Last year, Jason Hughes, an artist and independent curator who founded Gallery Four in the H&H building, and his girlfriend, Franciska Farkas, a yoga instructor/video production artist, felt that they might have reached the limits of what Baltimore could offer them. Hughes had spent twelve years living and working in the H&H building on the west side, where he worked with a crew of six to put on exhibits; now, he was ready to strike out on his own.

Hughes began comparing rental rates for spaces that would accommodate an exhibition space in Baltimore and New York, where his artist friends seemed to be thriving. Browsing Craigslist.com one night, he found a notice placed by Mimi Roeder Vaughan, the founder and president of several travel agencies in Baltimore, for a small church on Falls Road and 38th Street that she had been using for her Falls Road Travel agency. He and Farkas were interested in the space, but Vaughan, who owns twenty-seven properties in the area, was uncomfortable with the way Hughes wanted to divide up the interior, so the deal fell through. A few months later, Vaughan called back and suggested that the couple look at one of her other properties, a former Pratt library branch at 1401 Light Street in South Baltimore.

One of four original main Pratt branches (it was built in 1886), the 2,500-square-foot building is deceptively small: forty feet wide and seventy feet long. The structure functioned as a library until 1971, when the new Light Street branch was built and the city declared it a surplus. Architect Peter Doo (a 2008 Urbanite Project participant) purchased it from the city in 1988 for $20,000 and converted it into a dwelling, restoring the hardwood pine floors, installing a kitchen, and dividing the interior space with glass doors. After living there with his family, Doo sold the building to Vaughan in 1992. She has since rented it out to a string of "quirky artists"—including a photographer who so stuffed the main room with stacks of his photographs that he couldn't live in it, and, more recently, a group of musicians who christened the space "the Library of Progress," decorating the foyer floor in a mosaic emblazoned with that name.

"I had admired the building from the outside for years but had never been inside," says Hughes. "As soon as we walked in, we knew the potential of what we were being offered." They plan to just call the building "The Library," evoking the building's original purpose by teaming up with politically and socially conscious artists to do lectures, exhibitions, artists residencies, and more. Hughes wants to curate three or four gallery shows a year, focusing on sculptural works, while maintaining flat files of other artists' works. "The space attracts energy," says Hughes. "It's the idea of the library—there are ideas coming in, incubating, and going back out."

Hughes and Farkas will also coordinate projects with their sub-tenant, video producer and director Maureen Martin. If Farkas and Martin do a video project (they are tentatively calling their collaborations Work in Progress), Hughes may put up a show or schedule programming that relates to their work. And when Farkas holds yoga classes, she says, they just do the poses around the sculptures.

The April 12 grand opening attracted some familiar faces, but also many people Hughes had never met. "Hopefully we can entice the Federal Hill locals enough to become interested in contemporary art," he says. "This is greatly important—a new collector base needs to emerge in Baltimore, because there is so much great work out there."

—Marianne Amoss is Urbanite's managing editor.


The Library's latest exhibit, a group show titled Passage, runs through August 9, with an Artscape reception July 12, 3–6 p.m. The gallery is open Thurs–Sat noon–5 p.m., or by appointment for groups. For more information about the exhibit, yoga classes, and other upcoming events, go to www.thelibraryproject.net or call 443-708-0282.




1 - Reading room: A small foyer conducts visitors into the large main room of the former library, which once housed the circulation desk. The back of the building, separated from the main space by glass doors, contained the stacks. Some of the original moldings and wainscoting remain, plus the original hardwood floor. The sculptures are by Virginia artist R.L. Croft.

2 - Owner Mimi Roeder Vaughan calls the building one of her "jewels," and also a "money pit"—especially the slate roof, in which she's invested more than $20,000. She's been offered $1 million for the space, but says she'd be willing to sell it to current tenants Jason Hughes and Fran Farkas for slightly less. "Money isn't everything," she says.


Share your thoughts at www.urbanitebaltimore.com/forum.