It's a balmy Saturday afternoon in Mount Adams. People are walking about, enjoying the fresh air and blooming flowers in one of Cincinnati's most eclectic and historic neighborhoods.

        On Hatch Street, across from the Mushroom Wine Shop, a wide black banner on a gallery reads “Visionary Art in Action.”

        Several large oil paintings — one depicting a local landmark and another a surrealistic swirl of images — are propped next to the gallery's two open doors. A group of pre-adolescent boys stroll down the sidewalk, stopping in front of the artwork.

Charles Brown, a painter, and Doreen LaRue, a photographer and poet, share a moment in their gallery/studio, Visionary Art in Action, on Hatch Street. (Ernest Coleman photos) | ZOOM |

        “Wow, look at these paintings,” one youngster tells his friends. The others pause for a moment and proclaim they are indeed “cool.”

        Maybe a better word to describe the scene would be “groovy.”

        After walking into Visionary Art in Action and meeting its owners, Charles Brown and Doreen LaRue, you feel as though you've walked back into Mount Adams' 1960s bohemian heyday.

        Clad in tie-dye, and brushing his long, brown hair from his eyes, Mr. Brown, 40, is as passionate about his art as he is the Grateful Dead.

        Ms. LaRue, 36, a management consultant by trade, is also a poet and self-taught landscape, pet and wedding photographer.

        The feeling inside the gallery is decidedly eclectic.

        Ms. LaRue's photographs overlaid with her poetry are juxtaposed against photographic pet portraits.

        Mr. Brown's airy oil paintings of familiar scenes remind one of the great Realist Gustave Courbet. The Suspension Bridge and Cincinnati skyline are in stark contrast with Mr. Brown's surrealistic works and portraits.

Visionary Art in Action takes visitors back to the counter-culture atmosphere of the '60s, complete with Mr. Brown on guitar. | ZOOM |

        As their gallery approaches its one-year anniversary, Mr. Brown and Ms. LaRue are eager to talk about their endeavor.

        They met two years ago in a downtown bar when Ms. LaRue decided that Mr. Brown looked like like someone she should meet.

        “Are you a musician?” she asked him.

        “No, I'm an artist,” he said pulling a brochure from his pocket with pictures of his paintings.

        They knew it was artistic destiny when they discovered that Mr. Brown had painted a scene that Ms. LaRue had photographed.

        Mr. Brown describes their relationship as “kindred spirits involved in an evolving artistic marriage.” They live together in Newport.

        After exhibiting their work together at dozens of area art fairs, they decided their regular patrons needed a permanent place to find them — thus, the birth of their Visionary Art in Action gallery.

        Ms. LaRue, who grew up in Mount Adams, felt like she wasn't “supposed to leave the hill,” she explains of their decision to locate the gallery in her neighborhood.

IF YOU GO

What: Visionary Art in Action. “The People Have Spoken,” one-year anniversary celebration.     When: 6-9 p.m. Saturday.     Where: 945 Hatch St., Mount Adams.     Gallery hours: 4-9 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.     Information: 421-4455.     There's more: Their exhibition Perceptions of Reality will open next Sunday at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Deerfield Township (683-5599).

        Both artists are actively involved in the gallery, wearing the many hats needed to make a business work.

        “We do the marketing, the public relations, set up the commissions, all of that,” Mr. Brown says. “A lot of artists can't do that.”

        Mr. Brown estimates that 300 people pass through the gallery in a typical weekend. Browsers are welcome and greeted warmly by both artists, who staff the shop during open hours.

        It's a casual atmosphere with art hung on every available flat surface. Easels displaying works-in-progress are propped in the middle of the gallery's three rooms or outside.

        Most of their work is done in the gallery or on the back brick terrace — an explanation for the “art in action” portion of their studio name.

        For Ms. LaRue, the world is her workshop. As a management consultant, contracting with international firms such as IBM, she travels widely and always takes her camera.

        “Little do they know that Big Blue (IBM) supports bohemian art,” Mr. Brown says with a chuckle.

        Ms. LaRue originally fell into photography as a way of illustrating her poetry.

        “I always had the poem in my mind and wanted the image to go with it,” she says.

        In 1999, she was commissioned by Christ Hospital to photograph 31 images of natural areas in Cincinnati to be used as art therapy for cancer patients. Many of her photographs also become works on glass that can be hung in a window or worn as jewelry.

        In addition to showing her work, Ms. LaRue teaches photographic techniques and holds several classes at the studio.

        Working on double and triple exposed glass photographs as well as shooting artistically photographed weddings are among her future plans.

        A self-taught painter for more than 20 years, Mr. Brown's work is done “very quickly and very loosely,” he says. Using a palette knife to apply paint to canvas, his work often depicts nature or rainy scenes.

        “I really like the physicality of the work,” he says. “I like bringing the viewer closer to the scene by making it both personal and universal at the same time.”

        Newer works include his “Slices of Life,” inches-thin vertical panorama paintings that take on what he calls an extreme perspective.

        Both artists enjoy a loyal patronage and strong individual as well as corporate commission work.

        “A lot of our stuff has been defined by our patrons,” says Mr. Brown.

        “And then there is the Dead stuff,” interjects Ms. LaRue.

        In addition to traditional landscapes, several of Mr. Brown's patrons happen to be Grateful Dead fans. Also a fan, Mr. Brown obligingly paints portraits of the band or Jerry Garcia for their collections.

        Many of those collectors will be loaning back their work to aid in the gallery's special one year anniversary celebration Saturday.

        The two also continue to show their work at area art exhibitions and fairs, such as the Duveneck show May 13 in George Rogers Clark Park in Covington.

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