In Fun We Trust
Story by Amanda Larch
Photos by Mary Baldwin
DEDICATED ENTIRELY TO THE ARTS AND SOUL, CREATIVITY THRIVES AT GUM STORE STUDIOS.
Each of the seven artists in residence brings their own style, ideas, dreams, and ambitions to their studio space, but Gum Store would not be what it is without the leadership of Penny Fioravante. She had big dreams for the space she purchased, which fell into disrepair over the years and was looking for the right people to call it home once again.
“It’s all fallen together,” Penny Fioravante says. “We’ve made friendships, we’re making a community, and I really think that when the right person is there, that’s when the space will get finished. We’re on a wing and a prayer and it’s working.”
While Gum Store Studios nurtures the arts and the soul, energy, healing, and movement are just as important, evident at Source of Force, specializing in Reiki and floatation therapy, owned by Laura Allman.
“Reiki is Japanese energy healing,” Allman, a level three Reiki master, says. “Reiki is a way of life for me personally; there’s a lot of peace that comes with that.”
Floating benefits include joint and back pain relief, sport injury recovery, and decreased anxiety and depression. Source of Force also offers SAM 1, a stress and anxiety management program that includes a weekly float. Allman herself has graduated from the program.
The growth happening at Gum Store Studios is inspiring to Allman, who expanded her business to add floatation therapy in November 2020. “I have to see things happening right in front of me,” she says. “I’m not comfortable in the sort of environment with stagnant energy. There is constant growth here for myself continuing in this industry; new people and new stories are coming through the door all the time.”
Priscilla Lambson, owner of Body Spiral, is the newest addition to Gum Store Studios, and she brings with her the art of movement. Lambson, a movement educator, offers Pilates reformer at her studio, as well as a GYROTONIC® EXPANSION SYSTEM. “Gyrotonics is very circular, very three dimensional—it opens three dimensional pathways in the body,” Lambson, former spa and fitness manager at the Sporting Club, says. “Some people consider it an exercise program, but that just doesn’t, for me, do it justice; it’s a much deeper practice.” Imagine dance, yoga, Tai Chi, and swimming combined and put into one system working with weights and pulleys. That’s gyrotonic, Lambson says.
“It takes you into really beautiful spiraling motions and movement. This is based on a lot of arch and curl to help connect with the deeper seed centers in the body,” she says. “I love working in this way. Once people connect with it, it opens up into a deeply moving meditative way of working. It’s hard for me to convey how life changing this can be for people. It’s a holistic movement system.”
Body Spiral also offers private sessions as well as classes, an infrared sauna, and a massage table with a bio mat, to heals cells from within. “I love working with the two systems,” Lambson says. “I was happy to bring this into this area because it’s not here. I want to help people focus and find functional ways of moving themselves and ways of moving that create joy.”
The creek running alongside Gum Store Studios is a favorite among the artists; it’s a source of calm and inspiration, especially for Fierce Sonia, a mixed media artist. “I love this little view of this creek, it’s just a perfect little daydream spot,” she says. Sonia’s work is very colorful; collage bits are one of her favorite elements to use, and she often utilizes ink, crayons, colored pencils, and acrylic paints.
“It’s really fun to see some growth,” Sonia says. “I like to move back and forth between painting a little bit and then obscuring with the collage and then reinventing those bits again. That tension makes it a little bit more interesting than going at it the first time and getting it directly. It’s the discovery in that little tension.”
Sonia, who moved into her studio April 1, enjoys the opportunity to build a community. After spending time at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Virginia, she was looking for another art home and is fairly new to West Virginia.
“I was lucky to have that be my first art home, so it was really important to me to find another one,” she says. “That sense of community is important to me. That’s the biggest reason I’m here. There’s a community here; this is the right one.”
Gum Store Studios will have a retail space, featuring work from the artists in residence, including seamstress and designer Julie Fine, owner of Julie Fine Designs. Fine specializes in repairing, repurposing and remaking vintage, needlepoint refinishing, and patchworking. Her bohemian designs include lots of color and florals, and her purses and bags featuring vintage belts and fun fabrics are bestsellers.
“I buy vintage and then I remake it, I’ll repair it,” she says. “I’ve got a lot of original pieces just trying out new patterns. I make dresses and skirts out of tablecloths, shower curtains, and other vintage fabric.” Fine accepts custom orders as well, and custom requests can be made on her website, juliefinedesigns.com.
“Those kinds of jobs I love because it’s not repetitive, but I’m very selective with the custom,” she says. “Because for so long, I was so far from where I thought I was going to be and not doing my design. Now that I’m fully doing designs, I miss my customer. But I get plenty of work here.”
Fine owned The Dressmaker’s Closet in Charleston for about 15 years. It was a life change and the pandemic that made her take the plunge and move to White Sulphur Springs full time to pursue more of her craft. Fine is most looking forward to Gum Store’s growth, participating in markets with her fellow artists, and collaborating on projects and ideas. “I’m really looking forward to just collaborating with these people,” she says. “Penny’s amazing and watching this transformation from when she first bought it to where it is now is incredible.”
Kristen Rehak, owner of Black Possum Ink, was struggling to find a studio space, but has found a home at Gum Store since she moved in in January. “It’s a little gem, like a little secret back here,” she says. “I love the location; being right by this creek is beautiful, and the building is super cool. Working with Penny has been awesome, she embraces everybody’s artistic side.” Rehak specializes in hand poked tattoos and says her art is ever changing. The environment at Gum Store is a huge influence for her creative side.
“It’s really nice to be surrounded by other artists, even though we’re all doing totally different things, but that makes it better somehow, like you’re introduced to other stuff,” she says. “There’s something about being an artist that gets a little lonely if you don’t get to talk to other artists; other people don’t quite understand sometimes. Like if you’re having a bad day and you have no creative energy, sometimes it’s nice to chat, and we get inspired by other people.” Appointments can be made on Rehak’s website at rehakdesign.com.
“I do a lot of stuff through like Instagram; people can reach out to me through there as well,” she says. “A lot of my business actually comes from word-of-mouth. I know a lot of people and I have a good support team, but people will tell people and it spreads.”
One of Rehak’s biggest supporters is fellow Gum Store artist-in-residence Kelsie Tyson, a multimedia artist. Tyson’s work focuses on queerness, identity, and body liberation, all forms of self-expression intersecting with her Appalachian roots and heritage.
“I do a lot of self-portraiture and a lot of things revolving around body liberation and what it means to be vulnerable with yourself,” Tyson says. “And for me, specifically, like, what it means to show my vulnerability as a fat, queer woman in Appalachia.”
The comradery at Gum Store is important for Tyson, who moved into her space in November and is looking forward to collaborating with her fellow artists. “I love being in a building where I know there’s an artist here too, if I need a friend or want to talk art or talk shop with anyone I could collaborate or get advice or feedback on what I’m working on,” Tyson says.
Tyson went to school in Philadelphia to get her master’s degree, and moved back to the Mountain State when the pandemic hit. Gum Store opened the door for Tyson to explore art in her home state and in 2021 was named the Tamarack Foundation Emerging Artist fellow.
“When I was trying to become an artist and I went to undergrad to learn more about art, I was taught I just needed to get out of West Virginia to be an artist,” Tyson says. “I didn’t see opportunity as an artist in West Virginia as a forte when I first started my trajectory, so Gum Store is really special to me in that way. We all are wanting to have a community space to have classes, to invite the public in to share, not be gatekeepers, but be accessible to our community.”
Marcus Fioravante also moved back to West Virginia and has been pursuing his art at Gum Store. Fioravante, a folk artist who specializes in large-scale folk puppetry, is also a self-proclaimed weirdo. “I would consider myself a puppeteer,” he says. “I like to make weird, loud art, specifically focused on trying to make street art and art for parades and things like that.”
When he moved back to the Mountain State and needed studio space, he helped his mother, Penny, renovate the building. “My mom’s a big believer in the arts and has been wanting to create more of that here, and I think it helps having an artist son who needed a studio was down to help do some of the work,” he says.
This is the first time Marcus Fioravante has had a studio of his own, and he hopes it will allow him to serve as inspiration for future generations of artists. “It means a lot personally just to have a studio,” he says. “It solidifies being an artist in a real way. I like creating art in the place I’m from; there’s something so deep about it. I’m happy that I finally get to be the openly queer artist that I wanted to see as a kid, doing the kind of weird stuff that I was craving as a child and didn’t really see around.
“There’s something I really enjoy about being back where I’m from, and finally getting to create that kind of space. I’m really excited for when we start opening up more and having more community events.”
