Artists Diane Patton and Carol Phillips lost their downtown Roanoke art studio in April when city officials condemned the Campbell Avenue building that housed it.

“I’ve been downtown about 20 years,” Patton said at the time. “I hope I don’t have to leave.”

Patton and Phillips did have to work from their homes for a time, but a surprise turn of good fortune has brought them back downtown, along with several more artists.

And Patton gets to set up shop in the space where she started in 1986 — the former site of Studios in the Square above the 202 Market restaurant. “I’m going full circle,” Patton said.

Phillips also got her start at Studios in the Square. “I’m coming home,” she said of the move.

Though the restaurant has turned part of that third-floor loft space into an additional banquet hall, the small working studios remained intact and vacant. “They literally were just sitting there,” said restaurant spokesman Jo Jo Soprano .

Steve Rosenoff , the restaurant’s owner and a friend of Phillips, called her and offered rental of the space.

Patton said the new studios, called 202 Market Square Galleries, will hold a grand opening during Dickens of a Christmas at 6 p.m. Dec. 7. The gallery can be accessed via stairs by a door facing the market square, or via elevator by going inside the restaurant.

Nine artists have signed on, Patton said, and there’s still room for more. There are 12 studios total, with three still open, as well as a main gallery.

Aside from Patton and Phillips, the artists who’ve joined in 202 Market Square Galleries are Winn Ballenger, Lucy Hazlegrove, Rick Wade, Terry Lyon, Amanda Agricola, and Anne and Tim Pfeiffer .

“All of us are very different,” Patton said. A painter herself, Patton’s focus these days includes large abstracts and landscape painting and birds made from collage.

Many of the artists won’t be moved in until after the grand opening, Phillips said.

The new gallery has joined the official lineup of Art by Night, the downtown Roanoke art gallery tour that takes place 5 to 9 p.m. the first Friday of each month.

The new opening will balance losses to the lineup from a spate of studio closings earlier in the year.

The new gallery’s hours will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, call Patton at 520-1340 or Phillips at 915-4260.

‘Like Winter Waiting’

Roanoke theater troupe Logos Theatricus is putting on the Advent musical “Like Winter Waiting,” written by Jesuit priest John Foley, at Our Lady of Nazareth Catholic Church at 2505 Electric Road in Roanoke County.

The show features choreography by Southwest Virginia Ballet artistic director Pedro Szalay.

Performances take place 7:30 p.m. Nov. 30, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1, and 3 p.m. Dec. 2. The show is free. Offerings collected will benefit the Blue Ridge Women’s Center. For more information, call774-0066.

Floyd arts center expansion

A combination of federal and state grants will allow the Jacksonville Center for the Arts in Floyd to embark on a long-planned and much-needed renovation and expansion.

The 18-year-old arts center is located inside a dairy barn known as the “Old Jacksonville Barn” after the original name of the town of Floyd. The center has been awarded a total of $314,000 from the federal Appalachian Regional Commission and the state Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission. The federal part of the award is managed through the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.

The center and its supporters in the region have raised an additional $15,000 for the project.

The ambitious project covers parking improvements, and energy-saving modifications including building an “air lock” entrance for the former barn that houses most of the center.

One of the center’s aging silos will be renovated into a space available for classrooms and other activities, while the other will be preserved, but not transformed into usable space. The plan also includes renovating an earlier addition to the barn that has been kept closed because of lack of funding, and improvements to the center’s ceramics studio.

“Ever since I started work here, we’ve been planning, visioning, and dreaming for this day,” Executive Director John McEnhill said in a statement released by the center. “This is truly a huge step for the Jax.”

The construction could begin this winter and will likely take at least a year to complete. The funds do not go toward operating costs, so the center will continue to seek donations to meet those needs. For more information, call 745-2784 or visit jacksonvillecenter.org.

Lessons & Carols

The Roanoke College Choir and its all-female Oriana Singers will perform “Nowell: Owt of Your Slepe Aryse: Lessons & Carols XXVIII” at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, 631 N. Jefferson St. in Roanoke.

The free performances, which will feature music for choir and harp, take place at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Nov. 25. A freewill offering will be collected to benefit Roanoke Area Ministries. For more information, call 375-2360 or visit www.roanoke.edu/choir.

Sandy victim benefit

A free benefit concert at 2 p.m. today at St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Roanoke by Davidson United Methodist Church Youth Handbell Choir from North Carolina will raise funds to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. For more information, call 774-5183 or visit stelizabethsroanoke.org .

On the Arts blog

A “King Kong” parody first performed as a staged reading at the now-defunct Studio Roanoke debuted last week to rave reviews in Los Angeles. For more information and other arts and culture happenings, visit blogs.roanoke.com/arts.

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