By Sally Quale

Heather Neilson paints on canvas.

Inside a former mill building tucked behind the community college in Winsted there is a warren of artists’ spaces, craftsmen’s workshops and miscellaneous businesses. This is Whiting Mills. On any given day, a ceramicist might be glazing her pots for the kiln, a painter scrubbing his canvases, a weaver laying out her designs for display. The vibe is friendly, but the hallways are quiet on a weekday and the studios mostly shuttered. A number of the tenants also work at day jobs, explains Sandy Evans, the building manager. The weekends are when the building really comes alive and earns its Yankee Magazine billing as “a one-of-a-kind shopping destination.”

Jean-Paul and Eva Blachere bought the 19th-century complex, which originally manufactured men’s hosiery, in 2004. Longtime Sandisfield residents and friends to many in Norfolk, the Blacheres were renting a commercial space in the building when the former owner died. Although they had no plans to become landlords, they decided to take the plunge when the property was put up for sale. Gradually, they cleaned the building, refinishing the original wood floors, replacing the windows and subdividing the industrial spaces. They had intended to fill the mill’s 135,000 square feet with light industries but shifted, when the demand didn’t materialize, to the eclectic mix of creative and business types that make up the Whiting Mills community today.

Babs Perkins moves in.

Among the present occupants pointed out by Evans during a tour are a maker of theatrical masks, a Native American gourd carver, a broker of high-end guitars and an artist who weaves baskets over a framework of coiled wild vines. We stop in at the studio of Dee Carnelli, who works mainly with felt. She discusses her techniques for making the colorful purses, bowls, vases and jewelry that she has on display and demonstrates how a tuft of wool can be compacted with a barbed needle to sculpt the figurines that line her shelves.

A number of the tenants have Norfolk connections. For photographer Babs Perkins, the airy, high-ceilinged studio serves as a production space for her new, metal-mounted series of spidery tree photographs and as a warehouse for her earlier bodies of work. Along one wall last week was a series of large black and white photographs, recently returned to her from an exhibit, of Brutalist war memorials that she had found scattered around the former Yugoslavia during her yearly travels to Eastern Europe. Fabric artist Fay O’Meara, who is now making delicate geometrical wall pieces out of curved strips of painted lath, also has a studio in the building, as does Theresa Cannavo, an upholsterer, who is familiar to Norfolkians as the former manager of the Norfolk Farmers Market.

Building manager Sandy Evans.

“There are a lot of talented people in this building,” Evans is proud to say. And many in the building return the compliment to Evans, who has been a full-time administrator for the Blacheres since Whiting Mills opened and whose leadership is evident at every turn. “This would never work unless everyone cooperated,” says Evans, who marshals the resident craftsmen to help her with projects. She points to the signboard by the door listing all 56 tenants: “One of our woodworkers made that for me.” The Blacheres refer to Evans as their “savior,” and Don Wass, a painter and early tenant at Whiting Mills, credits her with fostering the collegial atmosphere and general success of the enterprise. Every available unit is rented, and there is a waiting list of prospective occupants.

Evans opens the door to a storage room. “This is one of my Christmas closets,” she says. It is filled with Christmas trees, wreaths, ribbons and boxes of ornaments. And there are two others around the building. “We really decorate for Christmas,” says Evans, with a rueful smile. She will start to unpack the contents of her Christmas closets in mid-November, in preparation for the semiannual open house in the first days of December. On that occasion, all of the artists will be on hand, all of the studios will be on display, food from a New Hartford food truck will be available in the common areas, and the Boar’s Head Singers will be caroling in the halls.

Whiting Mills is at 100 Whiting Street, in Winsted, Conn. The Holiday Open Studios is scheduled for December 1 and 2, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. And on the third Sunday of every month, there is an open house from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. when most of the artisans are present and offering demonstrations. The website is whitingmills.com.

Photo, top: Felt artist Dee Carnelli sculpts small human figures out of compacted wool. Photos by Wiley Wood.