Venue closed, but art continues
Artists still creating in the wake of closure of Water Gallery
Lansdale’s own artistic collective closed its doors for the last time on Friday, as its last month’s rent ran out. After three-and-half years in business, The Water Gallery, nestled at the back of the Dresher Arcade strip on Madison Street, could no longer afford the location’s rent.
Chris McDermott and Amy Rims, who joined the collective group of artists in the fall, both attribute the gallery’s closing to lagging business.
“For visual arts to be supported in the community, art needs to be purchased,” Rims said. “We just weren’t getting traffic in the gallery — I don’t think people have money to splurge on things these days.”
The Water Gallery featured all different types of artists and their work, with McDermott contributing his impressionistic pastel work on different types of canvasses and Rims showing her figure painting work. Original founders Aaron Weiner, who is a glass worker creating plateware, cups and jewelry, and Bette Conway, who created jewelry, also showed their work in the gallery, along with monthly featured artists of various media.
Before the Christmas season began, the group of artists running The Water Gallery, realized how low they were on funds and hoped the holiday season would boost their base.
They sold raffle tickets at show openings to support keeping the gallery open and even launched an online fundraising campaign, but came up short in an effort to keep the gallery open past February.
Despite participating in Lansdale First Friday events, Rims mentioned obstacles at these events as preventing the public from reaching their store, in- cluding barricades on Madison Street and last-minute cancellations of the events.
The Water Gallery paid Discover Lansdale money to help promote their business, and — according to Rims — did not receive enough of a return in support.
Despite the frustrations expressed by Rims, Lansdale Borough Council member Mary Fuller said she and Discover Lansdale are disappointed The Water Gallery is no longer in business.
“I personally thought the gallery was an exciting idea when it opened,” Fuller said. “I think there’s a void in our community when it comes to the arts.”
Fuller, also a part of the 311 W. Main Task Force, where a future Lansdale arts center is in development, personally thinks an idea discussed that The Water Gallery could be a gift shop for the future center is great idea.
“I wish them a lot of success and hope their business is something we can retool and revive to make a successful integration of arts in our community,” Fuller said.
In the meantime, the core group of artists hopes to stay together by jointly selling their works in an online Etsy shop (www. Etsy.com/shop/elementalartandcraft), and holding pop-up art shows such as the upcoming “Happiness Show.”
While promoting her annual Halloween show, someone sarcastically remarked that most art focused on the emotional, sad or dark, then asked Rims, “Why don’t you contact me when you have a happy art show?”
Realizing how accurate that comment is, Rims created the “Happiness Show” as her response to the question and tasked all of the artists in the collective and beyond to create “happy pieces.”
The show will be held Saturday, April 26, at Jerusalem Lutheran Church, 733 Ridge Road, Sellersville, from 4 until 10 p.m. This event is open to all ages and there will be games for children.
To keep up on other shows by these artists, visit Rim’s blog at amyrims. wordpress.com or follow The Water Gallery’s Facebook page.