The Stockyard, Studios & Artists

Stockyard Studios occupies a commercial yard on 4th Avenue on Stock Island, a few minutes from Old Town and a world away from the Duval Street gallery scene. Artist studios here share the property with a sign shop, a painting contractor and a scooter rental outfit, which tells you most of what you need to know about the atmosphere. Nothing has been dressed up for visitors. The studios are where the work actually happens.

The makers cover a wide range of heavy and hands-on media. Reen Stanhouse welds and works iron. Steve King is a designer and boatbuilder. Jeff Ware carves free-form wood sculpture and Pamela Kostmayer also works in wood. Lauren P. McAloon builds ceramic sculpture, mostly high-fired stoneware, often on boat themes. Jane Beck works in glass. Roger Heinen and Bree Anne Buckley paint. B. Lucy Stevens, CRGray and Antonio round out the roster, and The Sailor's Heart runs a floral design studio on the property.

Getting in takes a little planning, because this is a group of working studios rather than a storefront with posted hours. The most reliable way to see several at once is the Artist Studio Tour run by The Studios of Key West, a one-day self-guided event with a free trolley between stops that has brought visitors to Stock Island and the Stockyard in recent seasons. TSKW rotates the tour among Key West neighborhoods, so check its schedule for the current year. Outside of that, Stockyard Studios keeps a mailing list for exhibitions and events, and several of the artists list their own contact information and can arrange a visit.

Stock Island has quietly become one of the more interesting corners of the Lower Keys for anyone curious about how things are made here, and the Stockyard is the densest concentration of it.