Work|Release, the Norfolk Art-and-Music Venue That Burned Bright for Two Years

For two years in the mid-2010s, a venue at the corner of Granby Street and Olney Road in Norfolk could be heard before it could be seen. Work|Release opened in April 2015 on the ground floor of the old Texaco building at 759 Granby St., during the early days of what is now called the NEON District. On busy nights, lines wrapped around the building and were still moving at 1:30 a.m. When it closed in April 2017, there was no farewell event and no press release.

The building had sat empty for years before Arthur "Brother" Rutter and his wife, Meredith, bought it. Previous owners had planned condos before the housing market crashed in 2008, and the Rutters ended up with a gutted shell. "There wasn't a wall, a pipe, or a wire in the thing," Rutter said. Through the Rutter Family Art Foundation, the couple saw a chance to bring contemporary art to a wide audience in a way the city's museums were, in Rutter's words, "unable or unwilling" to do.

The district's launch helped the timing. Arts organizers Hannah Serrano and Jesse Scaccia had pitched city leaders on the idea, and Rutter and early investors such as the Perry family, who started nearby Glass Wheel Studios, joined in early. In the summer of 2014, Careyann Weinberg, who would direct Work|Release for its entire run, gathered 50 to 100 people for a brainstorming session called Texaco Talk It Out. The group concluded that art alone would not be engaging enough. Rutter described the result as "a thinking club, an intelligent club, an art club." The name, pitched half-jokingly by Weinberg's then-partner Charles Rasputin, stuck because it carried several meanings at once.

The venue opened with AGLOW, a neon sculpture exhibition featuring 12 artists from around the world, and quickly became the place to be. A typical week might include a symphony collaboration with the local duo Sunny and Gabe, a figure drawing session that turned into an evening of live music, a punk band, and a DJ set that grew into a club night. "Young kids, older folks, the art crowd, people partying, poor, rich," Weinberg said. Off-duty police officers hired for security later told Rutter they competed for shifts there.

The music lineup was ambitious for a 2,000-square-foot room. Grammy-nominated Masego played there early in his career, Portsmouth rapper D.R.A.M. was a regular, DJ Tiësto filmed a video there, and the band of Montreal drew 500 to 600 people. Kishi Bashi also performed. Bart Barnes, who DJs as Fake Uzumi, got his first real opportunity there and said the receptive crowd pushed him to take risks. Gabe Niles called the venue "a beacon of creativity."

The art was central rather than decorative. Guest curators rotated through. Charlotte Potter curated "Native," a show of Hampton Roads artists, while Scaccia organized a gun violence exhibition that brought police officers and Black Lives Matter groups together for brunch and drew national attention. A graffiti show, Weinberg's favorite, featured shipping containers in the back lot, a half pipe, and artists from Atlanta, New York, Baltimore and Richmond. Staff were taught the works so that, rather than scolding guests who got too close, they could invite them to help protect the pieces.

Keeping it going was expensive. At its peak the venue employed 17 people and operated nearly every night, and it could not turn a profit. Potter recalled the Rutters saying they were willing to lose their sleeve but not their shirt. Rutter said the model also depended on other NEON District businesses growing at the same pace. "One business can't bring everybody else along," he said. Potter likened the venue to a firework show, which does not last long because it is unsustainable.

The closing came without warning. "It was kind of like a 'Hey guys, it's done. It's wrapped up,'" Weinberg said, adding that the Rutters' vision and hers were not always in line. Barnes said regulars thought the shutdown was temporary. Rutter said it was meant as a pause. Commune restaurant later moved in, some art shows continued, and the apartments upstairs became free housing for visiting artists supported by the foundation. After COVID stalled the district's recovery, the building became a rentable event space.

The NEON District marked its 10th anniversary in 2025 with NEON at Ten, a 244-page book featuring more than 200 works of art. Yet a streetscape project that has torn up Granby Street for utility work has slowed foot traffic, and some businesses have cited the disruption in closing. Niles said the district's creative energy is "a little bit more spread out" than it once was. The corner signage from Work|Release still clings to the Texaco building, left in place on purpose as part of its legacy.