Today I have been busy putting together an art gallery for the Salvation Army Community Services. In the next couple of weeks the plan is to have a public gallery in the dining room that will consist of prints, paintings, and photos from people in our community. The dining room is used by about 300 people a day so it will hopefully give some people some exposure and let their friends and neighbors see their work. In each of our two residential wings we will have another gallery that will consist of works done by people who call this place home (or work here).
To kick it off, I am doing a series of 11×14 prints of photos that I have taken over the last couple of years. This does two things… it puts something up on the walls and if they get stolen (which is a concern), I am the one that loses, not one of our clients. My cost is about $5 a print so it won’t hurt that bad (and I can say that my work was good enough to be stolen from a gallery (or the frame was…). If there are flaws in my plan, we can work them out before anyone else’s work is taken.
Art can just be viewed or it can be purchased (although no staff prints will be for sale) and it will be featured online as well. The long term vision is make this a place where those gifts are both showcased and nurtured. I would love to get some digital cameras and be able to lend them out to photographers, have art supplies on stock for those who want to paint and who knows, maybe even a dedicated studio down the road.
I’ll post some photos over the next little while showing our progress.
I absolutely love this idea. Looking forward to seeing the artwork making it online.