An underground feel: Vagabond Studio & Gallery in Dayton is a welcoming space for creators, musicians

Vagabond Studio & Gallery is like the lost and found of the U.S.

Located on the lower level of Front Street’s sprawling complex, Vagabond repurposes discard into art and functional decor, just as photographers Jen and Jonah Hunter — the mother-son co-owners of the studio — transformed an empty storage room into a warm communal space that hosts guest creators and musicians.

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“I’m not a seasoned artist,” Jen Hunter said. “I’ve always been a maker and I’ve always been drawn to creating space, but never with art in a realm like this.”

The gallery is nearly a scrapbook manifestation of her and her family’s shared and individual travels: Jonah Hunter and his thousand black-and-white photos from a six-month stint in Alaska, and Jen with her experiences living in vans seen through all her cameras since 1976 — from film through digital.

Credit: JIM NOELKER

Credit: JIM NOELKER

The Hunters moved their work into the space in October 2020. After months of renovations, rug placements and an upright piano wheeled from The Brightside on Third, Vagabond officially opened to the public in April 2021. Local blueswoman Sharon Lane marked the occasion by playing the studio’s first official performance.

Vagabond has hosted music, poetry readings and spoken word twice a month ever since.

As the bevy of vintage seating multiplied, so did the people taking notice. It was happening at Vagabond, but in unintended secret — it officially switched from a hobby to a business in 2023. Only recently, within this last year, did the initial underground feel start to sprout out of the ground, despite it being a part of Dayton’s popular art collective.

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“I kind of wanted to let it organically grow and take these baby steps as I felt able to,” Jen Hunter said.

People tell people who tell people. But this organic growth has been a long time coming, as Vagabond wasn’t her first experience at Front Street; it’s her third — though her only concrete endeavor.

In the early 90s, before marriage and children, Jen Hunter lived in her Volkswagen Vagabond in the Front Street parking lot. She eventually moved in on the third floor to hang out with the folks at Image Co-op as a non-member, absorbing the knowledge of film photography by association. She was an undeclared student who inhabited a van: the one she’d name her studio after three decades later.

“It’s hard to absorb,” she said, referring to her transition from nomad to gallery purveyor. “You can do anything you want to do as long as you want to do it bad enough. Both of my kids have been hearing that their whole life.”

Credit: JIM NOELKER

Her son, Jonah, is across the hall in another studio — a shared space with woodworker, Erich Reith — rebuilding the engine for his 1986 BMW. Rogue hubcaps are found in stacks, crevices and wherever space allows, awaiting to be finagled into clocks, just as cigar boxes and glassware have turned into lamps and rusted metal into avant-garde sculptures.

“When I was in middle school, I had to make this [cardboard] chair that had to hold 50 pounds,” Jonah Hunter said. “The arms were cool; they were made out of mannequin arms.”

He found his knack for sculpting through a cardboard assignment and his love for photography with his grandfather’s Canon FX 35mm camera.

Now in his mid-20s, with a mix of formal training and self-teaching under his belt, Jonah’s work has been displayed at Bar Granada, Roger Glass Center for the Arts, and, of course, at his gallery, Vagabond.

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“It’s more of an eclectic space than a specific kind of space,” he said, referring to the variety of pieces found at Vagabond. “Bring it all in.”

One thing that makes Vagabond unique is their wont to help fellow artists showcase their work, perhaps for the first time.

Credit: JIM NOELKER

“I’m drawn to inclusivity, not exclusivity,” Jen Hunter said. “What I want to create is an inclusive place where we can all gather together and experience each other’s talents collectively.”

As a young artist herself once, she was apprehensive about taking those leaps. Creating a shared space promotes confidence in budding talents.

Vagabond recently hosted Faith Ritchie’s fungi photography, among other visual and musical artists. Monthly art residencies are scheduled for the foreseeable future, including co-owner Jonah Hunter’s exhibits of travel photography, “Urban Dwellings” and avian action shots, “Birds.”

“I never thought I was good at anything else besides [photographing] birds,” Jonah Hunter said. “I’ve always been super interested in them. They can just lift their wings and go wherever they want to go.”

In that regard, the Hunters have a lot in common with our feathered friends — and that can be seen on every wall of their studio.