I am feeling very grateful about work; I have two jobs which focus on creativity, give me a good work-life balance, and enable me to also spend time on my own art practice.
One of these jobs is being curator of ART100 Gallery in central Bristol. My friend and colleague Doug Karson (of Keep Art It) and I set up this gallery a couple of months ago in 18-20 Broadmead, which is located on the ground floor of The Galleries Shopping Centre; it is run by Artspace Lifespace (a local charity which turns disused premises into creative, sustainable spaces) and is shared with Playback Arcade and Hoard board game café.
Doug had the brilliant idea of setting up a gallery which would sell original art by local artists at great value for money (particularly important in today's cost of living crisis). He asked me if I wanted to help curate and run the gallery and now, after a lot of hard work, it is starting to gain traction and popularity. Put simply, the way it works is:
Bristol-based artists can exhibit up to five artworks with us, for free.
Work is priced at £50 (green sticker), £75 (blue sticker) or £100 (orange sticker).
Artists keep 60% of the sale price, with the rest going to the running of the gallery, and to charity.
By doing this, it had a doubly-positive impact: local artists get to exhibit and sell their work for free without any gatekeeping, and people can purchase beautiful, unique art at a fraction of what they would usually expect to pay. In a nutshell, exhibiting and buying original art should not be limited to a privileged few, and we are doing something to challenge that norm!
Should you be a Bristol-based artist reading this and you'd like to be involved, you simply need to fill in the form in our bio on:
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