Portrait of a young artists’ center

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Pat Gallagher knows well what it’s like when a young artist isn’t offered the opportunity to express himself or herself because the activity isn’t deemed as "productive" as, say, a "real" job.
Fortunately for the longtime Northeast resident and high school art teacher, her knowledge doesn’t come from personal experience.
Rather, Gallagher’s mother, Mary Diskin-Gallagher, had a scholarship to the Moore College of Art and Design locked up coming out of West Catholic High School, but she couldn’t accept it.
Pat Gallagher doesn’t want the same fate to befell the plethora of artistic talent, young and old, in the local community. That’s the main reason she opened the Diskin-Gallagher Community Arts Center in October 2004 at 7143 Edmund St.
That, and so she could expand her late mother’s legacy. When Mary Diskin-Gallagher was graduating high school, as now, professional opportunities were few in the fine arts while the challenges were great.
"Before she died, she told me that she was more afraid of failing than anything else," Pat Gallagher said of her mother, who passed away in 1996.
Unlike her mother, the younger Gallagher continued in pursuit of her dream into adulthood and has made a career of art education. The non-profit community arts center is a realization of that dream.
"I’ve always wanted to do this," she said. "I taught out in West Philly (at her mom’s alma mater) for twenty years. The kids out there, often the only opportunity they had to do art was in school."
Gallagher sees much the same circumstances in Tacony, a community that she adopted after she and her husband, Fred Donnelly, moved there from Lawndale in 2003.
The two-story corner property, a former delicatessen, had been empty for years when Donnelly and Gallagher found it with the help of some local folks, whom they had met when Donnelly performed as a bagpipe player at a Christa Lewis Arboretum fund-raiser.
Prior to that, Gallagher had done some work with FrankfordStyle, designing murals for that locally based fine and performing arts non-profit program.
The Diskin-Gallagher center is strictly fine arts, offering classes in drawing, watercolors, pastels, acrylics, water- and oil-based clay and computer graphics.
About 40 students range in age from 8 to 84. Class sessions generally last about an hour and include no more than a half-dozen artists. The $10 per-class fee includes all supplies.
Students come from various neighborhoods in the Greater Northeast, in addition to the immediate area.
Tacony’s Brae Bolger and her son, Brandon, 8, both study at the center.
"He goes to school down the street at Our Lady of Consolation and I was an art major in college," Brae Bolger said. "When we saw that they were opening a center here, we came and signed him up for lessons."
Brae Bolger soon realized that the spacious Diskin-Gallagher studio with its drawing tables, library of reference materials and bright, open atmosphere would be ideal for her to hone her skills away from outside distractions.
"At home, it’s tough to sit down and do it, but I can come here and dedicate the hour to painting," she said.
Maureen Mitchell, 17, is another student aspiring to a career in graphic design. At the moment, she’s working on a marketing package for a fictitious restaurant. The package includes a tri-fold brochure, letterhead and business card design.
She’s been in the program for a little over a month and is using professional computer programs including Adobe Photoshop, Pagemaker and Illustrator.
"I thought it would be something new and fun to do," Mitchell said. "I take art in my school. My mom told me about this place and I decided to check it out."
Seventh-grader Gwendolyn Young says her family was very impressed with her pastel painting of a giant flower. Young has attended the arts center for several months.
Young’s family exclaimed when the girl brought the painting home, "You’re gonna make money and be famous!"
Young thinks she might become a cartoon animator.
"I have so many things to do, like maybe an interior designer," she said.
The center has been fortunate to get a big boost from local politicians in its formative stages.
Last month, state Sen. Mike Stack (D-5th dist.) presented the facility with a $5,000 grant from the state’s Department of Community and Economic Development. According to Gallagher, the money will help the center buy supplies and pay general operating expenses.
Last year, the Major Artery Revitalization Committee and the Community Life Improvement Program — organizations backed by Tacony’s Democratic elected officials, state Rep. Mike McGeehan and City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski, and funded with public dollars — helped beautify the area around the center with curbside trees and flower boxes as well as a large mural on the building’s exterior wall.
Gallagher is glad to get public support for local artists, both established and aspiring. She hopes to expand the center to include a gallery of its own.
"My feeling is most (local artists) can’t afford to put their work in a downtown gallery, so this (would be) like their fifteen minutes of fame," she said.
The art center’s mission is to increase art awareness.
"My slogan is ‘Bringing Art into the Community,’" Gallagher said. "Just bringing art where it’s not and making it available." ••
For information about the Diskin-Gallagher Community Arts Center, visit www.dgcac.org or call 215-725-2196.
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com