A new home for artists of all ages has opened in Brookfield.
Grey Phoenix Art Studio opened Monday, Feb. 2, at 3730-3732 Prairie Ave. The business hosts art classes for children and adults including a forthcoming summer camp program, open workshop hours for local artists and art for sale. The studio features several different media of art, including painting, sculpting, printmaking, drawing and more.
A gallery pop-up night and grand opening, which will feature “a smorgasbord of local artists,” is scheduled for March 7 at 7 p.m.
“I have always wanted to be in the arts, ever since high school,” said Terri Angarone, the owner and operator of Grey Phoenix. “I always wanted to be an art teacher.”
Angarone said she earned a degree in painting but didn’t finish her teaching degree before her family moved to Brookfield in 2007.
“I’m a South Sider, and my husband’s a North Sider, so we found Brookfield. It was centrally located; we could get to the city,” she said. “I found that they had a great art fest. Abby [Brennan] from Brennan Spa, she started the [Brookfield Fine Arts Festival] when we moved in 2007. I was part of that from the very beginning, and I loved it. I started doing more art fests and becoming more a part of the art community … I didn’t realize how many artists were in Brookfield and the surrounding areas.”
Despite finally earning her arts degree, Angarone said she mostly did office work throughout her adult life.
“I worked at a printing place, so I did typesetting. It was kind of artistic, but it was basically people telling me what they wanted, right? It was that kind of stuff; it was just to pay the bills,” she said. “My side hustle was art. It was something I enjoyed on the side.”
She said she decided to open her own art studio after she realized it was an unfilled niche in Brookfield.
“I’m taking my kids to Oak Park, to Riverside and LaGrange for art classes. I’m like, ‘I could do this,’” she said. “‘I can open a studio and have classes all the time,’ so I started looking around, and I found this space. It was great.”
Alongside Angarone, who focuses on oil painting, printmaking and mixed media, Grey Phoenix features Ryan Bothwell as an instructor. Bothwell is the ceramicist behind Bothwell Pottery, which was operating out of his own art classroom at Forest Road Elementary School in LaGrange Park last summer.
“He taught my youngest daughter pottery. He was getting moved out of the school because they were doing some renovation. I said, ‘Listen, I don’t know if you’re looking for a space, and you don’t know me from Adam, but do you want to collaborate? I’m opening a studio,’ and he goes, ‘Oh my gosh, yeah!’” Angarone said.
Comic book fans may appreciate the studio’s name, which Angarone said was a nod to her favorite mutant superhero from “X-Men.”
“There’s the Phoenix, and her human name is Jean Grey. I took her last name and Phoenix because I relate to her a lot, and I love the color grey. I feel like there’s so much grey in the world — not as a bad thing, but everything is not black and white, right? There’s so much grey area,” she said.
Opening Grey Phoenix has meant reclaiming her pride and passion for art, Angarone said.
“When I turned 50, this was when I started really thinking about opening a studio, so I changed my whole life,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’m not going to work for anyone anymore. Instead of doing this as a side project or a side hustle, I want to make this my full-time gig.”
