Serenity Gallery & Del Ray Artisans: Creative Partnership Open House in Alexandria

Alexandria, VA – Serenity Gallery will host an Open House on Sunday, November 16, 4-7 p.m. The event is part of our Creative Partnership program where 20% of sales is donated to an Alexandria nonprofit. We’re proud that our November partner is Del Ray Artisans (DRA).

DRA was founded in 1992 as a nonprofit with the mission of promoting art for the benefit of artists and the community. I was an early member.

Peter Smirniotopoulos with his wife, Lauren, co-founded the Del Ray Artisans Center to promote the “functional arts” and demonstrate the “Main Street” retail potential of Alexandria’s emerging Del Ray Community. He served as executive director from its January 1992 founding until December 1994, overseeing 16 exhibitions and personally organizing and curating two exhibitions each year, including the annual Furniture Show.

Terry Rowe, one of the founding members, remembers, “A few of us, led by Peter Smirniotopoulos, started talking about what we wished Del Ray could be. We were all neighbors who’d become acquainted walking our dogs in the neighborhood. We wanted life on the Avenue, a place where neighbors gathered and where the arts had a home. We began with space at 2210 Mount Vernon Avenue. The building’s owner, Roger Digilio, (Living Legend of Alexandria – 2010) generously loaned it to us. I still remember unlocking the door for the first time: bare walls, a gray concrete floor, and a feeling of possibility. We got to work painting the walls, and we went wild with the cement floor—sponge-painting it with bright colors until it popped.”

That first big exhibition was Into the Woods, a collaboration with local woodworkers. The pieces were functional art—furniture and objects that were both beautiful and useful.

Founding member Kathryn Brown fondly remembers the “Gallery Without Walls” years after the first space provided by Rodger Digilio was no longer available to DRA. Until the Colasanto Center, a City-owned building at 2704 Mount Vernon Avenue, was made available, the art was displayed in storefronts and non-gallery spaces that they would “mold to our purposes – including taking down or building new walls!”  Del Ray Artisans moved into the Colasanto Center in 1997. Kathryn and her partner, founding member Marlin Lord, were recognized as Living Legends of Alexandria in 2013.

What was it about the early 90s that sparked the founding of new organizations like DRA and another of “my babies,” KSMET, the King Street Metro Enterprise Team? Perhaps it was related to the recession. According to Wikipedia, “The early 1990s recession was a pivotal economic downturn that lasted for eight months, officially beginning in July 1990 and ending in March 1991.”

In January 1990, I moved Tisara Photography from the basement of my Fairlington townhouse to rented space on King Street. Even though the space was relatively affordable, it was a hard decision – I was then responsible for paying rent. My dad often said of me that I had more guts than brains.

I had a lot of energy and we didn’t have much work. I converted that energy into organizing the neighboring businesses into KSMET, an association that brought together professional services, retail, restaurants, art galleries, and arts organizations. It was modeled after the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce of which I was a member and which supported our early efforts. In fact, G. Barton (Bart) Middleton, Chamber President and CEO, served on our Board.

I chaired the first KSMET Discovery Festival in October 1990. The goal of the free family-oriented festival was literally to get the King Street Metro area on the map of Old Town that was distributed by the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association, now Visit Alexandria. The map of Old Town then went from the Potomac River to Washington Street or sometimes from the river to Route 1, not to the Metro.

I became president of KSMET in 1991 and the organization was incorporated as a 501c(3) corporation in August 1993. Both Peter Smirniotopoulos and I were recognized with Alex Awards by the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce in 1993 for our contributions to the city.

Here’s to the Creative Partnership of Serenity Gallery and DRA!  For details, contact [email protected].

Mosaic Artist/Photographer Nina Tisara is the founder of Living Legends of Alexandria.