As school starts again, returning students will discover that over the summer the cultural arts community has either lost or is in the process of relocating a number of visual arts and performing venues.

"Flotsam" by Amanda Besl at BT&C Gallery

The redoubtable College Street Gallery, an approximation of what a co-operative art gallery would look like if it was turned into a screenplay, has begun its transformation from real-time creative arts venue into a storied Allentown legend.

Market forces of realty, (read reality) have shoved after many years of nudging. To many approaching the light of the gallery on a cold blustery First Friday evening it was a beacon of communal warmth and body politic—where those having a fervent predilection for making images from technique and/or imagination and those beckoned by comradely engagement found a welcome respite from whatever inchoate circumstances lay beyond the gallery door.

Rust Belt Books, a polymathic emporium of second hand printed matter, will reassemble at 415 Grant Street after the holiday season. Often the site of poetry and performance events, Rust Belt holds a chair for readers and spoken word patrons who stop in from all over.

Glow Gallery has re-established 224 Allen as a venue of vibrant creative activity with a quick turn over exhibition schedule bringing a selection of new artists to public visibility.

Pausa Art House up past Allen on Wadsworth at Hudson continues to present elegant exhibitions with frequent jazz and classical performances and poetry events.

This summer’s biggest public debut was the culmination of years building a public awareness of “Silo City”, the creative transformation of an acreage of grain elevators repurposed to stage music and performance art events.

Over on the East Side, The Foundry, an old icehouse, dry cleaner, and former site of Re-Use Buffalo has for the past three years hosted off site-theater engagements, re-cycled wood craft, baked goods sales and local musical performances. The summer’s Infringement Festival gave a strong public boost to this venue which also rents studio space to artists with large dimension projects. Back west and all the way down to 1250 Niagara Street is the BT&C Gallery, Anna Kaplan’s handsome enterprise will begin the fall season with paintings by Amanda Besl.This gallery marks a point of reckoning for art patrons to venture to the far west and with the Resurgence Brewery, and a reconstituted “Sugar City” is guaranteed to bring patrons to a different part of town.

Elizabeth Samuel’s Indigo Gallery has moved further east at 47 Allen St, rehabbing a beauty salon into a bright spacious floor thru Fine Arts venue. Opening on First Friday is Want Everything with work by Felice Koenig and Kevin Kegler.

Dreamland opened during Infringement 2014 at Franklin and Edward Street. Seen from the curb it appears unassuming...just another town house on a quiet leafy city street...but it gives every indication of becoming the venue most likely to prove the equal of the much missed Vault...the theater district gallery venue producing experimental music performance and evocative art events downtown. Dreamland will host a tribute to Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film classics, August 31st.

TGW@497 Gallery has recently opened at 387 Franklin just past Allen Street—now into it’s fourth exhibition of work by local artists. Gallerist David Vitrano’s strong background in aesthetics curates public pleasing exhibitions with great curb appeal. Julie Lewitzky opens Gallery Walk’s First Friday with drawings and mono-prints.

At the convergence of Franklin and Linwood, Don Siuta’s long standing Art Dialog Gallery has lately resurfaced as Western New York Artist Group Gallery uniting gallery space with the former tailor shop next door—providing exhibit space and mainstay custom frame shop.

At press time, College Street Gallery will continue to host music and poetry open mike under a bannered tent on College Street until the weather brings a change of fortune. Gallerist Michael Mulley is looking for a new space to exhibit membership artists in painting, mixed media and photography.