Gallery Spotlight: Elizabeth Stevens Gallery

I took a leap at the end of last year and began showing my work in Galleries.  I've done this before but on a very limited basis for short periods of time. As I get older it becomes more difficult to depend on the show circuit for the largest portion of selling my work.  Shows are very physically draining; getting ready for them, packing and traveling and unpacking, being "on" constantly during the show, not to mention the weather and  how it effects the financial outcome!  As in Real Estate, it is good to diversify how I sell my work.  As I've mentioned before in my previous blogs, 2012 was a year to re-evaluate and develop now products along with new strategies. One of those strategies was to see how I might fare in the gallery market.

I see working with galleries that sell my work as a partnership.  I am asking them to sell my work in a public space and take all the cost of doing that.  In return I feel it is my responsibility to let as many people as I can know that they can find my work in the gallery. In this way I can help support them and hopefully send some cutomers their way. 

So let me introduce you to the Elizabeth Stevens Gallery.  I first met the gallery owner, Bette Stevens, last February when I was in Sarasota to meet my first grandchild. Towles Court 3rd Friday Art Walk was going on while I was there.  So I spent some time visiting the galleries that were open that night. When I went to purchase an item in Bette's gallery we struck up a conversation; first about using "The Square" for credit card transactions, which lead to a conversation about the handwoven scarf I was wearing (which of course was my own work), to the fact that she is a weaver who used to do shows. We discovered we had a lot in common and I felt an immediate connection.  I left her gallery with a possibility of having my work there at some time later in the year. 

In October I shipped off a number of scarves that arrived in time for the October Art Walk.  How nice it was to receive a check in December for the sale of several scarves! In continuing this partnership, while in Sarasota, I visited the gallery and Bette once again. She has a new space in Towles Court and the work of many artists which is displayed is beautiful.  We connected again with the hope that the partnership will continue to be productive for both of us.  Check out her Towles Court website at http://towlescourt.com/e_stevens.htm. Even better, if you get to Sarasota, go visit her and mention that you read about her gallery on my blog.

Bette Stevens and me outside the gallery in Towles Court, Sarasota, FL

My work displayed in the Elizabeth Stevens Gallery