Canberra Artworks Gallery Expansion
Donation protected
Canberra Artworks started life as a picture framing and photography business that shared a premises with a paperie and art supplies store. When the paperie closed and moved out, we were left with double the floor space – and double the monthly rent and utility bills.
What to do? We decided to expand into the now-vacant space with an art gallery and artists’ studio/workshop to try to generate the rent money through art sales and running art classes. Our ultimate dream is to create a space that embraces all of the creative arts – visual, performing, literary … the lot!
We want our gallery to host not just exhibitions of paintings, drawings and photographs but also sculpture, ceramics, textiles and glass. We want to welcome people for classical and jazz concerts, for dance recitals, poetry readings and even small theatrical performances. We want to create a studio and workshop space where artists can come and be creative, where they can learn new skills and techniques or simply practice their chosen art form.
We also want to use the space we have to give back to our community through fun and exciting charity fundraising events.
Unfortunately, before they start to generate the sort of income we need to achieve these dreams, galleries need a lot more than just open space. So for our new gallery space to start making the money we need, we have to spend money we don’t yet have.
While we have made a start by constructing some moveable walls and installing hanging systems on them, there’s much more to be done. Visually a few more moveable walls are needed plus a good coat or two of paint so they all match (!) plus decent track lighting to display hanging works at their best. A more attractive and practical floor treatment than the stained and tired old carpet tiles that are currently in place is also needed, especially in the workshop/classroom area.
Ultimately we would love to be able to make the modifications needed to make the whole space wheelchair accessible, but first we’d like to become a place artists and art lovers want to come to. This means that there are marketing and promotion costs to be covered and of course a professional, fully functioning website is a must in this day and age.
So far we have been able to host a couple of small exhibitions and our fundraising efforts have resulted in donations to the RSPCA and to Camp Quality children’s cancer charity. These few events have shown us how far we have come since opening our gallery space and how very much further we have still to go.
Please join us in creating a meeting space for Canberra’s artistic community and give what you can to help make our vision a reality.
What to do? We decided to expand into the now-vacant space with an art gallery and artists’ studio/workshop to try to generate the rent money through art sales and running art classes. Our ultimate dream is to create a space that embraces all of the creative arts – visual, performing, literary … the lot!
We want our gallery to host not just exhibitions of paintings, drawings and photographs but also sculpture, ceramics, textiles and glass. We want to welcome people for classical and jazz concerts, for dance recitals, poetry readings and even small theatrical performances. We want to create a studio and workshop space where artists can come and be creative, where they can learn new skills and techniques or simply practice their chosen art form.
We also want to use the space we have to give back to our community through fun and exciting charity fundraising events.
Unfortunately, before they start to generate the sort of income we need to achieve these dreams, galleries need a lot more than just open space. So for our new gallery space to start making the money we need, we have to spend money we don’t yet have.
While we have made a start by constructing some moveable walls and installing hanging systems on them, there’s much more to be done. Visually a few more moveable walls are needed plus a good coat or two of paint so they all match (!) plus decent track lighting to display hanging works at their best. A more attractive and practical floor treatment than the stained and tired old carpet tiles that are currently in place is also needed, especially in the workshop/classroom area.
Ultimately we would love to be able to make the modifications needed to make the whole space wheelchair accessible, but first we’d like to become a place artists and art lovers want to come to. This means that there are marketing and promotion costs to be covered and of course a professional, fully functioning website is a must in this day and age.
So far we have been able to host a couple of small exhibitions and our fundraising efforts have resulted in donations to the RSPCA and to Camp Quality children’s cancer charity. These few events have shown us how far we have come since opening our gallery space and how very much further we have still to go.
Please join us in creating a meeting space for Canberra’s artistic community and give what you can to help make our vision a reality.
Organizer
Steve Brown
Organizer
O'Malley ACT
