Earlier this year I so loved creating a series of miniature paintings for a show at The Oak Park Art League, and the show was a wonderful mixture of photography, botanical watercolors, abstract pieces made out of all kinds of things, weaving, prints, mixed media pieces, oil paintings, drawings, and even homemade bonsai trees! Twenty of us had our own little galleries, and some people had wall space for their work, and combined it was magical. It was such a wonderful experience overall that it stayed with me enough to want to continue creating tiny artworks and to want to build my own tiny gallery.
For my birthday I ordered a kit from the UK that was intended to be a miniature shop, and I built it by myself and turned it into a storefront gallery. I thought of my mentor Paula Rose, who owned a gallery and art supply store in downtown Fredericksburg, VA until 2012, and I worked there in the 1990’s as a framer and shop/gallery attendant for her. I loved that shop so much for many reasons, but one big one was the little historic building it was located in. It was a three-floored building with a basement as the framing floor, the first floor was the shop/gallery, and the upper two floors were residences where Paula and her mother lived. The outside was a painted brick, and the inside was filled with gorgeous wood floors, high ceilings, walls painted to look like it was transplanted from Tuscany, and of course there was a shop cat named McNeill (after James McNeill Whistler).
My gallery does not have three floors but it is reminiscent of that place full of memories and beauty, and my struggles to learn how to frame properly (I did learn over those three years and it was a skill that proved to be incredibly useful in years since). My gallery has one floor with a detachable roof and a front that hinges on the side so I can open it up whenever I want to, and I can hang paintings in the front windows if I want to. I also have no intentions for this little gallery at the moment other than to enjoy the tiny environment I created, ordering all the decorative touches aside from my artwork from little shops on Etsy (including two tiny shop cats). I haven’t decided on a door color yet, and I haven’t settled on an outside color either, though right now it is a red brick color. I am even going to name it when the time is right : )
I have always had a vague idea that I might want to own a gallery, though I have never entertained it seriously. This is a perfect avenue to explore that idea in miniature, even if all it does is live in my studio and house each miniature series I create.
There are so many details I have to finish before it is really ready for its “real” debut, but here it is as of today! Cheers to little fantasies and making one of them real.
