<h2><strong>St. Helena’s Mary&nbsp;Mack a legend like&nbsp;the gallery she loved</strong></h2>
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Mary Inabinett Mack remembers&nbsp;how she felt when the&nbsp;Red Piano Too opened.

Louanne LaRoche, an artist&nbsp;herself, opened the gallery, an outgrowth&nbsp;of the Red Piano in Bluffton,&nbsp;on St. Helena Island.

“She opened it, and I thought, “Oh&nbsp;God, how could she do that? It was&nbsp;my dream,” Mack said&nbsp;Monday night from&nbsp;home, remembering her disappointment.

Mack had been&nbsp;operating an art and&nbsp;framing business out&nbsp;of her home, and the&nbsp;Red Piano Too was&nbsp;exactly what she had envisioned that business becoming.

“I had initially taught myself to&nbsp;frame, then got a business license&nbsp;and was running the business&nbsp;out of my house,” Mack said. “But&nbsp;Louanne allowed me to have a little&nbsp;space at the gallery.”

And so began Mack’s journey&nbsp;with the Red Piano Too.

That journey ended Saturday, 30&nbsp;years later, as the gallery held it’s final&nbsp;sale before closing permanently.

<strong>Her dream job</strong>

Elayne Scott also worked at&nbsp;the Red Piano Too. When LaRoche left the business, Scott&nbsp;and Mack became partners.

<a href="https://staging.yourislandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MaryMack.jpeg"><img class="alignright wp-image-44718" src="https://staging.yourislandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MaryMack-1024x808.jpeg" alt="" width="436" height="344"></a>“Elayne worked for&nbsp;Louanne, and me with my&nbsp;little business inside of the&nbsp;gallery,” Mack said, “we came&nbsp;together and took it over.

Elaine managed it and I continued&nbsp;to work everyday.”

Then around 2000, Scott&nbsp;sold out.

“She couldn’t stand to do it&nbsp;anymore, and I couldn’t stand&nbsp;not to do it,” Mack said.

At first, Mack hired employees&nbsp;to run the gallery.&nbsp;But eventually, she decided&nbsp;she needed to do it herself.&nbsp;She retired in 2004 and had been running it ever since,&nbsp;until Saturday.

Mack said the gallery&nbsp;changed focus over time – it&nbsp;was originally more of a folk&nbsp;art gallery, primitive – though&nbsp;it remained primarily self taught artists.

Though she focused on&nbsp;Lowcountry artists, Mack&nbsp;established contacts with&nbsp;people from all over, eventually&nbsp;affiliating with more than&nbsp;150 artists.

Nathaniel Simmons, who&nbsp;became Mack’s partner when&nbsp;Scott sold her share in the&nbsp;gallery, though interested&nbsp;in art, was “really hands off.”&nbsp;When he died, his son became&nbsp;Mack’s partner He was&nbsp;“pretty hands off, also.”

“Fortunately, they both&nbsp;liked art,” Mack said.
<h4><strong>A new home</strong></h4>
Mack’s role wasn’t the only&nbsp;thing that changed at the&nbsp;Red Piano Too.&nbsp;Around 2000, the gallery&nbsp;made the move from its&nbsp;original home across&nbsp;the street to the historic St.&nbsp;Helena Island Farmers Co-Op building.

African-American landowners&nbsp;and farmers founded&nbsp;the co-operative in the early&nbsp;20th century after studying&nbsp;land use and agriculture&nbsp;at Penn School, the only school for formerly enslaved&nbsp;Africans that survived Reconstruction.

Built around 1940, the&nbsp;building was renovated&nbsp;around 2000, just before Red&nbsp;Piano Too’s move, and the&nbsp;gallery, Mack said, is the only tenant the building has had&nbsp;since.

According to a post on Red&nbsp;Piano Too’s Facebook page,&nbsp;the purpose of the co-operative&nbsp;was to “provide a market&nbsp;for the island's agricultural&nbsp;products, and to provide, at&nbsp;a reasonable price, materials,&nbsp;and supplies to area farmers.&nbsp;It was the first agricultural&nbsp;co-operative of its kind in&nbsp;South Carolina.”
<h4><strong>Not the place she left</strong></h4>
Born in Colleton County,&nbsp;Mack was raised on St. Helena.&nbsp;She actually attended the&nbsp;Penn School shortly after it&nbsp;became a part of the public&nbsp;school system.

Eventually, Mack made&nbsp;her way to New York in the&nbsp;1950s. It was there she fell in&nbsp;love with art.

“My husband took me to&nbsp;an open-air art exhibit in&nbsp;New York, and I thought it&nbsp;was the greatest thing I ever saw in my life,” Mack said.

Mack went to school in&nbsp;New York, becoming a registered&nbsp;mental health nurse.

And she raised a family.

“I wanted my children to&nbsp;have African American art&nbsp;in the home,” Mack said.

“At least then, there was not&nbsp;much, at least that I knew&nbsp;about. So that’s why I started&nbsp;my collection.”

Mack and her husband,&nbsp;Tommy, had built a home on&nbsp;his family’s land on St. Helena&nbsp;Island in 1970. Finally,&nbsp;in 1977 the moved back to&nbsp;South Carolina, returning to&nbsp;Beaufort for good in 1978.

Segregated when she left,&nbsp;St. Helena Island and Beaufort&nbsp;County were integrated&nbsp;when Mack returned.

“The place that I came back&nbsp;to was not the place that I left,”&nbsp;Mack said, “and the place that&nbsp;I came back to is not the place&nbsp;that I came back to now.”

In 1986, Mack became the&nbsp;deputy director of Beaufort-&nbsp;Jasper Comprehensive&nbsp;Health Services. But “Special&nbsp;Things,” her home-based art&nbsp;business was her love.

“People would come into&nbsp;my home and say, ‘ooh,&nbsp;where’d you get that?’” Mack&nbsp;said. “I was selling stuff off the&nbsp;walls. It was taking over the house.”
<h4>It’s was just different</h4>
<a href="https://staging.yourislandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_6475-e1591802587602.jpg"><img class="alignright wp-image-44721" src="https://staging.yourislandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_6475-e1591802587602.jpg" alt="" width="413" height="551"></a>The Covid-19 pandemic hit&nbsp;this year, and if that wasn’t&nbsp;enough, Mack dealt with&nbsp;a pretty bad reaction to a&nbsp;prescription medicine she&nbsp;was taking.

She doesn’t pretend that the&nbsp;Covid-19 scare was her reason&nbsp;for retiring. But she doesn’t&nbsp;deny its influence either.

“I was about there,” Mack&nbsp;said. “Life just pushed me&nbsp;into it. I had been thinking&nbsp;about it for a while and then&nbsp;the virus came along.”

A member of the Penn&nbsp;Center 1862 Circle, Mack is&nbsp;a 2020 recipient of the Elizabeth&nbsp;O'Neill Verner Governor's&nbsp;Award for the Arts, South&nbsp;Carolina's highest award for&nbsp;achievement in the Arts.&nbsp;She’s as much a legend&nbsp;as her gallery. But a couple&nbsp;months shy of he 84th&nbsp;birthday, Mack decided now&nbsp;was the time. Her family and&nbsp;advisers had said she had to&nbsp;make a decision, sooner or&nbsp;later.

Mack sent letters to artists&nbsp;about the closing. Though&nbsp;the gallery was closed for&nbsp;the virus, people came in by&nbsp;appointment one at a time to&nbsp;pick up their work.

The ending has been&nbsp;smooth, but the emotional&nbsp;aspect has been tough.

“I feel badly for the artists&nbsp;and the staff that work at the&nbsp;gallery,” Mack said. “They’re&nbsp;not just employees and artists,&nbsp;they’re friends.”

Like with most small businesses,&nbsp;she said there was financial&nbsp;angst. But they always&nbsp;managed to keep it going.

Mack joked that she was&nbsp;lucky she had never had to&nbsp;depend on the Red Piano Too&nbsp;to support her. Instead, she&nbsp;hinted, it <em>supported</em> her.

“Sometimes I go into&nbsp;galleries, and in my mind I&nbsp;think, this is what I envision&nbsp;an art gallery looking like,”&nbsp;Mack said. “But it’s not what&nbsp;mine looked like. Art stacked&nbsp;from the floor to the ceiling.&nbsp;It wasn’t finely curated exhibits.&nbsp;It was different. It was just&nbsp;different.”

<em>Red Piano Too Gallery has gone out of business.&nbsp;In the door window, with an empty room behind it, was posted&nbsp;one last message of note: “Show love.” Photo by Vivian I. Bikulege. Other photos submitted.&nbsp;</em>
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