Art About Town

The arts create a gathering place for everyone in Gwinnett County

Aurora Theatre

T

he arts are very much alive in Gwinnett. From bigname concerts at Infinite Energy Center to laugh-out-loud shows at Atlanta Comedy Theater to riveting visual arts at the Jacqueline Casey Hudgens Center for Art & Learning, the county offers a variety of diverse cultural experiences. Two of the most notable are nationally recognized Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville and Tannery Row Artist Colony in Buford, with 71 resident artists.

Aurora Theatre

No two days are the same at Aurora Theatre, which hosts more than 300 events per year, including mainstage productions, comedy nights, concerts, and children’s shows. Founded by Anthony Rodriguez and

Ann-Carol Pence in an old hardware store in 1996, Aurora now houses two performance spaces in its complex on the square in downtown Lawrenceville. Over the last 23 years, it has developed a reputation for producing professional-quality, large-scale musicals using local talent, including Les Miserables, Mary Poppins, and In the Heights by Hamilton writer Lin-Manuel Miranda.

“Musicals cross the span of all kinds of cultures and all kinds of language,” Pence says. “Forty percent of the people who come to Aurora are not from Gwinnett and that’s because we’ve committed to doing Broadway-style musicals without cutting corners.”

Gwinnett is the Southeast’s most ethnically diverse county and the theater strives to be a place where cultures intersect. This is why they host a variety of events, including Teatro Aurora (a series of plays performed in Spanish with English supertitles), a Dia de Los Muertos celebration, and Noche Latino, to make sure all visitors see themselves onstage. They also want to inspire people to have bold conversations about difficult subjects through the arts.

“We want to make sure the arts thrive here and that there will be a place where people can engage in civil conversation through the works that they see,” Rodriguez says. “It’s important that everybody’s voice is a part of the end product, and it has really served us well.”

As the City of Lawrenceville breaks ground on a new arts complex, which includes a $26-million expansion for Aurora Theatre, Rodriguez and Pence have their eyes focused on moving into a new space in 2020 and beyond.

“We have been very diligent about creating an arts legacy for this community that will live on after we’re gone,” Rodriguez says. “We work constantly to introduce people to the theater who have not been to a live theatrical production. It’s not about what’s on the page, it’s about what experience has been brought to life from what’s on those pages.”

To purchase tickets and learn more about upcoming productions, visit auroratheatre.com.

Tannery Row Artist Colony

As the sun shines brightly on the colored paintings adorning the walls of the Tannery Row Artist Colony, a rare feeling of serenity washes over the place. Celebrating its 15th anniversary, this utopia is buzzing with activity coming from the artists who occupy the 15 studios—all of whom are women. Over the years, 71 artists in a variety of media—from jewelry-making to photography—have been a part of this community, which at its core takes the solitude out of the solitary nature of creating art.

Judy Isaak, a resident artist for the last 11 years, makes sculptures, pottery, and paintings. She says that it’s a total luxury to work at Tannery Row, and every surface of her studio is covered with wares, ranging from functional mugs and vases to decorative giant palms and basins. There are also a few baby faces smiling on the walls—a series

Tannery Row Artist Colony of sculptures she created to remind us that we all start out the same.

Tannery Row is located right off of the railroad tracks near downtown Buford, and the rustic aesthetic certainly influences the artists there. On the opposite end of the hall from Isaak is Adrienne Forshner Kinsey, a mixed-media painter whose quilted canvases have a three-dimensional effect. Kinsey says that she strives to make unconventional paintings that jump off the page; she uses strips of painted canvas, leather, metal, buttons, and an assortment of other items for her colorful creations.

Visitors can meet Kinsey, Isaak, and the other artists (and perhaps take home their own masterpiece) at Open Studio Saturdays on the second Saturday of every month. There are also special open studio days for patrons to shop during the holiday season. In addition, Tannery Row hosts several exhibitions throughout the year, including a solo exhibition, a juried exhibition, and, in 2019, a 15th anniversary exhibition on display from May 11 through July 5. For a complete list of artists and events, visit tanneryrow artistcolony.net.