Coming Up Violets

Tucked into Moon Lake Village off Highway 117, with parking behind the Baptist church, Coming Up Violets is a small shop and studio in Mentone, Alabama run by artist Amanda Grace Gamsby. It functions as both a working art studio and a village storefront, selling original artwork, books, and handmade goods from a rotating group of local artists, authors, and musicians alongside Gamsby’s own drawings, paintings, and portrait commissions.

Gamsby moved to the Lookout Mountain area after some years in Brooklyn, New York, where she worked as both an artist and a figure model. Her practice spans watercolor, pen and ink, pencil portraiture, acrylic, and mixed media, and her studio tagline, “loitering on both sides of the easel,” nods to the fact that she works as both a visual artist and a model for other artists’ classes and shoots. Beyond gallery-style paintings and drawings, she also produces autobiographical comic journals, presented as an ongoing visual diary rather than a single published title.

Portrait commissions are a central part of the business. Gamsby takes on portraits of people and pets, along with other custom pieces, in pencil, colored pencil, or india ink, with small portraits starting at 75 dollars and final pricing shaped by size, materials, and level of detail. Clients typically reach out by email or phone to discuss a piece, describe the style and size they have in mind, and share reference photos for a portrait subject.

What sets the shop apart from a typical gallery is the roster of other makers it carries. Shelves and wall space are shared with woodcarvings from Don Highfield, jewelry and wall art from Margay Art, herbal products and embroidery from Bushel and a Peck Homestead, scented goods from Cultivate Soap and Skincare, crochet work from Rebecca Walker Benjamin, ink landscapes from William Pitcher, and watercolors from Jamie Calkin. Books from regional authors, including Neal Wooten, round out the shop’s stock, giving visitors a sense of the wider creative community around Lookout Mountain rather than a single artist’s output alone.

Classes at Coming Up Violets center on figure drawing and painting, with Gamsby working as the model for sessions rather than as the instructor, drawing on her background posing for art groups and events in Brooklyn and beyond. The shop also lists art lessons aimed at kids and beginners for visitors looking to try drawing or painting for the first time. Those interested in either the modeling sessions or the beginner lessons are directed to contact the shop directly, since offerings are arranged rather than posted on a fixed public class calendar.

The shop has also begun hosting community gallery shows on its lavender-painted walls. Its first exhibition, a protest-art show, brought in work from area residents alongside pieces on loan from the DeKalb County Democratic Club, including signs made by local teens and children, plus a quilt and an appliqued banner contributed by fabric artist Meg Coleman. Gamsby has described the show as an effort to give space to left-leaning, LGBTQIA-plus, and disabled artists in a part of Alabama where that kind of programming is not common, and a follow-up show has been planned since the first one closed. The shop pairs these exhibitions with its regular retail hours rather than treating them as separate ticketed events.

Coming Up Violets keeps village hours: Thursday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Beyond the physical shop at 5866 E River Rd, Gamsby’s work and the shop’s inventory can also be found through a Square-based online shop, an Etsy storefront, and a Society6 print shop, along with a blog on the studio’s website documenting past shows and new work. For visitors exploring Mentone’s small arts scene, the shop offers a chance to see a working studio, browse a genuinely local mix of crafts and books, and commission a portrait directly from the artist who made it.