As small independent art galleries go, we pride ourselves on promoting the work of local artists, be they painters, sculptors or photographers. Over the last few years we’ve helped some of the best (and newest) talent in our city gain interest and have hopefully helped more than just a few to become recognized for their passion, their talent and most of all – their art.
Over the coming year we’re moving, partly due to a foreclosure on our building (we rent but ‘meh’ – a sign of the times) and in part due to the fact that we need larger premises. As we’ve gained in reputation, we’ve also gained in popularity and we’re now struggling to showcase more than three full collections at a time.
We never really expected to need a larger space and although we love where we are (and of course in an ideal world there wouldn’t also have been the forced move) in terms of location, we have been incredibly lucky in how we’ve grown. We started out as a pies of artists that simply needed somewhere to showcase their own artwork, and steadily developed a reputation for displaying ‘tasters’ of other artist’s work.
From that point we snowballed and besides the fact that we’re moving to bigger premises, we’re also on with developing an online presence – as the internet’s potential is astounding in terms or reach and marketing. My partner and I were kind of amazed recently, when we attended an art festival, to find out just how popular online art galleries have now become.
Truth be known we were aware the internet was growing (probably a better word would be ‘exploding’!) and that we weren’t taking full advantage but such is the closeted life of the average painter or sculptor! Anyway, we’re now making amends and have managed to find ourselves a great ‘web-master’ that’s more than happy to work with us in order to get our online gallery up and running.
All being well, we’ll be safe, sorted and settled in our new premises come the Fall, and we should also have our website working by then too. Hopefully, the fact that we’re local means that we can continue to attract artists from the surrounding area, and in turn that will allow us to continue to open the hearts, minds and eyes of those we live among.
Art, in all its many forms, truly is in the eye of the beholder, and much of what an artist’s about is sharing their talent, their vision, with the world about them. This way we can educate the public about art, support artists that need a little help, and maybe even inspire others to delve a little deeper and find the artist in themselves.