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- Randy Shull and Hedy Fischer: Owners of Pink Dog Creative, a new business in the River Arts District that houses artist studios, a recently opened restaurant called The Junction, and the Asheville Area Art Council’s gallery space, The Artery. photos by Chris Wood
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- Pink Dog rising: Starting out as a three-foot-long anonymous graffiti tag, the dog (colored pink to make it less ferocious) is now the centerpiece of the colorful Depot Street building.
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- Artist community: Furniture maker Seth Weizenecker is one of 15 artists with studio space in Pink Dog Creative.
When Randy Shull and Hedy Fischer bought the future home of Pink Dog Creative in March of 2009, Depot Street was a very different place. The flood of industrial buildings turned artists’ studios that had already transformed much of the River Arts District hadn’t yet reached this area, and 372 Depot, part of the massive Glen Rock Depot development that now anchors the street, was still in the planning stage. The neighborhood renaissance, remembers Shull, “hadn’t turned the corner beyond Clingman Café yet … but we thought, ‘Let’s activate the building and make it really exciting with color.’”
For Shull and Fischer, Pink Dog Creative has been a long time coming. Shull, an architect, painter and designer, has worked in four different local studios over the past 20 years, and with a combined 50 years of living and working here, the couple sees the building as the culmination of their experiences in Asheville. “This is something we’ve built toward gradually; it didn’t happen overnight,” Fischer reports.
Inspired by the palette of Merida, the Mexican town where they spend much of their time, the pair decided to use bright colors to turn the former textile warehouse into an arts destination, and in May of last year, after the previous tenant had moved on, Shull began painting the various street-facing sections of the 20,000 square foot structure, creating a panorama of greens, yellows, oranges, reds and blues.
Then along came the pink dog. Originally a 3-foot-long stencil bequeathed by a graffiti artist, the image attracted plenty of attention. Inspired, Shull and Fischer decided to incorporate it somehow. “While I was painting the building, people would walk by and they’d say, ‘What about the dog?’” Shull recalls. After mulling it over, he created a much larger version of the original, later painting it pink to make it look less ferocious.
The strategy paid off: Three months before the official opening, all 15 of Pink Dog’s artist spaces were already leased. Today, the repurposed structure houses artists working in a wide variety of media, from painters and sculptors to bookbinders and furniture makers.
Collage/pastel artist Ginger Huebner and painter Ralston Fox Smith have shared studio space in the River Arts District since 2007. The two moved to Pink Dog last June, and both say it’s been a positive experience. “I feel like we fit the space better; it’s more unified. And the community? You couldn’t ask for more,” Huebner reports.
That sense of community is also part of what attracted furniture-maker Seth Weizenecker. “I love the space,” he says. “I think it’s going to help pull a lot of people down [to the area] and help expand the River Arts District a little bit. It’s been nice to come down to this building and have a bunch of other artists here.”
Pink Dog Creative offers more than just studio space, however. The Junction, a recently opened restaurant/bar, focuses on locally sourced food. Tanya Triber — who co-owns the eatery with her husband, Charles — says their business has a mutually beneficial relationship with Pink Dog’s vibrant arts community.
“We bring people down there that might not otherwise visit the studios, and they bring people to us who might not know that there’s a restaurant there,” she explains. And because the building was designed as a destination, the restaurant already boasts some regulars, which might have taken longer to achieve in a less visible location, notes Triber.
Meanwhile, Pink Dog Creative is also the Asheville Area Arts Council’s new home. Last year, Shull was part of a group of arts-community leaders brought in to help the nonprofit retool its core mission. He suggested relocating to Pink Dog, which the organization did back in January. It’s been a great fit, says Interim Executive Director Graham Hackett. The new space (dubbed the Artery) “is incredibly dynamic and versatile for everything that we want to be doing,” including exhibits and workshops, says Hackett.
And for Shull and Fischer, that fertile mix is precisely what makes Pink Dog Creative special. Both are enthusiastic about recent developments in the neighborhood. “Four individual buildings have been bought by artists since we’ve bought this one,” Shull reports. That only reinforces the kind of cross-pollination the two have tried to foster via Pink Dog — an environment where artists can thrive.
“It’s nice to be amongst a creative community,” says Fischer. “It’s better than being around guys who change tires,” adds Shull.
— Send your local business news and tips to business@mountainx.com, or call Christopher George at 251-1333, ext. 140.
Hey, what’s wrong with guys who change tires?
Seriously. Let’s hope this quote was taken ridiculously out of context. Otherwise, this blue collar-hating art-yuppie can kiss my working class ass.
Even if Randy Shull made the “better than being around guys who change tires” comment, did the writer, Christopher George, make a good journalistic decision to end his piece with it? Did Christopher George’s editor make the right decision to leave it in? Should a reporter, who is trying to portray a subject in a favorable light, as Christopher George is clearly trying to do with Randy Shull, take care to select the subject’s quotes to emphasize the positive?
Thanks for the feedback.
For context, the quote from Shull was in direct response to a question about whether or not creating art within a community of artists helps the creative process. His full response was: “For me, not really. It’s better than being around guys who change tires.”
As for whether or not it should’ve made it into the piece, I take exception to the notion that I was trying to portray anyone in a positive (or negative) light here. It is not my job to portray anyone in a favorable or unfavorable light. PR folks craft images, not reporters. I am not a PR guy, nor do I wish to be. I am a reporter. My job, as I see it, is to portray the people in my story honestly and fairly, and to quote them accurately. For what it’s worth, it is also not my job to determine how the reader should interpret the quotes from a given source. It is my job to frame them properly, and not to take them out of context. I believe I did that here.
Having said that, obviously I was cognizant of how Shull’s comment would be taken by some people, but again, leaving it out to satisfy some notion that I’m supposed to be writing a “positive” story would’ve been dishonest on my part.
Still, if Shull had made that comment offhandedly, without it being in direct response to a question, it would’ve been pretty hard to find justification for putting it in, but as it happens, he was answering a question (a pretty important one at that). It was a short, simple answer to a question that was important to the story. Because of that, I put it in the piece.
In the context of the interviewee hypothesizing a choice between being immersed in a creative community (such as art or design studios) or being in one that is more matter-of-fact, trade oriented (such as changing tires) in order to improve his creative process, I see the quote as merely choosing the former over the latter in such a hypothetical scenario and not an elitist insult towards tire-changers in general (although it does prejudiciously assume a lack of creativity in tire-changers as individual people, rather than present the tire service industry as a whole as being less than conducive to creative inspiration).