Arts Walk: From Wicked to Wonderful
- Photo credit: Donna Chesler
When Donna Chesler, owner of Gallery 527 in Jerome, Ariz., is asked to describe the town’s First Saturday Art Walk, she keeps it brief: “It’s a helluva party,” she says with a grin.
Twenty-three participating studios and galleries pull out all the stops for Art Walk, a monthly event when Jerome stays open all evening. Few tourists ever experience the hilltop town at night, when the old-fashioned sodium vapor lights twinkle magically in the darkness.
“Jerome has always been an artists’ colony, but there’s new energy and excitement about the town’s art scene since our First Saturday Art Walk began,” explains Chesler, a photographer who is also the president of Jerome Art Walk, a nonprofit spearheading the celebration, which started in 2006.
“We’ve really put Jerome on the map as a national arts destination,” she proclaims.
Jerome has been an authentic artists’ colony since the early 1970s, when creative hippies discovered its charms. Prior to that, it was a boomtown mining camp from the late 1800s to the mid-1950s. A citizenry comprised of miners, prostitutes and opium dealers led the New York Post in 1903 to brand Jerome as “the wickedest town in America,” a moniker that’s still proudly peddled at a few establishments.
Jerome dwindled to less than 100 residents in 1953 when Phelps Dodge closed its copper mine. The small population survived the lean years by promoting Jerome as a historic ghost town, a gimmick that’s mostly died out. Even now, Jerome is still a tight-knit community of only 400 residents.
A major accomplishment was the dedication of the entire town as a National Historic District in 1966. The designation provides a legal foundation to ensure that its rustic, tumbled-down look remains intact. Visitors can still look out over sweeping desert vistas and taste the true flavor of the Old West.
For more of “Arts Walk: From Wicked to Wonderful,” pick up the February 2009 issue of AmericanStyle today!
