You Are Here is a thriving part of Jeannette's cultural scene

When something is meant to be, it will be. Case in point: You Are Here in Jeannette.

The art gallery and maker space recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, despite its founders not starting with a clear vision of what exactly they wanted to do.

Jen Costello of Hempfield and Mary Briggs of North Huntingdon, both recently retired, were looking for something to do when they met around 2016.

For health reasons, Costello had left a career as a drug and alcohol counselor. Briggs and her husband Jim had recently retired to her native North Huntingdon after 40 years in Virginia, where she had been an artist, musician and arts manager at Arlington Cultural Affairs.

Separately, Briggs and Costello were advised to check out a meeting of the fledgling Jeannette Arts Council, being organized by Jill Sorrels, owner of the former Keynote Cafe in Jeannette.

“I saw (Costello) walking in on the other side of the room with her ball cap on,” Briggs said. “I thought, ‘I don’t know who that is, but I think we’re gonna be friends.’ She had this little vibe.”

Costello didn’t think of herself as an artist back then. Treatment for childhood cancer resulted in lingering health issues and, in 2013, she was prescribed leg braces and a cane. She decided to get rid of the insurance-issued cane and make one for herself.

Then, she started making them for other people.

A Philadelphia gallery owner asked to exhibit some of her hand-carved woodwork but told Costello she needed an artist statement and curriculum vitae.

“I didn’t know what that was,” she said, so she reached out to Facebook for help. Briggs responded.

They discovered a shared interest in starting a creative reuse center in the area. The more they talked, the more their vision evolved and expanded.

“We had ideas but no place,” Costello said.

‘Are you crazy?’

That problem was solved by coincidence — or providence.

One Thanksgiving, Briggs and her son Adam, who was visiting from San Francisco, happened to stop for a bottle of wine at a downtown Jeannette liquor store.

“My son said, ‘I have a feeling about Jeannette, I think it might be a cool place someday. I should buy a building here,’” Briggs said. “I was like, ‘Are you crazy?’ and he said, ‘You could open an art center.’

“I blew it off, but he kept asking if I’d found a building.”

At an arts council meeting, Briggs was approached by Lee Matchett, who said he had a building for sale at 406 Clay Ave. in Jeannette.

“It had been on sale for a long time, and Lee wanted to unload it,” she said. “It was very, very cheap, like you could write a check for it cheap.”

Adam Briggs bought it.

“Mary and I didn’t even really know each other very well then, but we jumped on board with a plan of not being sure what we were doing,” Costello said.

The building had formerly housed Matchett’s accounting business and then studio space for private music teachers. Luckily, it was in good shape, only needing paint and flooring.

Briggs and Costello refined their vision as they pulled up old carpet and dragged it out to the alley.

“Every time we’d meet, we’d formulate what we’d like to see here. We never vetoed an idea,” Costello said. “Mary would say, ‘Let’s try this.’ And I’d say, ‘What’s the worst-case scenario? It didn’t work, but we tried it.’”

They did formulate three strict principles.

“We wanted it to be a safe place for everybody. We wanted it to be a gallery that was different and gave opportunities to artists who maybe had not been seen,” Costello said. “The third thing was to offer arts and crafts that people could afford, because of the economics of the area.”

Parchment and beer

You Are Here’s premiere exhibition opened Aug. 11, 2018. “Black and White” featured pen-and-ink drawings by Larry Brandstetter and Pamela Cooper, black-and-white photography by Steve Parsons and the late John Howard and handwritten poems.

For the poetry, they called on Lori Jakiela, a writer and professor of English and creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg.

“She put us in touch with a bunch of poets from Pittsburgh,” Briggs said. “They came up here one night and we gave them a lot of beer and we rolled out big strips of parchment and had them write poetry on it.”

Parsons was casually acquainted with Costello — he had previously show photos at the Westmoreland Art Nationals and at Keystone Cafe.

“I was tickled that Jen thought enough of what she had seen of my work to want to include me in that,” he said.

Since the first show, You Are Here has hosted regular solo and group exhibitions, classes, workshops, a women artists’ discussion group, an art market, movies, musicians and written/spoken word programs.

Costello’s cane-making project, Lean on Me, is housed in the building, as is Oh, Scrap!, an art materials thrift shop that fulfills the founders’ interest in creative reuse.

The gallery also has hosted two sessions of MadLab, a public art-making project that has turned out benches made of upcycled materials, murals and mosaic-covered planters that have been placed in public spaces around Jeannette.

It also offers opportunities to interns and resident and satellite artists.

The gallery benefits from operating rent-free and from the sale of materials donated to Oh, Scrap! Briggs and Costello work unpaid.

“It’s phenomenal the work they’ve put into (You Are Here) and how they’ve made themselves a part of the Jeannette community and the local art community,” Parsons said. “You can tell they both have a heart for the community, and particularly the artist community.

“It’s through them that I’ve really gotten to see what a dynamic group of artists there are in this area,” he said. “Every time they have an exhibit, you’ll see something new and say, ‘I never saw that person before, but (their work) is really cool.’”

Renovations recently have been completed on the gallery’s second floor. It houses a large, open space at the front and an efficiency apartment in the rear, which could be used by visiting artists.

“In the short term, it will be for use by us and our team,” Briggs said. “We’re letting it grow organically within the confines of what we can do, in terms of access.”

The second floor is served by a steep, narrow stairway and is not zoned for commercial use, she said.

They are raising funds to purchase a stair lift that would allow Costello and others will mobility issues to reach the space.

A fifth anniversary exhibition featuring artists and poets who have been involved with You Are Here since the beginning opened July 29 and is running through Sept. 9.

Some of You Are Here’s special events have been on hold since the pandemic shutdown. In the coming year, Briggs and Costello are looking forward to bringing them back and, as Briggs said, “to just keep pushing art barriers.”