Artists manifest their works on blank canvases. When artists become entrepreneurs, a building can become the canvas to express intentions and new endeavors. Kingston’s neighborhoods, with their one-of-a-kind, well-built older buildings and active, strong community of artists and small-business owners, foster such visions and new enterprises. In a building they have acquired on Fair Street in Uptown Kingston, three women entrepreneurs are at work during these winter weeks of early 2024 creating a new commercial venture that will combine an art gallery, authentic Italian café, and a mercantile hub selling gifts and goods for the home and showcasing authors and artists.
The three entrepreneurs spearheading the venture on Fair Street are Anne Sanger, the founder and director of the Pinkwater Gallery in Uptown, who is an abstract artist and fashion illustrator; Pinkwater Gallery co-curator and artist Helena Palazzi, whose extensive background ranges from commercial photography to paintings and mixed-media art; and business partner Samara Daly, who has expertise in community engagement, government, public-private partnerships and innovative redevelopment projects. They have acquired a three-story brick commercial building at 239 Fair Street. Already, the owners have done renovations to the second and third floors there and are now leasing office and studio/creative spaces.
Sanger will relocate Pinkwater Gallery from the location where she has operated it for four years, at 56 North Front Street, to a new space on the first floor of the Fair Street building. The gallery will close its current site on January 15, and is holding a “closing party” for this location on Saturday, January 13 at 5 p.m. to celebrate the art and artists the gallery has featured here since September 2019. On view now in the North Front Street gallery is a range of art by Sanger, such as paintings, framed collages, and a fashion illustration, as well as new work by her mother, Suzanne Sanger.
Palazzi, Daly, and Sanger have formed a new business enterprise they have named Kingston Social, encompassing the gallery, café, and retail business. As the name imparts, they envision it as much more than a brick-and-mortar presence. The team has many objectives and ideas for gallery talks, art classes, social hours with makers, and community pop-up markets.
Just as she has done with the gallery, Sanger wants to build on her approach of seeking to promote art that is accessible and inspiring. With Pinkwater, “I’ve sought to have art that is not so strange that people don’t know what to think of it,” Sanger explains. “We’re about having someone come in and love the art, and he or she can see it in their place.”
A certain serendipity has brought the women and the endeavor together. Sanger knew that she wanted to have her gallery business evolve and to create other revenue streams, especially after finding that a gallery business is not sustainable over 12 months a year in Kingston. The three women are friends with different strengths, Sanger says.
Then, in inquiring about a space at 239 Fair Street, they learned from the building’s owners, Mary Ann and Kevin DeGroot, that the building was available for purchase. In Sanger’s words, she wanted to make an investment and “double-down on Kingston,” prizing the commitment that artists, entrepreneurs, and others have in Uptown.
Sanger, Palazzi, and Daly came up with the name Kingston Social together. The idea behind Kingston Social, Sanger says, is a place and experience that bridges the varied elements of today’s Kingston character — what feels like the hipster Brooklyn-type Kingston with that of longtime Kingston residents. As she observes, “We want to bridge the gap.”
Take the Italian café, for example. This is not meant to be an extension of one’s office, where people stare at and work on laptops for hours. It’s intended to be a real European café, offering a range of espresso drinks, coffee, and pastries in a comfortable setting. Sanger says the café’s setting will be “human and analog,” a place where people can converse with friends and neighbors or relax over a book. It’s also inspired by the Swedish concept of fika, a much-loved tradition that means to have a coffee and something sweet, relax, and enjoy the break with family, friends, or colleagues. Sanger talks of having a play table where children can have fun while their parent relaxes.
As befits an enterprise with social in the name, the mercantile concept will aim for a welcoming, homey feeling. It will feature goods for the home and gifts, plus artistic activities for “children 4 to 99.” It will not be a maker’s shop of only local and regional products, explains Daly, but, as she sees it, “a carefully curated” mercantile shop of goods from all over that fit the Hudson Valley. A working mom, she tells of “going down the rabbit hole for the best tote bags” and settling on Risdon totes, large, durable bags that a family business crafts from their base in Shrewsbury, a small city in western England. (The company, Risdon & Risdon offers free repairs of their products for life.)
As an example of the art activities and products, Daly and Sanger cited author and professional artist Alli Koch’s How to Draw Books for Kids, a series that is geared toward children and beginners of all ages. Other possibilities for classes include fashion illustration, how to build an art collection, and how to turn Amazon trash into treasured artworks.
To preview Kingston Social, Pinkwater Galley hosted a Holiday Show and Pop-Up Market starting in early December, mixing in original works of art among the mercantile offerings to give a sense of how the scheme will look in the new Fair Street first-floor space.
The three women plan to open their new business, Kingston Social, on Memorial Day weekend. There’s much to do in the Fair Street building to complete the plans and spaces for Pinkwater Gallery, the café, and the mercantile business. There’s no mistaking the owners’ enthusiasm and passion for this new venture, in Uptown Kingston, a walkable, historic, welcoming neighborhood where their commitment will take shape as winter flows into spring. As Sanger says, “Every time we explain the Kingston Social concept to someone, we get more excited to open this year.”
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