Five years ago, “ha!” signs and the presence of the Creative Alliance were, to the casual observer, the only clues that Highlandtown was an arts community.
Today, it couldn’t be more obvious. How else could you describe a neighborhood where you can purchase the most intricately designed jigsaw puzzle, a vintage fox stole or a stained-glass cockroach?
That last item can be picked up at Y:ART, Julie Yensho’s much-anticipated art gallery and fine gift shop.
“Hit this thing off the table and it’ll skitter away,” Yensho said, noting the anatomical accuracy of the metallic piece with the many-colored glass underside.
Six-hundred fifty people turned out for the Oct. 10 grand opening of Y:ART, and that month the gallery featured pieces that fit the eeriness of Halloween. Only in a classical Justin Wiest painting would the warm orange glow of a wood stove be a sinister thing to be feared.
Y:ART includes a wide-variety of art-with-a-purpose, such as a fruit bowl fashioned from welded-together washers, or steel furniture by Alex Nozik.
Yensho includes a jeweler in every opening; currently goldsmith Lauren Schott has pieces on display.
Yensho, a ceramics artist, discovered the building at 3402 Gough St. a couple years ago while she and her woodworker husband, Tom, were walking their dachsunds It seemed the perfect place—studio space for the couple to practice their respective disciplines, and gallery space to showcase the work of other artists and high-end crafters.
After the city’s zoning board rejected their plans, the Southeast Community Development Corporation helped the couple cut through the red tape to realize their dream. This fall’s opening was bittersweet for Yensho, as her husband had died in the spring.
“I miss my Tom,” she said, “but I feel he’s watching over me and keeping things the way they should be—keeping me in line.”
A trip to a high-caliber gallery like Y:ART requires a high-caliber outfit, and nearby Rust-N-Shine, located at 3522 A Bank St. at Conkling St., carries the aforementioned fox stole (a half dozen of them, made by a Baltimore furrier), liederhosen suspenders and an assortment of vintage coats and hats from the subtle to the supercilious.
Owner Kevin Bernhard, a past president of the Highlandtown Community Association, calls his shop “a vintage retro marketplace.” By no means limited to clothing, Rust-N-Shine is also a good place to pick up an old View-Master, a Burt Bacharach record or a fire-extinguishing cocktail shaker that plays music.
“Some engineer probably just tried to fit too much into the same thing,” Bernhard said of that last item, turning the chrome piece over in his hands.
He and Kinsley Ross opened Rust-N-Shine Oct. 17. They find their unique items at auctions, estate sales and “all over the place.”
“People dump stuff in my backyard,” said Ross.
It can’t be easy for a couple of knick-knack junkies to sell, rather than keep, all the cool stuff they find.
“A lot of things live with us for awhile,” Bernhard explained. “We treat them well. I’ve got a treasure room at home where I go and look at them.”
A block to the north of Rust-N-Shine is the Highlandtown Gallery at 248 S. Conkling St. Opened by Felicia Zannino-Baker in 2013, the bright space featuring a mix of high-end art, gifts (such as Debbie Lynn Zwiebach’s jigsaw puzzles) and Highlandtown-specific books, clothing and memorabilia.
Thanks to a state arts loan and guidance from the Southeast CDC, Zannino-Baker was able to convert the building—one of the hardest-hit in the mid-Atlantic earthquake of 2011—into the anchor gallery it is today.
“We’re finally an arts district,” said Yensho, reflecting on the complementary businesses and galleries. “It’s wonderful that we’re all here, and that we’re all different.”