A Town of One's Own

Can an influx of artists polish a historic Kentucky neighborhood?

By Amanda Hurley | Online Only | May 17, 2002

Paducah Artist Relocation Program ad

Yet Barone—who modeled Paducah after Rising Sun—is optimistic. He's taking out bigger ads in art magazines, summoning more artists to Paducah. "Finally, there's some legitimate hope for the old structures and [Lower Town]," Barone says. "People are starting to say, ‘This is a nice place to live.' We think we'll turn the whole area around."

To buy a rambling old house, renovate it, and use it as a studio, gallery, and family home—that's a dream many artists share. But where can an artist find an affordable, spacious home, in a welcoming community? The small city of Paducah, Ky., has many old properties in need of fixing up, and residents there say they might as well be fixed up by artists.

Situated between the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, Paducah (pop. 28,000), is a shopping and health-care hub for surrounding western Kentucky, southern Illinois, and eastern Missouri. Many Paducans work for barge companies or railroad yards, as their parents and grandparents did. Like other small cities, Paducah boasts scores of historic houses, but it simply doesn't have enough people—or funds—to maintain them.

A theater's plea

Credit: Paducah Arts

Painter Mark Barone is trying to solve that problem. A longtime resident of Lower Town, Paducah's oldest neighborhood, Barone was appalled when he witnessed an open-air drug deal on his street a few years ago. Many of Lower Town's historic houses had grown shabby, left to deteriorate by negligent landlords.

Barone had an idea: What if Paducah's city government and financial establishment joined forces to draw artists to the neighborhood? Barone pitched the proposal to the city commission and the Paducah Bank and received enthusiastic responses. In the summer of 2000, the city gave Barone a salaried job and a small advertising budget, and Paducah's artist-relocation program was born.

First, Barone encouraged the city to adopt a strict rental-licensing ordinance, forcing errant landlords to bring their buildings up to code. Next, he placed ads for the program in national art magazines. Less than two years later, eight artists have relocated to Paducah. "Our target is 20 or 25 artists with galleries," Barone says.

An artist bought and renovated this forgotten house

Credit: Paducah Arts

Artist Ike Erwin and his wife, Charlotte, moved to Paducah in January 2001 from Brookport, Ill. When they bought an 1898 Queen Anne-style house on North Eighth Street in Lower Town, Erwin says, "the porch was leaking and rotten, and vines were growing through the windows into the house." With the bank's help, though, the couple could take on renovations. Because the area is zoned for both commercial and residential use, the couple now has a gallery and studio in the house. They display their custom-made books and picture frames in the foyer and use another room as a book-bindery.

Last month, the Erwins opened their home to visitors on a house tour. A neighborhood association organizes the tours during Paducah's annual quilt show, which brings as many as 40,000 quilters to the city every April. "So many of [the quilters] stay right in town; it's nice for them to be able to get out and see the area," Erwin says. Paducah's quilting and crafting attractions—including the 30,000-square-foot Museum of the American Quilter's Society—would help to support a growing artistic community. "Artists like to be close to other artists," says Paducah's mayor, Bill Paxton.

1897 Victorian for sale: $90,000

Credit: Paducah Arts

Paxton calls the artist-relocation program a "phenomenal" success. "I support [the program], and the city commission supports it," he says. "We have a wonderful game-plan in place that will build this community up. I would guess that in the next 12 months we could have 50 to 60 artists here." By embracing the program and acknowledging the need to preserve Paducah's historic structures, the present mayor has departed from the "bulldoze first, ask questions later" policy of his predecessor, who oversaw the demolition of hundreds of buildings in the late 1990s.

But the artist's life in Paducah has its drawbacks. The area has few colleges or universities and no art schools; important galleries in Chicago, Washington, and New York are hundreds of miles away. The cost of living in Paducah is low, but so, too, is the median household income—in 1989 it was about $17,000, far below the national average. How many Paducans can afford to buy the Erwins' artwork when the quilters aren't in town? The story of Rising Sun, Ind., may serve as a cautionary tale. The small artists' colony in the town of 2,300 had initial success, Barone says, but stalled when several key organizers withdrew from the project.