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Shelley Spector
Artist
Director, SPECTOR Gallery/Projects
Adjunct Instructor, University of the Arts
and Maryland Institute College of Art
I didn't really make a conscious decision to open my gallery. A series of events in ’98 and '99 pointed me in that direction.
First, I found a great space. I needed to move my studio somewhere that was conducive to bringing a baby to work with me. My daughter hadn't been born yet when I walked by 510 Bainbridge Street one day. The building had a nice, sunny former retail bakery in the front, perfect for napping infants, and a huge raw space with a loading dock in the back where I could put my woodshop.
I snagged the space immediately and got to work. The back space would be power tools, noise, chemicals, wood, paint and all my unsafe studio stuff; the front, a quiet, clean, pristine environment for the baby and my finished pieces. For the next 6 months, I redid the floors, put up lights and walls, painted and repaired. But it wasn't until the following spring, when I saw a show of Adam Wallacavage's photographs at the Drake Hotel in Philadelphia, that I actually shifted into gear and started to think of the space as a gallery.
Adam was doing some of the freshest work I had ever seen, but the show was hard to look at. It was put up with black masking tape in a hodge-podge, devil-may-care aesthetic, and it didn't help that the place was about 110 degrees. I think it may have been the boiler room. All these things aside, the work got me excited enough that I asked him if he wanted to have a show in my new space.
When he stopped by to see the space he brought with him a packet of photos of paintings by his friend who he said was “really organized.” It was Jim Houser, and he was more than organized -- he was an extreme and motivated talent. He was enthusiastic to put a show together really, really fast. We talked for less than an hour. I think Jim’s first show, and the gallery’s first show, "Earthman," opened about 3 weeks later.
I called CityPaper to ask the editor, "How can I get some press?" He asked me what the lineup for shows was, and I rattled off an entire fall schedule. This was a pivotal point in the gallery’s existence, because I made it all up on the spot. But I am not a liar, so I presented all those shows, including one with Adam, and SPECTOR came into being.
It all sounds very casual, I know, but keeping a gallery afloat is a major hustle. My instincts said to go with it. I like to work hard, and I did. The gallery is a seven-year time capsule, not just of Philly’s turn of the century bursting art scene, but also, and maybe even more importantly, of the personal lives that are attached to it. It became a home full of life, love, friendship, birth, milestones and tragedy. My daughter, the reason for the move to the space, grew up there, as did her little sister.
But the same instincts that told me to make it happen also let me know when to let go. As the time to renegotiate the lease came closer, things like leaky windows and crumbling walls started to worsen. Ventures into the higher art world gave me a glimpse into a place that I found uninspiring. My artists, my two little girls and I were blossoming and ready for something new.
A few days after I announced the closing I was in Baltimore, visiting a college were I would be teaching. In one of the school's galleries, I saw a series of beautiful graphite on paper drawings. I got a rush of excitement; the uncommon kind of feeling that both opened and fueled the gallery. It also helped to keep me motivated for seven years.
I made a mental note of the artist, knowing that at some point I might like to work with him. In that second I had forgotten I had no upcoming fall or spring schedule. When I remembered, for a minute I was sad, disappointed that I might be missing something, but it passed very quickly. That was all that happened, and for me, someone who has made up schedules out of thin air and spent enormous amounts of time, money and energy because of that same feeling, I saw it as a great sign.
ShelleySpector.com
SPECTOR
Maryland Institute College of Art
University of the Arts
