5/20/04 - Main drag for art: Castleberry Hill

For a time, the stretch of Peachtree Street pitifully self-christened Sobo (South of Buckhead) was a contender for art main drag status. Once home to an uber-happening nexus of galleries -- Vaknin Schwartz, Gerstev, Sandler Hudson, Marcia Wood and Kubatana -- the majority of those galleries have since up and quit. The Buckhead Tula complex of galleries might be a contender if it weren't too reminiscent of the main street's chief grim reaper: the shopping mall.

No, it may be up to the downtown upstart Castleberry Hill to take on the role. >From the outside, this slightly down-in-the-mouth district of warehouse spaces and soup kitchens hugging Peters Street may seem on the desolate side. But there is plenty going on if you put in the legwork.

The area's status was established when married artists Carolyn Carr and Michael Gibson moved into former "Trading Spaces" Ty Pennington's refurbished Peters Street building in 1997. Their multilevel space is now home to a street level gallery Garage Projects (www.garageprojects.com). Peters Street is also home to the exhibition space Haustudio operated by artist Diane Hause (www.haustudio.com) and the high-end Skot Foreman Fine Art Gallery (www.skotforeman.com) Around the corner on Walker Street, the art energy continues with contemporary art space Marcia Wood Gallery (marciawoodgallery.com) currently featuring artists Drew Galloway, George Long and Robert Sagerman.

Also on Walker is Ty Stokes Gallery (www.tystokes.com), offering eclectic work from primitive to conceptual as in the current show Artstar featuring Scott Ingram and Drew Conrad (through June 5).

Further down the road apiece is the West End's Candler-Smith Historic Warehouse District, a warren of artist and designer studios. The complex is also home to the arts collaborative Elevation Gallery (www.elevation gallery.com), which specializes in pop culture-inflected exhibitions with a rock 'n' roll attitude, and the City View Sculpture park where Zachary Coffin's sculptures are on permanent exhibition.

Though the Castleberry/West End main drag hardly resembles the bustling commercial downtowns of yore, this burgeoning art scene boasts a bounty of visual goods.