Art at the Hibernia Firehouse
by Gwenn Seemel
There’s art at the Hibernia Firehouse again for the first time in eight months! It's lovely to see this building active again, since it hosted art and community events three or four times a week between 2021 and 2023 during Soupçon Salon’s tenure.
Located at 37 South Main Street in Lambertville, the Hibernia Firehouse has a storied career as a community space and events venue. It has hosted art shows and speakers including documentary filmmakers, often in conjunction with movie viewings at the ACME Screening Room on South Union.
Then, from 2017 until Hurricane Ida hit, the Firehouse was occupied by Fisherman’s Mark food pantry and administrative offices. Flood damage forced the nonprofit to relocate to the market building at Closson Farm in September of 2021, and Soupçon Salon, another Lambertville-based nonprofit organization, moved into the property on South Main Street. Soupçon signed a yearlong lease and agreed to do repairs that would make the Firehouse habitable—things like fixing the electricity and heating.
During its time at the Firehouse, Soupçon fostered a space that brought people together through creative expression, health and wellness, mutual aid, and education. There were writing circles, book clubs, yoga classes, clothing swaps, and all kinds of community events. Soupçon provided wheelchair accessible space to performers and artists, some of whom included the Firehouse’s neighbors in the Hibernia Apartments. The organization also raised around $3,000 for Ida victims, and it forged ties with the local Latinx population through collaborations with Latinas en Lambertville and our Library.
In 2023, the Hibernia Firehouse Company decided to sell its building. When Soupçon inquired about potentially submitting an offer on the space that it had nurtured over the previous year, the nonprofit was informed that the purchase had already been made in cash and that it was a done deal.
In 2024, the property briefly reopened to the public for the Lambertville Painting Show, featuring 30 artists from Lambertville, New Hope, and the surrounding area, including Princeton. The one-month weekends-only exhibit was curated by Lilah Dougherty and Adrienne Edmonds, with proceeds from art sales benefitting A Love for Life. This Newtown-based 501c3 supports research about pancreatic cancer, and it was founded by Edmonds's mother after Edmonds's father lost a two-year battle with this disease.
This year, Malcolm Bray’s work is on display in a solo show curated by Maureen Chatfield and Jim Steen, who owns the Firehouse. The exhibit is dedicated to Bray’s late wife and muse, Joanie Ireland, and it features work from the artist's four decades of abstract experimentation in oils and other mediums.
Though the painter wasn’t in attendance at last night's opening—his advanced Parkinson’s is the inspiration for Steen and Chatfield donating some of the proceeds from the show to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research—Bray’s presence was felt in the form of his large and energetic work.
Steen says he intends to start opening up the Firehouse for art shows twice a year. Chatfield, a painter herself as well as a teacher at the Hunterdon Art Museum, indicated that they’d be exhibiting the work of their favorite artists.
Bray’s paintings can be seen Saturdays and Sundays this month from 1 to 5 PM, with a special second reception tonight from 6 to 9 PM.
Soupçon Salon continues to host events several times a week. In just the last year, the nonprofit raised $27,000 for various community needs, and it provides the town with an almost-weekly open mic night. The organization currently makes its home in JB Kline’s gallery space, which you enter through Buck’s on Bridge at 25 Bridge Street in Lambertville. For information about Soupçon’s happenings, check out their site.
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