As of the last day in April, a business that has been at the heart of the downtown arts district is closing its doors forever. Lighthouse Art and Framing owner Barry Shapiro has new projects in mind, involving not only his own painting, but film-making as well. And he will retain his seat on an advisory committee involved with Vero’s downtown.
When Shapiro announced the store’s closure to his customers via email earlier this month, he was surprised and touched by the response he received.
“The last few days, people have been coming in to say goodbye and make sure I’m okay. Many have offered suggestions such as, ‘Why don’t you go move in here, or move there?’ They don’t want us to leave, which is very nice,” he says.
Shapiro has known for several months his lease would not be renewed. While he prefers not to go into details, Shapiro stresses that the closing had nothing to do with the viability of the gallery’s location. He anticipates being involved in the downtown business district for some time to come.
“I’m segueing into the next phase. This is like, my seventh career,” he says.
When he purchased Lighthouse Art and Framing six years ago, it was located on 17th Street.
“My idea from the beginning was to move it downtown, because I felt there was the potential for a terrific art scene downtown. And I wanted to be a part of that,” says Shapiro.
He ticks off the names of artists and gallerists with whom he has worked to make 14th Avenue synonymous with the arts scene in Vero: Lila Blakeslee of Gallery 14; Linda and George O’Malley who formerly owned Darby Fine Art; Maria Sparsis of Tea and Chi and Flametree Clay Art Gallery.
“So many people have worked very hard. We didn’t always agree, but we worked very hard for the same cause,” he says.
For those who enjoyed sparring with Shapiro on issues affecting downtown, the party is not over. As a member of the City Council’s Economic Development Zone Advisory Committee, Shapiro intends to stay involved and “see more and better things happen for downtown Vero.”
Lighthouse showed art in every available space not occupied by the framing end of the business or the art supplies sold there. The gallery “always tried to do things a little different,” says Shapiro.
That included tying art exhibitions to philanthropic causes, with artists donating part of the proceeds from sales to charities including Sun Up Center, Arc of Indian River County, Safe Space, Hibiscus Children’s Center, Special Equestrians and Camp Haven.
Exhibiting artists were drawn from near and far, and included seasoned professionals as well as those for whom Lighthouse was their first professional venue. Shapiro is particularly proud of his gallery’s annual summertime show featuring local art teachers, who, he notes, “usually never get that kind of exposure.”
In addition to offering art classes to the general public, Lighthouse has been a locus for artists to meet creatively. Lighthouse sponsored an open drawing studio where artists worked from the nude model. Earlier on, it held monthly soirées where artists and collectors discussed “everything,” says Shapiro.
The conversation included not only art world news, but the nitty-gritty of an artist’s life: budgeting time, finding representation, entering competitions, dealing with rejection.
Shapiro himself studied art in the early 1970s at Pratt Institute, and aspired to be a professional fine artist, “painting gigantic canvases” in SoHo.
“The dream was a lot harder than it looked,” he says.
When he realized he wasn’t going to cut it as a painter in New York City, Shapiro turned to another skill set, printmaking in the old-fashioned media of wood cut and wood engraving.
His stint as a freelance illustrator began with an introduction by a successful acquaintance, illustrator Marvin Mandelson, to an editor at New York Magazine.
Shapiro put down his woodcarving tools a few years later to enter the film-making industry; in 1984 he created his own company, NohHands Productions. In 2004 he began his directing career, which turned out to be a good prerequisite for running a frame shop and art gallery.
“I did not make movies, I made television commercials. Which is a very different animal. You can’t be a much of a prima donna; you have to play well with others, you have to be able to make clients happy, while still – and sometimes against their judgment – delivering a quality product that you know will work.”
Now that he is free of the store, Shapiro intends to devote more time to his first love, painting. And then there is screenwriting.
He recently finished a screenplay with his writing partner, French film director Mariette Monpierre, about French artist Suzanne Valadon, a one-time circus acrobat who modeled for Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec and was the mother of Maurice Utrillo.
Like Shapiro, Monpierre worked in the advertising industry before directing her first feature film, “Elza.” Released in 2011, that work won a number of international film festival awards and was a New York Times Critics’ Pick.
After she finished editing “Elza,” Monpierre told Shapiro that she wanted to get started on another project. She didn’t yet know what it would be, but it had to be special.
“The light bulb went off in my head,” recalls Shapiro. “I said, ‘I have it.’”
His inspiration to tell Valadon’s story came to him about eight years ago, when he picked up a slender biography about the artist in a bookstore.
Born in poverty, Valadon began her art career working as a figure model for the likes of Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir. It was by observing them at work that she taught herself to paint.
“She made herself into not only one of the preeminent artists of her time, but the great lady of Montmartre,” says Shapiro, who adds that Valadon was the first woman admitted to France’s exclusive Société Nationale des Beaux Arts. When she died of a stroke at age 72, Picasso and Braque were among her pallbearers.
Shapiro complains, “Today if you mention that name – if you say ‘Matisse’ or ‘Renoir,’ or ‘Mary Cassatt,’ people go, ‘Oh, yeah.’ – But Suzanne Valadon? They have no idea.”
Valadon has never been the subject of a feature film, says Shapiro. He and Monpierre have copyrighted their screenplay and registered it with the Writers Guild. They plan to meet soon to plot a strategy for pitching their screenplay, which focuses on a brief but formative part of Valadon’s career. “We could do her whole life, and every aspect would be fascinating.”
If, as it appears, the former gallery owner has already moved on in life, it is reluctantly.
“I would not trade these last five years for anything,” he says, citing the artists and collectors who entrusted their oeuvres and family heirlooms to his care.
“I am so glad I did this. I am so deeply appreciative of all the people who walked through my door.”