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Date: 11/21/2022
NORTHAMPTON – Walking around the galleries of Northampton’s Anchor House of Artists, the eye is treated to works in all manner of mediums.
Since its early days as a small studio on Pleasant Street, the Anchor House has featured works by almost 275 artists and is co-directed by Michael Tillyer and Susan Foley. Now located in a much larger space at the same site with multiple galleries, the arts center is putting the finishing touches on its displays for a 25th anniversary celebration running in November and December. On Dec. 3 there will be a talk by the artists who have been at the Anchor House, an art showcase on Dec. 9 and a dance celebration on Dec. 17 with the band Higher Help.
Tillyer walks through the galleries, pointing out the different displays. In Galleries 1 and 2 there are works done by three faculty and 20 students at Windham College, where Tillyer was a student. He credited Kayo Wicks, a dormmate of his, as a strong motivation for the display.
According to its website, the Anchor House is dedicated to “subsidizing the studio life and representing the artworks of artists living with mental illnesses, conserving work of deceased visionaries and educating the public to vision-driven creatives lives.”
“I’ve come to understand certain things in my own life from my own struggles as a person,” he said. “In my own way, my own life and my walking life are two different things.”
Creative connections
Tillyer has met countless artists over the years– many dealing with mental illness – some through his work as a crisis integration counselor and running a rehabilitation center. He said these artists have had their careers impacted by myriad and diverse situations and the rehabilitation options available to them weren’t conducive to art.
“I just thought I’d give them the opportunity to redefine their lives as the artists that they were, the professional they were, instead of mental health patients as part of a system that did not see who they were,” he said.
Tillyer tried getting these artists featured at other galleries or arrange sales, but found few interested, which is what led him to founding the gallery as a means of giving them “studio life.” When the additional space opened, they began to have gallery shows and integrate area professionals into the displays. Northampton has an active circle of creative spaces, such as the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, and Smith College Museum of Art.
“I think of us as the best, least known gallery in Northampton,” Tillyer said with a laugh.
Anchor House has five showrooms and a museum wing, dedicated to those artists Tillyer knew who passed away. Among the artists on display includes Genevieve Mae Burett. Tillyer said Burett painted at home and despite his best efforts, found no interested parties.
Burett passed away in 2015 from lung cancer and her works were willed to Tillyer, including notebooks with 10,000 pages of a daily journal, including the day she passed. Tillyer said that Burett was deaf and so would write notes to communicate with the hospice nurse, who wrote back. On that day, she asked the nurse what would happen to her.
“He told her that God loves you and you have a place in Heaven,” said Tillyer, quoting from the journal.
In another room are the works of Gregory Stone, a well-known painter and sculptor whose work captures many people in the Northampton area. Tillyer said Stone’s work was prominent in Northampton’s artistic renaissance in the 1970s.
“He’s an artist for the proletariat,” said Tillyer. “He had no prejudices.”
Along with the galleries, there’s a performance space started in 2010, when a New York musician who needed the Anchor House’s support came by. This artist had a lot of connections and over the years different musical shows and poetry readings have taken place there. Near the stage is Pooh the Bear, a donation to the Anchor House.
Tillyer said that this anniversary is a “time of reflection” and thought back to those early days in the small studio above this 4,000-square-foot space. When asked what it meant that the Anchor House has lasted so long, his answer was straight and to the point.
“That’s up for the community to say,” he said.