Artistry on Main reopens — with two brand new artists — while classes remain on hold for now

Monica Zalaznik
June 24, 2020

BUCKHANNON – Artistry on Main in downtown Buckhannon reopened with new guidelines June 7.

Artistry on Main has officially reopened for the public to view and purchase artwork from local artists. Artistry on Main artist Sara Golden said their hours will remain the same, and they’ll be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

“We’re only allowing four customers in the store at one time. We take our temperature, we’re wiping down the pens we have for each sale and wiping down the credit card machine, which we do not touch somebody’s credit card – they insert the credit card themselves,” Golden said.

Baskets for sale from Covered Bridge Baskets.

She said the artists at the store are required to wear masks, and they will encourage customers to wear a mask when they come in the gallery.

President of Artistry on Main Christine Keller said if a customer does not have a mask, the gallery is selling them for $1, and if a customer purchases an item, the mask is free.

“We have a sanitation station by the front door and directional arrows on the floor,” Keller said. “We are sanitizing between customers and checking our workers’ temp in the morning. We want to ensure our artist and the public are as safe as possible. We have a plexiglass screen at the counter and our artists are required to wear masks.”

Keller said they have not decided when they will start offering art classes again and have considered doing online classes.

“We have not decided what we are going to do about classes yet,” Keller said. “We have discussed trying to do something online and trying to get going that way, but we haven’t decided yet. We were thinking about a live online class; you would sign up ahead of time and maybe the teacher could send out instructions about what the student would need.”

Handmade jewelry and pottery, available at Artistry on Main.

Keller said since the Spring into Art Show was canceled due to COVID-19, they have decided to offer their co-op artist-members the chance to make an artist video, and the videos will be posted on their YouTube page, where people can learn more about the artists.

“We will have them posted soon and we’re going to be advertising them soon, but they are listed on our YouTube channel, ‘Artistry on Main,’” Keller said. “We have a bunch of new artist videos on our stream if people are interested in learning about the artists that are there.”

She said two artists have joined Artistry on Main since the new year started, Wenweave and Lara Lawrence.

“One is Wenweave, who is a weaver and she does hand-dyed scarfs and she actually does all the weaving and dyeing and they’re absolutely fabulous,” Keller said. “The other one is Lara Lawrence, and she does hand painted gourds; she also does baskets that she will be adding soon.”