Lights, Camera, Action well...Lights anyway.

So next to the art (and I will talk about that in the next posting) what's the most important component in a great gallery? LIGHTS! At least that's what I believe. Now I have been in many art galleries as I am sure you have but, how much attention did you pay to the lights. Right!  Well I set out to rectify that by revisiting some of my favorite galleries. Like I need an excuse to do that.

Let me tell you right now that people are going to look at you funny when you walk into a gallery with beautiful art and all you do is stare at the lights. Even more so if you go with someone and you have already been to several galleries and you stand under the lights saying "I don't think I like these as well as the last ones." You might have and artist/sales person ask you to leave or "Why are you looking at our lights?" This is what happened to us

Now maybe you didn't know that lights and everything else involved in setting up and running an art gallery are aggressively protected trade secrets. I mean I have had a warmer reception from a mother grizzly protecting her cubs. O.K. that's not fair. There were some gracious gallery owners that were more than willing to share but, that's for another post.

After visiting a multitude of  galleries and countless online searches we did come up with a solution from Ylighting.com They were not only helpful but very knowledgeable.  You could call them first and not have to call anyone else.

Just a little about the lights. We have LED's around the walls but, in the middle we have halogen due to price. I will have to let you know if that was wise when I receive our first electricity bill. LED's are very expensive and the cost for our small gallery would have been well over $6,000.00 and that was just the lights and fixtures. We got all of the lights the drop down tracks and everything else for much less than that by going halogen.

Well I have taken enough of your time

Thanks for reading

location location location that's what they say anyway.

well I guess it has to start somewhere. We started with a meeting there were five of us to start. But in the end there ended up being three partners. In the first meetings we shared ideas , thoughts, and our vision of what the gallery would look like.eventually we got around to wear with this gallery be? One of the original members had an idea of some empty buildings in town. Well our town not being all that big we put on our walking shoes and proceeded to do a walkabout. This building was too small this one was too big but eventually we found one that was just right.

You have to know something about account before I go on. Williams is located on old Route 66. Route 66 is divided into two one way streets. The side going from east to west would be considered the wrong street put your business on so we focused on the side of the street going West to East. Now even on this side of the street you need to be in a very defined location of about three blocks. We found two or three vacant buildings that met our needs. One of those was for sale and beyond our budget. Another was already being used. The other building turned out to be perfect. The rent was not too high. And the building was in the three block Goldilocks zone but, only barely.

by this time we had dropped to its original members. So myself my wife and Mary O'Brien are other partner met with the landlord. After all of our concerns have been addressed we signed the lease. Our rent would not start for one month to give us time to clean up the building. The inside of the building was really rough it needed paint, it was currently being used as a storage area and all of that stuff needed to be moved but, we were on our way.

Thank you for reading.

Wow! It's been a wild ride so far. My wife and I had just got home after a month long vacation up through the wine country into Washington, Victoria, Yellowstone, and then a train trip to visit the Grandchildren in Illinois. I was planning to put my art in a Flagstaff gallery when Kris (my wife) talked to Mary O'Brien and the cooked up the idea of opening an art gallery here in Williams, AZ. In a little over a month we opened the doors even though we were not quite ready. You see the Rodeo was in town and we wanted to capitalize on that fact.

There has been a lot to learn and in following posts we will walk you through the process. I don't want you to think we are experts or even finished but, I am sure you will find the process interesting and even funny at times. Our Grand Opening is October 1st. We have sent out invitations, press releases, radio spots, ordered food and  music it looks to be a gala event. We now have a web page www.thegalleryinwilliams.com a FaceBook page thegalleryinwilliams@facebook.com, an email thegalleryinwilliams@gmail.com and now a blog "OH MY"

All I (Tom Williams) wanted to do was produce art, something that would endure my departure from this planet and bring others joy. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision owning and operating an art gallery. So...How did I get here? Well stay tuned and I will try to answer that question as well as acquaint you with the artists and events in our area. Thank you for reading.