Saturday, July 5, 2014

Gallery Boot Camp




Jackson Brown is playing in the back room, in the distance the wooden wind chimes at a nearby store are making their sound and down the road I can hear a flute played by a guy in another store. At 10:30 the Mayor will sing the Star Spangled Banner on a balcony overlooking the street.

This is Bigfork, Montana, a block long village on Flathead Lake with quirky locals that are as authentic and charming as this town is.

My friend and fellow artist Nancy Seiler and I rolled into town in early May to talk to galleries about showing our work, but it was a rainy Monday off season and everything was closed. We were parked in front of a building with a for lease sign and on a whim decided to call to see if we could get a look at it. Five minutes later we were inside (Jack, the owner lives across the street), to find a beautiful gallery space that needed no work or investment, we went across the street to the "Pocketstone Cafe" to talk about it and both of us felt kind of sick because we knew this was going to be our other home for 4 months. On the way home we aptly named it "Lake Gallery". 3 weeks later we unloaded our u-haul truck into the "dorm room" that we were renting. 7 days a week, 6 hours a day each at the gallery and another 3 of painting. This is Gallery Boot Camp.