It has been a hot minute. Let’s talk.
It has been quite the year. I picked up the keys for the Gallery on the 14th April 2023. And today, when I am writing this, it is the 24th April 2024, so it has been just over a year I have had the place, but not quite a year that Et Al has been officially open.
What a crazy year it has been. I have loved it. All the moments, all the artists, all the joy and laughter and tears and conversations and frustrations. It is certainly an adventure, but the Honeymoon is definitely over. As I move into my second year, I can feel the pressure mounting, so I wanted to have an open and honest moment with you about the realities of owning and running a Gallery and where we are going.
I took this Gallery on as a solo project. I knew the cost and risk personally, financially and mentally would be high, but I felt like asking anyone else to take those same risks was asking too much. Having had two start up businesses before, I knew the long hours and the stress and the constant nagging worry get heavy and hard. There was a lot to learn and often I was exhausted from the amount of decisions I had to make daily and the constant pivoting from one thing to the next. Now, I am a year on of me making decisions and running this on my own and I have also learned that there comes a time in the life of a place like this, that you accept the help of the people that offer it. That you shelve your pride and you look at the big picture and you know that to keep building community, you need to involve people in the building and the ownership.
That is where we are this coming year and it is one of those lessons I must learn - to trust other people and not be afraid, to find balance to sustain the long term and to listen and grow with the community that surrounds this place. So, this year, these are my main focus points for where the Gallery is going and why:
1. Making the Gallery sustainable. This past year has been a nutty mash up of learning different types of exhibitions, working out the legalities of having artists show their work and putting systems in place for everything that goes along with putting on an exhibition. But to sustain this all into the long term, I need to work out ways to make this balance both financially and personally. This next year is the hardest year yet. The safety net of start up finances falls away and the Gallery needs to begin to pay for itself but I also need time to be with my family and to work on my own artwork.
2. Bringing other people in on this project that is WAY too big for just me. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that people just don’t see. I am so very grateful to have brought volunteers on finally. It takes some of the worry away from, “What happens if I get sick and can’t open the Gallery?” I now have a social media manager, Kath McCann, who does THE MOST INCREDIBLE job and I love that she loves it. I have a Street Stall coordinator, Melina Wales, who is brilliant at working on making that side of things work for the artists. I have a small but very important team of volunteers who are beginning to take on small tasks that take time but are important to the running of the Gallery. If you want to join our Gallery Crew, feel free to reach out and contact me. Either pop into the Gallery for a chat or shoot me an email.
3. Diversifying and reaching outwards. The cost of living crisis is hitting EVERYONE. But in the arts industry, it is also rough. So, for me, I need to find ways for us all to get income from our art careers and this means diversifying. I am examining different ways of promoting artists outside of the Gallery while also promoting the Gallery. We now do Supanova twice a year for our popular culture artists, monthly Street Stalls for our artisans and this year I am examining other similar avenues to increase the reach of our artists and give them other opportunities to sell their work. I want to collaborate more with other gallery owners and businesses to find out ways in which we can support each other and our artists and artisans. I am really excited about projects coming up and can’t wait to share them with everyone as I can.
4. Teaching, teaching and more teaching. It is important to me that a huge part of this Gallery is teaching artists to know what to expect from professional galleries and how to present themselves and their work professionally, whether they are hobby artists or career artists. So, with that in mind, I began artist coaching for people that need help planning their careers or exhibitions or who just wanted someone to be accountable to. I will be running public free meetings on how to pitch your exhibition idea and present your work to the Gallery. We have a social media and blog campaign coming up on things to do to present your work professionally to a Gallery. I will run workshops teaching things like Social Media 101, presenting a portfolio and Writing your artist statement. We also have numerous skills based workshops from not only our artists in residence, but also from other artists with an incredible diversity of talent, from basket weaving through to printmaking to weekly artful wellbeing workshops.
5. Community. I love my community. Both my geographical one and my artists. So it is very important to me to always look for ways to be involved and to give back. Since we began, we have sponsored arts events such as Bayside Open Studios and Sandgate Easter Art Show. We have taken part in Bayside Open Studios, Jingle all the Bay and Fifth Avenue Street Stalls. We have committed to sponsoring Sacred Heart’s Art Show in June already and will also look at ways to support local events such as the Einbunpin Festival. I will be keeping my eye out for other Arts based and local events that happen throughout the year that we could help with as well. I would like to reach out to more local community groups and schools to discuss possibilities. We regularly promote our artists who have been in the Gallery and what they do and I would like to make this more of a series as well. There are a few other projects in this category that I have in mind but for now…NO SPOILERS!
The Gallery is a beast and it takes over my life. But I love it. I look at this place and I think, “One more year. I can make it through one more year, WE can make it through one more year. And then we will think about the next year and how we can make that one work.”
You see, the clue was always in the name, “Et al” which translates as “And Others”. We are all stronger and more creative together and it is by opening the Gallery to all the others who want a part of it that will settle this place into where it needs to be and move it forward to where it needs to go. And with that thought I know this is going to be quite an extraordinary year in the life of the Gallery.