NORTHAMPTON — ART, a large sign declares above a bright blue Sasquatch-like creature on Pleasant Street, a main thoroughfare through downtown.
Inside the garage behind the sign is Liberal Arts Pop Up Gallery, a former auto garage turned art consignment shop filled with work from local artists and makers.
“You can’t miss it when you come into town,” said Max Rudolph, an artist who upcycles old clothing that he makes “zesty.”
It seemed like a prime location for Rudolph to sell his work, he said.
“It went to crap so fast,” Rudolph said. He is one of a several artists who stopped selling in the space and now allege that they struggled to get paid. Some say when they retrieved their items, they were dirty or damaged.
“I don’t want to shut anybody’s business down, but I don’t want new artists to go in starry eyed,” said Anne Thalheimer, who sold her work at the gallery until last year.
Gallery owner Jennifer Carr said it’s a largely volunteer-powered operation doing positive community work and that she pays artists fairly.
“It’s hard to please everybody,” Carr said, “but we do our best to make sure that we are fair and on point.”
Early in the pandemic when artists were hard-hit financially, Carr started a pop-up holiday market in the empty garage with some friends.
“It was COVID therapy,” she said while sitting at a table in her office connected to the gallery. “My whole project here is to help my community.”
Since then, the gallery grew and now works with about 50 artists. The space is home to visual art, crafts and music shows. About two years ago, Carr left her job of more than 20 years as a social worker at the Center for Human Development in Holyoke to focus on the gallery.
Thalheimer, an artist whose work includes paintings, drawings, and clothing, started selling at the gallery several years ago. A signature creation she makes: fleece monster hats, complete with eyes near the forehead and triangular teeth poking out from the brim.
Other consignment shops Thalheimer works with automatically send her a check monthly if she had sales, she said. At the Liberal Arts Pop Up Gallery, she had to explicitly ask to be paid out, a policy Carr confirmed. Not an ideal policy to Thalheimer, but because the shop has a DIY vibe, she decided to accept it and sell there.
But Thalheimer said there were months-long periods she would contact Carr to get paid and not hear back, or their meetings would get canceled. From September 2022 and May 2023, Thalheimer alleges she was not paid, despite her efforts to get compensated.
Carr denied that, and said she had receipts for Thalheimer’s payouts. Carr declined to show a reporter the receipts from periods Thalheimer claims she wasn’t paid. “That’s personal information that I wouldn’t share with anybody,” Carr said.
After a disagreement between Carr and Thalheimer over a canceled craft fair last year, Thalheimer decided to pull her work from the store.
A friend and volunteer at the store picked up Thalheimer’s work for her, and Thalheimer said the returned items were dirty and damaged, including several sun-damaged dresses. The volunteer signed a receipt for Thalheimer on her behalf, saying she had been given her items back. It concludes with signing the receipt, Thalheimer “agrees not to badmouth or take action in the future against Jennifer Carr or The Liberal Arts Pop Up Gallery LLC.” A photo of the handwritten document is posted on a Google review Thalheimer wrote.
After her experience, Thalheimer said she complained to the Attorney General’s Office. The office received a complaint about the gallery in February but could not say who submitted it. After review, the office referred the complainant to a program for consumer assistance, according to the AG’s office.
Rudolph had similar complaints. At first, he was paid regularly, but then he said he struggled to get payments from the gallery. He said he would make plans to come pick up cash, and Carr would cancel.
He stopped putting his art in the gallery last summer. “She’s paid me in bits and pieces after much haranguing,” he said. Carr denies that and said Rudolph was regularly paid.
Rudolph said he and Carr eventually settled up with a nonmonetary trade of art materials and tools, which he said worked for him. “I would not recommend leaving any art with her or doing any business with her,” he said.
Lisa Betournay said she started selling her paintings, T-shirts and prints at the gallery in 2022. She said she went months without being paid. She said per the contract, she was supposed to be paid every 60 days, but she didn’t have a copy of the document. Carr said her policy was to pay when artists ask.
“I can’t chase 52 artists, but everybody knows to check in with me,” Carr said. “Everybody’s been paid who calls me up and says, ‘Can we settle up?’”
Carr said she did not want to show a reporter the artists’ contracts.
“We do good things here,” she added, “But you could take two different routes: You could talk about all the good things we do here, or you could talk about two disgruntled artists who know each other who planned with someone else to try to discredit us.”
On the eve of an out-of-state move last year, Betournay pulled her work from the gallery. When she got it back, she said she found dirt on the sleeves of her prints, scratched prints and dirty hoodies. Carr denies that her work was damaged. The returned items didn’t include several hundreds dollars worth of her stickers, she said. She reached out to Carr, who later mailed the stickers to her, and said it was her responsibility to make sure she had all her items. “It’s not my responsibility to check her stuff,” Carr said.
Jennifer Burdick, a photographer who sells work at the gallery and regularly volunteers to work the retail space, said the gallery is honest.
“Ask to be paid and you’ll get paid,” she said. “There’s nothing nefarious going on. It’s just lack of communication.”
The gallery is a good place open to new artists, Burdick said. “It’s sad three local artists had to leave. It sucks,” she said of Rudolph, Betournay and Thalheimer.
Carr said the gallery is a community hub. “It has improved Pleasant Street tenfold,” she said.
She prides herself on being friendly and welcoming place, including to those who are homeless or have a substance use disorder. “They walk in and they’re welcomed … they’re not judged,” Carr said.
The operation is largely volunteer-run, Carr said. The space has no heat or running water, and closes in winter. She said she is not paid, and all the money the project makes goes back into the gallery. “I’ve supported this completely by myself,” she said.
Carr filed for an LLC through the state in May 2023 and first filed for a business certificate through the city in 2021, records show.
Last year, she started a GoFundMe to cover increasing costs at the gallery.
“I am reaching out to the community to help us to continue our goals of empowering individuals to grow and enrich their lives through the arts,” it reads. So far, it’s raised about $860 of its $10,000 goal.