{"id":945,"date":"2023-09-26T18:42:19","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T18:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/?p=945"},"modified":"2026-06-30T20:47:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T20:47:35","slug":"drawn-to-empty-spaces-with-the-ideas-of-an-art-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/drawn-to-empty-spaces-with-the-ideas-of-an-art-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Drawn to empty spaces with the ideas of an art gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve had a habit – for maybe 30 years now, dating back to when I lived in NYC – of seeing an empty storefront or building and wondering to myself: would that make for a good art gallery space? Considering I had a storefront gallery on East 11th Street in the late 1990s (see more here<\/a>), I’m familiar with and have experience with setting one up, and I enjoyed it very much.<\/p>\n

Plenty of friends will see posts like this and say “go for it!” I would like very much to do so, but there’s a couple issues that I’ve gained perspective on over the years. One, there’s the realistic idea that if I had a gallery again, it involves staying in it for as many open hours as one can have, and it becomes a waiting game, sitting there and hoping people will come in. That can become somewhat frustrating, feeling stuck in a space passively waiting.<\/p>\n

Secondly, there’s the question of rent. When I had the gallery on East 11th Street, there was a kitchen and a tiny loft space for my bedroom and therefore I was able to live there. It was technically a mixed-use space and I could have both a business venture and a living space. Unless I find a new live\/work space, any rent for a gallery would be extra monthly costs on top of where I live now.<\/p>\n

But it doesn’t stop me from imagining would could be, and thinking and scheming of how I could pull it off. Or how I could make something that would be my own space to curate shows and invite the public in but in a non-traditional way. This picture below is from a property where this is the freestanding garage (with a second floor) that is separate from the main house, and the garage is big enough where one could still park a car in it but also convert part of it to an exhibition space. How cool would that be?<\/p>\n

\"a
a garage turned into a new McKinney Arts Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve had a habit – for maybe 30 years now, dating back to when I lived in NYC – of seeing an empty storefront or building and wondering to myself: would that make for a good art gallery space? Considering I had a storefront gallery on East 11th Street in the late 1990s (see more … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[107,222,276,320,477,710],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture","category-art-studio-spaces","tag-art-gallery","tag-conceptual-ideas","tag-exhibition-space","tag-garage","tag-mckinney-arts","tag-storefront"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3395,"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/3395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mckinneyarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}