The historic storefronts are filling up with art studios, galleries and boutiques - there are even plans for a new restaurant.
For years, the Walt Theater and the Riverfront Cultural Society have been downtown New Haven's primary attractions, luring people with movies, live concerts, weekly yoga, book club meetings and such.
Today the area has much more to offer. Local designer and textile artist Katie Kantley, who is gaining nationwide attention for her work, has a boutique; the Front Street Artisans gallery features the work of a variety of Franklin County artists and a retail space for antiques; and renowned artist Russell Irwin, whose "signature paper mosaic style utilizes many layers of torn paper accented with acrylic paints," has his studio with plans to create a gallery as well.
The newest tenant to downtown New Haven is Astral Glass Studio and Design, which has moved into the old IGA building at 133 Front St. Owners Gary and Judy Rice have been working since last June to clean up the circa 1880s structure.
A grand opening event will be held this weekend, beginning Friday night and running through Sunday evening. Hours are Friday and Saturday, Feb. 27-28, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, March 1, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday there will be live music, food and handcrafted beer. The food will be provided by Gary Rice's twin sister, Gail Seastrom, who plans to open a restaurant a few doors down from her brother's glass studio this spring.
The glass studio will be open Friday for people to stop in and look around, even to shop the retail space, but the artisans will be hard at work blowing glass in the hot shop, an interior room that has large windows so shoppers can observe the action.
"We'll have two rows of theater seats here where people can sit down and watch us working," Gary Rice told The Missourian last week as he and the rest of his crew were still busy finishing construction of the space. "We'll even come out and talk to them about what we're doing.
"We want people to have the opportunity to learn how glass is made from the beginning," Rice remarked.
This Friday, however, there won't be any chit-chat with viewers, he noted. The artisans will be focused on their craft.
"Blowing glass is really a dance," said Rice. "It's about knowing where everything is without looking at it."
Variety of Glass Work
Gary Rice founded Astral Glass Studio and Gallery in northern California near Lake Tahoe in 1974. He later met and married Judy, a glass blower who owned her own studio.
"He likes to say that he married the competition," she remarked with a grin.
They moved the studio to Clarksville, Mo., back in 2003.
Astral Glass creates a variety of glass work -Êhandblown glass, glass jewelry, fused glass, kiln formed glass and stained glass.
"In California we were really well-known for our stained glass," said Gary Rice, noting the studio has commissioned work in 42 states, six countries and even one in the Pentagon.
"We did an etching that went into the Judge Advocate General's office," he said.
Astral Glass makes any type of glass product you can imagine - vases, goblets, decanters, magnets, ornaments . . . even light fixtures.
"We'll do anything. We are always open to a challenge," Gary commented.
About 30 percent of the studio's business is commission work and the other 70 percent is retail, which provides the artisans more flexibility.
"Because we have a retail space, our work can be as serious or whimsical as we want," said Gary. "We like to always have different stuff on our shelves."
On their Web site, the Rices describe their work as "an evolving continuum . . . We make every effort to let the glass describe itself."
The Rices have two assistants who help them in their craft, Lance Stroheker and Nicholas Philips.
Philips came to the studio as an apprentice three years ago after working 23 years as an ICU/trauma nurse. Stroheker, who had formally studied art at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville with the intention of becoming an art teacher, fell in love with glass work after one class and walked into the Rices' studio one day looking for a job. They just happened to have one.
Lured to New Haven
When the Rices moved their glass studio from northern California to Clarksville, it was in large part to escape skyrocketing energy prices out West. Running a glass studio requires the use of very high temperature ovens/furnaces that are kept running 24-7, Gary said, noting the furnace Judy uses to make her jewelry beads stays a constant 2,100 degrees and the "reheat oven" the artisans use while they're working a piece of glass remain at 2,500 degrees.
"That's the temperature we need to keep the glass purposeful," he said. "We pull a piece out to work on it and then as the glass starts to harden again, we can put it back in the oven to make it pliable again."
Energy costs weren't the only thing the Rices found they liked about Missouri. They also liked the slower pace of life and "the people were enormously friendly," Gary stressed.
The couple decided to move their studio from Clarksville (where they had changed the name from Astral Glass Studio to Clarksville Glassworks because, oddly enough, a neighboring store had the word Astral in its name) to New Haven after being wooed by several New Haven natives.
Alan Bell, who runs Front Street Artisans, and his wife, Carol, had visited the Clarksville area and the artisan shops there. They talked up New Haven and the art district being created in the downtown loop.
Then Steve and Kathy Bertrand, owners of the Levee House Bed and Breakfast in downtown New Haven, visited Clarksville and told more favorable stories of the Franklin County community.
"They really lobbied us to come here and see what it was all about, and they won us over with their strong belief in the riverfront," said Gary Rice.
"They talked about the theater, the music, all of the other artists on the street . . . The enthusiasm of folks in this town for what they are doing is contagious."
The move made a lot of good business sense, too, said Rice. In Clarksville, their studio was in a population area of about 70,000 people but in New Haven that number is closer to 100,000 people, he noted.
Now that the studio is in New Haven, the Rices have returned the business to its original name.
Renovation work on the old IGA building has been extensive. When the Rices began their clean up last summer, all of the components of the grocery store were still present, including the acoustic tile ceiling, butchering area and walk-in freezer. They have ripped out all of that and given the space a new elegance.
"When we took out the acoustic tile ceiling, we found the old pressed metal ceiling still there," said Gary Rice. "It was damaged, but we restored it and were able to keep it."
The front of the store is set up for a retail space and studio where they can showcase their glass pieces as well as the work of other artists on the walls. The hot shop where the Rices and their assistants blow glass is in the middle of the space, and toward the back is a warm studio where Judy makes her jewelry and a grinding and polishing area, where they finish their pieces and also where they can repair damaged glass.
Upstairs is a two-bedroom apartment where one of the assistants will live.
Alan Bell, who helped lure the Rices to New Haven, was in the studio last week helping them prepare the building for this weekend's grand opening.
"These guys are really going to be a positive addition to the area because of their established clientele base," he remarked.
To see more of the Rices' work, visit their Web site, www.clarksvilleglassworks.com.
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