volunteers to a stained glass school, so they could repair and restore the church’s old, dilapidated windows. Nash has lived in Beaufort full-time since 2017, and teaches individual and group lessons in his Atelier studio.
Michael Reibel — oils
Reibel is a contemporary representational painter focusing on the southern landscape, as well as his popular bourbon/spirits still-life series. He put a childhood talent for art on the back burner during a senior executive career with a national health care company before picking a brush back up in his 40s, eventually leaving the corporate world to paint full-time.
Mary Grayson Segars — oils
Segars works in a representational style with a focus on light and its effects on the natural world. Entirely self-taught, she began painting when she moved to Beaufort in 1996, following a career as a research technician. Her dozens of awards include Best in Show at the 2015 Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Fest.
Linda Tully — oils and cold wax
Tully began her creative career as a graphic designer in Atlanta and learned to paint after moving to South Carolina in 1997. Continuing study led her to become intrigued by abstract art and innovative painting techniques involving the cold wax medium. Her work involves a process of applying and removing layers of color to reveal the finished piece.
Jennifer Heyd Wharton — oils and watercolors
Wharton is a contemporary realist with a focus on painting portraits and landscapes. She holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia and has enjoyed a career spanning package design, art director, illustrator, painter, and co-founder of the Troika Gallery in Easton, Maryland.
