By Patricia Villers, Register Staff

DERBY — Several Valley Arts Council members have been involved in a different kind of painting lately: the kind that spruces up an old building.

The city has leased the former home of Area Congregations Together’s Spooner House homeless shelter to the Arts Council for $1 a year, President Rich DiCarlo of Derby said Wednesday.

The building at 119 Caroline St. was opened in 1925 when it was built to house the Hotchkiss Hose Company, now located on David Humphreys Road.

DiCarlo said soon the building will be called the Valley Center of the Arts.

“We’ve been working hard since September,” he said. “We’re moving forward with it, day by day. We have a positive attitude.”

Vice President Steve DiRienzo, also of Derby, said, “We’ve had a lot of obstacles, a lot of setbacks.”

There has been a group of five artists who have been painting and doing other work to make the building usable.

The two men said they were “disappointed” that so few of the 110 council members have volunteered to help with refurbishing the interior.

Holes in the walls have been patched, among other things needing repair.

On Wednesday, board member Rich Kowalski of Shelton was installing tiles on the ground floor where a classroom will be set up. Continued...

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A second classroom, a resource center featuring art books and a storage room, will make up the rest of the first floor, DiCarlo said. The council plans to offer art lessons to children and adults.

The group hopes to have the second floor completed by the end of July, DiCarlo said. The council plans to rent studio spaces and classroom space to artists and art teachers. “The rent will pay for the upkeep of the building,” DiCarlo said.

“We want to make it a community, like an artists’ colony,” said DiRienzo, as he took a break from installing a light fixture.

DiCarlo said, so far, six artists have expressed interest in viewing the space when it is refurbished.

The building was “uninhabitable” when the council acquired it, DiCarlo said.

He thanked Scholar Painting of Ansonia for painting the ceilings, and the Lowe’s store in Derby for donating flooring materials.

DiCarlo said the organization received a $2,000 grant from the Valley Community Foundation to pay for outdoor signage.

The city has given it use of a nearby parking lot along Caroline Street, as well as a security system that had been used in the downtown parking garage. The city recently installed a new system in the garage, DiCarlo said.

In April 2008, the council opened its art gallery at 37 Elizabeth St., about two blocks from the new art center.

DiCarlo said he is pleased with how popular the gallery has become. Continued...

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The council often keeps the gallery open late into the evening to attract foot traffic coming from several downtown restaurants.

Sheila O’Malley, the city’s director of economic and community development, said she has been working to identify some sources of grant funding to help the council.

“Some of these small grants can go a long way,” she said.

Any grant that is awarded to the arts group will be helping the entire Valley, O’Malley said, because the arts center is planned as “a regional entity.”

Donations to help support the Valley Arts Council may be sent to the organization’s office at the Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce, 900 Bridgeport Ave., second floor, Shelton 06484.

Patricia Villers can be reached at pvillers@nhregister.com.

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