Nothing off the wall about this dreamer

Anyway, the Observer was ambulating around the hood last week when I looked into a hallway at 66A South St. and saw art covering both walls. Of a hallway.

Someone had painted half of each wall yellow, signaling the place was not going to be hawking Rembrandt prints. The space has good bones. For decades, it was the storage area of the late lamented Herb’s TV Service next door.

The hallway carries the disarming gallery name of The Hallway, dreamed up by Brent Refsland, owner and self-described curator. It is near the top of South Street, a continuation of Centre Street, JP’s main drag, that changes names as it heads, predictably enough, south toward Roslindale.

I could not not enter the place. Besides, it was raining and I’ve never found the fun in sopping wet.

Refsland, tall and 27, was holding the fort, a straw pork pie hat on his head from the local funky shop, Salamagundi. You assume when you meet him that he’s hopped up on something because of the energy he emits and the machine gun bursts in which he speaks. Maybe some Ritalin would help this overactive child, I say to myself. No, it turns out, Brent is just being Brent.

The lad doesn’t waste time. He looked at the empty space and decided within 24 hours to rent it. He then spent 10 days renovating it in time to open on May 7, one of JP’s monthly First Thursday celebrations, when stores stay open late in a festive atmosphere.

For now, one wall is covered with his photographs of the backs of people’s heads called “b-side portraits,’’ while the other is festooned with tiny painted woodprints by a local artist that are quite cool.

He and his fiancée, Rosa, arrived here last August from Austin, the hall-of-fame Texas college town and music mecca. Why would you ever leave Austin for Boston, I ask? Rosa, it turns out, is going to law school at Northeastern. They checked out the surrounding neighborhoods. JP was a no-brainer.

Refsland doesn’t struggle with low self-esteem either. “I make things happen,’’ he says in a way that is somehow inoffensive.

He actually does. He dreamed up Last Night, to be held, you guessed it, on the last day of each month as a final opportunity for the public to see the works of his featured artist of the month. He’s already got a handful of stores in his immediate area to join him, some with discounts - Dany Pearson’s Dame, Joy Silverstein’s Fresh Hair, Jeff Ferris’s Ferris Wheels, Tom Beard’s Yesteryear, and counting.

Refsland had a double whammy last week. The Last Night kickoff was on Tuesday, June 30, followed two days later by a First Thursday. If you are claustrophobic I suggest you pop in at a less busy time. Again, it really is a narrow hall.

Refsland brings no baggage to JP, so he says openly what others might not.

For starters, he states the obvious: JP needs a good dog store and a good baby store. Bingo. “Every other person you see on the street is either walking a dog or pushing a stroller,’’ he says. “Look at Pet Cabaret in Roslindale.’’

Second: “JP needs a really good coffee shop.’’ Bingo. The current ones are tiny. We need space. Enter Footlocker, the sagging athletic shoe outfit that mercifully closed, leaving a huge cavity in the center of downtown JP.

In that empty space, Refsland sees a big, comfy coffee shop during the day that becomes a wine bar after 6, complete with live music. I like it. But rumors are afloat that something decidedly different will take the space.

Refsland works as a waiter at Vee Vee, the good little restaurant up on Centre Street. He hasn’t a clue whether a coffee shop-wine bar in the Footlocker space is feasible, or even legal at that location, but the point is, he’s thinking smart. “He has vision,’’ says Yesteryear’s Beard.

Third: He says JP needs a good home accessory store. Bingo. He’s talking chairs, tables, lamps. “I don’t want a gaudy lamp from 1890,’’ he says about antique stores. Nor is he surprised at the recent demise of Indigena, a crafts store on the next block: “I don’t want to buy dead branches with garlands.’’

Refsland wants more galleries. Bingo. But what about competition? He is, after all, just doorways down from Patti Hudson’s venerable JP Art Market, another venue for local artists. Pshaw. “I’d like five galleries in a row here,’’ he says. He’d love to see this strip become gallery central in JP.

Besides, he adds, “Competition works.’’ Exhibit A was the arrival last September of Ghazal, a wonderful Indian restaurant a few doors down from Bukhara, the established JP Indian eatery that fares poorly in comparison with the new one.

“That was one cocky move,’’ he says admiringly about the arrival of Ghazal. “I really like that.’’

You always wonder what happens to a newcomer like Refsland who arrives brimming with energy and vision. At what point, if at all, do neighborhood politics or the ulcerous city permitting process sap him of his moxie?

I say this guy’s going to stay a live wire as long as he’s here. Which leads me to this: JP could use more people around the hood like him. Again, he makes things happen.

Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com.