Sweeping is a performance art when Laura Hollis holds the broom. As she regularly does, Hollis cleans the dirt and trash from the entry to her Newport arts center, The Artery. It’s a weekday afternoon, and there are few pedestrians on the sidewalks around Monmouth and Ninth streets in Newport’s downtown. A steady stream of traffic heading toward Cincinnati is the predominant sign of life.
Hollis holds her broom and looks at the vacant storefronts across the street.
“We’ve been here for two years, and people have no idea who we are,” she says, laughing wistfully. “People in the community are still afraid to come inside. The people who live in our backyard are still unsure about us.”
News about Newport’s latest entertainment developments keep coming. Shops, restaurants, a 3-D IMAX theater and a multiplex cinema will open at the 500,000 square-foot Newport on the Levee center this fall.
Munich-based beer garden Hofbrauhaus looks to exchange its plans for a location on Cincinnati’s riverfront for a site adjacent to Newport on the Levee. A high-rise apartment tower is being discussed. Plans for the 1,015 feet-high Millennium Tower, to be built at the northwest corner of Fifth and Monmouth Streets, continue to percolate.
Newport is undergoing a radical transformation into a family-friendly entertainment hub. New development will bring in lots of money, but none is going toward art.
Hollis, who opened The Artery’s doors in December 1999, sums up Newport’s recent building boom matter-of-factly: I don’t think the city of Newport considers the arts key to their new development.”
At age 30, Hollis is The Artery’s director and one of Newport’s leading arts advocates. She recently completed her master’s of fine arts degree at the University of Cincinnati, and she’s a noteworthy visual artist.
Inside The Artery’s first-floor gallery, her artwork is on display as part of an exhibition, “Memory, History & Storytelling.” Members of her large family are portrayed on unstretched canvases. There are video interviews with her elderly father. Broken-down chairs are stacked into a towering sculpture. Old photos, frames, assorted knickknacks and a feather mattress are grouped together into a shrine to her late grandmother, Ruby.
Hollis is a girlish woman with straight brown hair and a friendly smile. She’s a big believer in Newport and the people who call it home.
“I’d like to serve the Newport community because this community really needs it,” she says. “There is no arts center of this type in this community.”
Local business pundits applaud Newport for remaking its “Sin City” stretch of bars and strip joints into the family-friendly headquarters of the Newport Aquarium. Hollis’ question for city leaders is whether culture will ever play a significant role.
Hollis argues that some of the newfound money should be used to support galleries and arts centers like The Artery. If Newport wants to attract the middle-class back to its neighborhoods, Hollis says the city needs to realize that the middle class wants to live near art.
The one place that symbolizes Newport’s chance at a thriving arts community is The Artery. Located inside a ramshackle storefront, The Artery strives to reach out and convince Newport residents that art can be an important part of their lives.
This summer, Hollis organized Lifelines, a month-long series of plays, dance performances and film screenings. Its goal was to promote emerging artists and attract volunteers to The Artery family. A newly renovated second-floor gallery and 50-seat black box theater opened to the public. Later this fall, The Artery will begin an after-school art program with fourth- and fifth-grade students from Newport City Schools.
Hollis is filled with ideas for expanding The Artery and helping Newport. Of course, the city needs to be believe in the arts enough to help The Artery.
“What’s one of the unique things about us is that we bring artists and the community together,” Hollis says. “There is a give-and-take here. But it’s questionable whether we’re going to make it or not. We’re always teetering on the edge of uncertainty.”
At the base of Monmouth Street, Newport on the Levee stands as a symbol of the city’s newfound bragging rights. For city leaders, landing shops and movie theaters is the way to outdo the big-city neighbor to the north. Unfortunately, The Artery is not part of the picture.
This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2001.