[an excerpt from the full CinWeekly article]

AN ARTS DESTINATION

The group at Powerhouse Factories did it alone, but Paul Mason, owner of M, An Ultra Modern Gallery, located on Main Street, says with a few more changes to Pike Street, he'd open another gallery in the arts district.

When Mason was first looking for gallery space, he searched Over-the-Rhine, Oakley and the Pendleton arts area as well as Covington. But he kept coming back to Covington.

"It has the potential to grow as a hip arts scene," Mason says of Covington. "It's hard to open a gallery on Main Street (in Cincinnati). I can invite whoever I want to come down (to Covington) and they won't be disgusted with the atmosphere. And there are restaurants and things they can do."

Just the possibility that Covington will soon have an arts district was reason enough for Jennifer Baldwin, executive director of Art Machine, a children's art museum for children by children, to make plans to set up Art Machine in the area.

With thousands of people attending Art Machine's biggest show, the annual Scholastic Art Awards, Baldwin hopes her new space at Eighth and Russell streets will be ready for the Feb. 4 opening.

Either way, Baldwin is excited to be making the arts district area her future home.

"It's going to be a destination, and we want to be as close to it as we can," she says.