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Last Sunday, while much of Winchester spent the day away from downtown, the second floor of the McEldowney Building at 5 Cleveland Avenue remained busy for good reason.

In preparation for The Minds of Many, a multimedia exhibit open to the public, more than 70 artists brought in their work as staff from the Winchester Art Guild, and more began setting up.

“This is a nonprofit space. It’s just an opportunity to have artists here and for them to be able to show their work,” said Jeffrey Hale, who co-owns Mason on Main and is an art teacher in Fayette County. “There’s no commission. It’s not a gallery space where we enter into a contract and take a portion of the sale of the artwork. It’s just about showing”

On Sept. 2 and 3, as the Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival is going on, the doors will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The exhibit will remain through September and October 2023.

It is all part of opening a new community gallery space inside the building, one of Winchester’s oldest yet most historic.

The project has been a long time in the making and was born in large part out of the vision of Adam Kidd.

Kidd, the owner of the McEldowney Building since 2019 and a project administrator at Dam Holdings LLC, recently won the Graham Johns Downtown Volunteer of the Year Award at the Winchester-Clark County Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet.

“He and his partners have always wanted the McEldowney [Building] to be here for the public,” Hale added. “Adam and I started talking about his goal and then my interest. The idea of having these hallways, this extra space, [is] perfect for artwork available for artists to show.”

While much of the artwork will be showcased on the second floor, it even adorns the stairwells, and some can be found along the first floor.

Kenny Howard, president of the Winchester Art Guild, offers insight into what visitors can expect.

“We have every kind of art you can imagine,” Howard said. “Not only do we have the paintings and things that are going to be on the wall, we’ve got stained glass, blown glass, sculptures, handmade baskets everything you can add.”

Types of paintings include acrylic, oil, and more.

In what some might call a full-circle moment, some original members of the Winchester Art Guild – founded in 1978 – will have their work on display.

One such individual is long-time Winchester artist and resident Dewey Pope, who proudly displayed his work honoring the town’s history.

“This is a graphite pencil drawing that I did of the George Washington train that used to come through here back in probably as early as the 30s or 40s all the way up through the early 80s,” Pope said. “Several of my friends and I, when we were growing up…would ride this train back and forth to Lexington and spend the day on Saturdays and come back. The George Washington [train] really is a part of Winchester.”

Perhaps most telling, Hale displayed a list of artists he contacted when the idea for the project first came to mind.

“You can see by all the checkmarks [that] no one has refused,” Hale said. “Everyone is just so eager to be part of it. It’s a synergy that’s starting to happen. I think it’s great.”

The event is one which Howard hopes will be the start of a more significant development.

“We have people reaching out to us wanting to be a part of this because we want Winchester to be an art center, a cultural hub in the area,” Howard said. “This is just the beginning of that vision.”