Category: Q&A

See ‘Currents’ at Pillar

Fallon Rae is the co-founder and owner of Pillar Gallery + Projects (205 N. State St., Concord). The gallery is open on Fridays from 4 to 7 p.m. and by appointment. The name was inspired by a hope to be a pillar in the community, and by the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, which is only around 7,000 light-years from New Hampshire. The exhibition “Currents” will be on display until Wednesday, April 2, according to the Pillar website. Visit pillargalleryprojects.com or their socials @pillar_galleryprojects.

What was the inspiration behind starting Pillar Gallery?

Pillar Gallery has been… in the works for a few years now before it came to full fruition. The other founder [Mike Howat] and I, when we first started … we actually started at Kimball Jenkins in Concord, New Hampshire. In 2021 and 2022 we started the salon series. It was the biggest open call in New Hampshire. … Then from there it became an opportunity to have a set space so we weren’t having to use other venues…. We really wanted to bring that New York City avant-garde kind of style to the area.

Could you describe the ‘Currents’ exhibition?

This exhibition has four artists in it: Hannah Perrine Mode, Elizabeth Nelson, Jackie Brown and Mary Mead. We wanted to exemplify how climate change is affecting all different parts of the world, so each artist actually has pieces from different regions of the ocean. Mary Mead exemplifies with trash in the Bahamas. Then we have Liz Nelson, who has some pieces from her artist residency in Iceland. Hannah Mode actually has a melting ice core with some of the water from a glacier in Alaska to pair along with her Alaskan glacial made cyanotypes. Then we have Jackie Brown, who’s representing more of the Maine and local side of things, the local fishery and all the debris that comes from that industry as well. It’s really impactful to see such different voices come together in a way and have a really good resonating theme. One of our artists said she’s been a part of a few shows named ‘Currents’ and this is the most unique and different one…. Five percent of the sales from this show are going to the Blue Ocean Society.

Do you all put on any other types of events?

We also do drink-and-draws…. We’re going to be starting it on the third Friday, every other month, we’re going to be doing a drink and draw, so the next one will be March 21.

Is there a particular style or medium that Pillars is really drawn toward?

We’re really drawn toward sculpture or multimedia or artists. One of the artists in the show right now, Mary Mead, she’s kind of known for being a printmaker but she actually started out as a sculptor and over time printmaking is just one of the things that she ended up having a niche at … One of our favorite things to do is go into the studio itself and do studio visits and actually pick out the work and see it. One of our artists for the show, Liz, ended up driving down pieces. We just saw how the light looked, how they paired together, and I think it’s just about that greater conversation about the arts. … for the most part we prefer a unique voice…

Are there any sorts of exhibits or events you’d like to see at Pillar that you all haven’t done yet?

We are connected to a commercial kitchen space called State Street Kitchen. … I’d really love to keep expanding our collaboration with them more, having date nights where people can either be making art and then make food, or something along those lines that just brings more and more people together from different places. … That’s probably one of our favorite parts of being curators, is to be a good safe space for people to feel like they can be vulnerable and show off their art…

Is there anything else about the gallery that you’d like to mention?

I just did a great presentation at Bow High School letting kids know a little bit about curating. I’m also writing a book on curation because it is such a unique and niche subject matter. —Zachary Lewis

New Hampshire Housing helps Granite Staters find their home

New Hampshire Housing was established by statute in 1981 and is, according to its website, a self-supporting public corporation that promotes, finances and supports housing solutions for the people of New Hampshire. It operates rental and homeownership programs to help those with low or moderate incomes obtain affordable housing. It has assisted 55,000 families in the purchase of homes and helped finance the “creation of more than 16,000 multifamily housing units,” while receiving no operating funds from the state government. Etienne LaFond, the Director of Communications and Marketing for New Hampshire Housing, spoke to the Hippo about what New Hampshire Housing does. Visit nhhfa.org.

Can you give a brief overview of what New Hampshire Housing does?

New Hampshire Housing is a housing authority for the state of New Hampshire. We are a public company with a board that is appointed by the governor. We help administer rental assistance programs. We work with our partners in multi-family development in order to fund and execute on the construction of various developments throughout the state of New Hampshire and we also have a home ownership division which helps people get affordable single-family home loans, down payment assistance and various other programs.

What is rental assistance and what sorts of services do you provide for people looking to rent in the state?

We provide direct assistance to very low-income households. We help them maintain decent and affordable housing through HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher Program. This program, it’s always pretty much been set up to help prevent homelessness and offers stable housing for thousands of Granite State residents. Through that program a qualified household pays a portion of their income toward rent and utilities, and New Hampshire Housing will pay the balance directly to the landlord … [also] emergency housing resources, we provide a lot of those to renters. Normally, setting up the voucher and wait list program, we’re mainly administering that program. HUD also supports the program in which the voucher can also be used for home ownership mortgage assistance, which is actually one of our favorite programs here. It kind of gives the ability to take these people who, home ownership is just never in the cards, but it’s possible to kind of convert that voucher to sort of help with mortgage payment assistance. This has helped hundreds of participants purchase their own homes.

Can you expand on the home ownership aspect of New Hampshire Housing?

We work statewide with a larger network of lenders and real estate professionals, so Realtors, etc., to offer single-family mortgage programs. These also can include purchasing your home yourself, refinancing, or even a purchase slash rehabilitation. It’s primarily used by moderate-income buyers, but we have low down payment options. We have various programs where people can get up to $5,000, $10,000 and $15,000 in cash down payment assistance. We also provide programs that have closing costs assistance, discount mortgage insurance and rehab options.

Can you talk about the work you all do with lead removal?

We have a Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Programs program (NHH LHCHHP) that helps to basically eliminate childhood lead poisoning. We provide educational tools, resources and funding. We get those through federal grants but also state loans, and that’s to assist homeowners, property owners of rental apartments, and even child care facilities so they can be lead-safe certified. That grant funding comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. So that’s been a pretty big thing for people to apply for that grant. We prioritize a property where there’s a poisoned child under 6 years of age with an elevated blood level of lead…. It’s something we’re pretty active with. Those are actually federal grants, so it’s not a loan….

Do you all have any events or new programs coming up?

We often send out, like TEFRA, notices of public hearing for certain places where we’re developing. I know that we had one in the rail yard. We also have an upcoming home ownership conference, which is coming in three weeks. That is going to be talking to Realtors and professionals and the bank industry about the current state of single-family home ownership and what tools are at their disposal in order to make home ownership possible, especially in an area of high demand but low supply. One thing that I think that has been really of note is that there’s a new Opioid Use Disorder Supportive Housing Capital Program. We launched this new initiative to provide stable housing for people who have been impacted by opioid use disorder. So there’s a notice of funding opportunity. We still have applications all the way until March 11.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention about New Hampshire Housing that I haven’t asked you about?

One of the other things that is lesser-known in our various divisions is from our research and advocacy wing. We look into the way that local municipalities and citizens can find ways to tackle housing challenges. So most recently on Feb. 7 we released a case study. We had a housing opportunity planning program where we gave grants to a lot of local municipal communities and we had case studies about people who had used those funds, Bethlehem, Berlin, Canterbury, Keene, Plymouth, there’s quite a few. It shows how they’re addressing housing challenges through changes to their zoning, their planning ideas, and actually updating their master plans to deal with innovative housing solutions. That report is actually currently up and available on our website. It’s pretty awesome to see some of the innovative ways people have done things. For example, Keene, they created a cottage court overlay district, which is encouraging more pedestrian-friendly housing downtown. Canterbury, for example, made a farmstead design alternative for more flexibility through a view process about what’s required in a property and offered design incentives to protect the towns for people who have often been worried about the rural character or something like the open space. Perhaps there’s other ways to figure out the actual design of housing to not lose the character but still provide it for a population that increasingly has to move out in order to find new opportunities. —Zachary Lewis

Queen City Black Market offers art, oddities, hot dogs

Queen City Black Market is an event focused on the alternative, antique and oddity culture in New Hampshire. The market is being put on by Janelle Havens, who runs and operates Lustshroom, Etc. with a focus on “unique footwear for unique people,” according to its website. Havens spoke to the Hippo about the event. Visit lustshroometc.square.site for more information on the event and business.

What is the Queen City Black Market?

The idea is that we get a bunch of weird vendors, right, taxidermy or like weird art, prints and designs. They’re from all over New England, but we get them all together under one roof in Manchester and we have a night where it’s free to enter. People can come in, obviously meet some cool people, buy some cool stuff, and then be on their merry way. We’ll have an after party afterward at the Shaskeen, which is more of that typical, informal, everyone gets together at a bar.

How did this all get started?

It’s the first year. Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, it will be an annual thing. I had started my own business a little over a year ago at this point so I was traveling all over New England doing markets and shows and conventions. I was doing a lot of tattoo conventions and then I ended up going to the Worcester Punk Rock Flea Market in Massachusetts and I was so inspired … I was like, ‘Wow, I wish I had something like that in my backyard, this stuff doesn’t happen in New Hampshire,’ and I feel like a lot of people that I meet say the same thing, but it can be in New Hampshire, we just have to do it.

What is your business Lustshrooms, Etc. and what do you do?

My business is selling platform shoes, so the typical big goth boots type of deal. I also sell oddities. I’ll take animal teeth, mount them, frame them, for a nice wall decoration. Also just like weird stuff that I might come across. So like a Last Rites kit I’ve come across a couple of times, so I’ll sell that but basically weird stuff and then also platform shoes. My partner tattoos and so we were at a tattoo convention for his work and I was just sitting around looking and I was like, ‘You know, everyone here either wears platform shoes or would buy a pair, right, and I had my own experience with buying them, you can really only buy them online. There’s no store that sells them other than like in Salem, Massachusetts, which can be a hike and can be prohibitively expensive for people. Well, why not have a pop-up business where you can go to these places where this clientele would be, they get to go, they get to try it on in person, they can see if they like it, they know who’s selling it to them …

Is weird just something that’s not normal or how would you characterize that?

I would say it’s just really not mainstream. It’s not your typical stuff that you might find at Marshall’s. … The first reaction is, ‘Oh, that’s really weird,’ but then it’s ‘Oh, but that’s cool, though.’ It’s so weird, it’s cool. … [T]he idea that this is somewhere that my dad would probably be at, and he’s a 50-year-old dude that listens to Guns N’ Roses. He doesn’t necessarily fit that stereotypical goth or punk or whatever, but he would still go and have a good time. I will have a good time as someone that might be more stereotypical punk, right? It is also all ages, so, you know, if a 12-year-old kid is kind of in their angsty phase, that’s a great spot for them. … it’s just really anyone that would find it cool.

What are some of the logistics of the event and after party ?

It’s Saturday, Feb. 1, 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., all ages, free at the door. There will be a food truck, it’ll be Teenie Wienies food truck …Right after the market, 8 p.m. is when doors open at the Shaskeen for the after party. That will be Cytokine, Ratblood, and Graveborn playing that, all three local hardcore bands. That’s 21-plus $10 at the door.

So what types of vendors or stalls will be there?

We have quite a range. We have Vericatures, who is a woman from Boston who does caricatures. … We’ll have Hallowed Harvest Oddities, which is someone down in Connecticut… and they do bug pinning and taxidermy and that kind of wet specimens stuff … Then we have a couple local artists like Ghost Ship Art and Emily V. Arts. We’ll also have Karen Jerzyk, She’ll be there selling prints of her photography. It’ll be a lot of Manchester-based people because obviously that’s also the point. We have Evol-Eye Co. … and they do clothing, pins, beanies, stuff like that and it’s traditional tattoo streetwear-type designs but it’s all centered around mental health awareness and recovery. There’ll be a whole lot of fun people and weird stuff. We also have Crown Street Grillz. She’s based in Nashua and she does teeth grills, like the gold teeth and silver teeth. She does all kinds of funky designs with it, which is pretty uncommon around here. So she’ll be in person fitting people and making those, which would be fun and different. That’s just the five that I thought of off the top of my head.

Queen City Black Market
When: Saturday, Feb. 1, from 1 to 8 p.m.
Where: Henry J. Sweeney American Legion Post #2, 251 Maple St., Manchester
Admission: free, all ages welcome
More: lustshroometc.square.site

—Zachary Lewis

Featured image: Janelle Havens. Courtesy photo.