Lowe Mill ARTS Entertainment continues to showcase Huntsville talent

Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment continues to showcase Huntsville talent

Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment has evolved alongside Huntsville to become a destination for restaurants, musicians, and artists alike, making it a haven for creativity. 

As it exists today, Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment has something for everyone: brass cast sculptures, cooking, pottery, and candle-making spaces, a whiskey distillery, a theater, 152 working studios, 7 art galleries, and 200 artists and makers. 

Between special draws to individual studios as well as those organized by LMA&E directly, something is always going on at Lowe Mill. Draws to individual studios include distillery tours from Irons One every Saturday, 4-5 shows from The Studio Theater each year, the next being Alabama Story, debuting on October 6. In addition to Concerts on the Dock, with the last show of the year on Friday, October 6, the mill itself also features rotating gallery exhibits and accompanying Open Studio Nights, the next of which is to be held on November 18. 

According to media coordinator Eric Schultz, Lowe Mill Arts and Entertainment prides itself on the transparency the artists and makers in the mill give the public. During a walk through Lowe Mill, one can see the creation of artisan chocolates at Pizzelle’s Confections, the brewing of mead at Ravenwood Meadery, the restoration of classic arcade games at Starlight Arcade and a number of visual artists painting, drawing, sewing and sculpting in their studios. It is truly astounding to take in Huntsville’s diverse array of talented creatives.  

“We want it to be experiential,” Schultz said. “We want people to do more than just go look at a piece of art; we can go talk to the artist and say, why did you do this? What does it mean?”

Now, Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment’s focus is on uplifting local artists and makers, but the facility itself has  had its own storied history with the development of Huntsville. Lowe Mill was first constructed in 1900 as a cotton mill; the facility’s North Building as well as “The Connector”, which now functions as an event venue, were built in 1904 after the absorption of another manufacturing facility. Lowe Mill originally closed in 1932 at the peak of the Great Depression before reopening its doors under new leadership a month later. In 1937, its functions as a mill ceased, and it became a cotton warehouse.

From 1945 to 1978, Lowe Mill was converted into a shoe factory owned by Genesco, employing 800 people at its height. By 1969, most U.S. soldiers in Vietnam wore combat boots made in Lowe Mill. 

In 1999, commercial real estate agent Gene McClain bought the mill, selling it to its current owner Jim Hudson, founder of HudsonAlpha and Research Genetics. Hudson purchased it with the intention to create an artists’ collective allowing visual artists of all disciplines to live and work in the area, inspired by the Torpedo Factory in Arlington, Virginia. “It was a very crude but really fun place,” Hudson said. “They had a couple of sculptures and sculptors in there as well as other artists, and they were making noise and dust and so forth.” 

After a transitional period beginning in 2002 in which Flying Monkey Arts, a grassroots artists’ collective, began having pop-up performances and markets in the south portion of the second floor, hosting regular events in the Connector. By 2003, Flying Monkey Arts leased the entire second floor, occupying Second Floor South and the first and second floor connector spaces.   

Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment was founded in 2006, with the original chain link separation of studios inspired by the Torpedo Factory. In 2007, Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment hosted its first dock concert and began focusing on expanding its studio space in 2008; the Second Floor Connector studios opened that year. In 2009, the opening of the third floor added 27 new studios to the venue. The most recent addition came in 2014 with the opening of the North Building’s second floor, adding 31 new studios, a gallery, and a 72-seat art classroom. Its most recent expansion increased Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment’s size by 30%, making it the largest privately owned arts and entertainment facility in the United States.

Though Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment doesn’t have any big projects underway at the moment, things are constantly changing around the mill. New artists are vetted and set up shop; existing artists move around the mill to accommodate expanded offerings; galleries change artists and pieces every three months or so.  

“People who are coming here know that just because you come here once, it’s gonna be the next time you come. If you come in three months, you’re gonna have a whole different experience,” Schultz said.

For more information, please visit lowemill.art.