Each gallery has a different approach to its final display of the year.
The Venue Fine Art & Gifts will feature a show of its best sellers across various mediums. Dave Colman, curator of the Venue, said some of the highlights will likely be Daniel Lager for painting and Lori McDonald for jewelry, though for the latter the final numbers have not yet come in.
“The year has been a year of growth,” Colman said. “When we first opened in 2008, right after the big crash, paintings weren’t selling at all. We basically stayed open selling coffee mugs and jewelry and much smaller price-point objects. As things have gradually improved we’re selling more and more paintings.”
Colman explained how, following the market crash, artists often hesitated to lower their prices out of respect to past buyers.
Since then, prices have fallen and are on the rise again, which is why so much of the profit comes from the paintings.
The trend of Tuesday evening events with a variety of presenters will also continue, Colman said. The presentations began as a way to get newer customers to visit the space, but have grown into a treasured tradition for all.
“With activity, we can get people in here for any reason — they see the art and see that they can actually afford to have nice art in their home: it’s a win,” Colman said. “Another win is that we’ve been able to see a lot of interesting people doing presentations and it’s been enriching for us.”
By Hand Gallery will have a display of handmade glass ornaments and holiday decorations as part of their exhibition, the “Favorite Things Gallery Show.”
In terms of large changes in the coming year, manager Tova Lesko said the Gallery Walk calendar will be a little fuller starting in 2016.
“We’re going to have big changes in January — we’re going to do Gallery Walks every month instead of every other month,” Lesko said. “It gives us a chance to put together more shows than just five or six a year.”
This past year’s highlights include The Ivy Tech John Waldron’s “Seeing Red” show, had in conjunction with this year’s Lotus World Music & Arts Festival, as well as the opportunity to show a prominent artist of the past, Lesko said.
“We had an exhibit with Rudy Pozzatti this year. He hasn’t done a show in quite a while so that was special for us,” Lesko said. “Plus he has the connections to IU and print making.”
Gather handmade shoppe & Co. will present a collaborative show called “How We Do,” a collection of new work from the teens at Rhino’s Youth Center. Gallery owner Talia Halliday said teens were allowed to create any sort of work they wanted in any medium. The collective show will allow viewers insight into a variety of perspectives.
“It’s interesting and fun to pair three-dimensional works with two-dimensional works and have them play off one another,” Halliday said. “It’s also interesting to pair completely different types of art and artists next to one another and see if that creates or evokes different responses than if they were viewed together. It creates a group dynamic.”
High points for the gallery included being part of the partially grant-funded GEM mentoring program and the celebration of their first anniversary, among many others, Halliday said.
“We mentored six emerging makers over the year and were able to see each of them bloom into the artists they are becoming, and that’s really exciting — to see them come into their own,” Halliday said. “We’ve had a lot of highlights this year. and we’re always growing.”
