Bleeding Heart Art Space is our space.
That means it’s my space and your space.
I know. It’s an easy thing to say and a hard thing to prove.
So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to prove it to you. We’re going to make it your space literally and totally, for three weeks.
Your art. Our walls.
This is the experiment. From late October to mid November, we’re not planning anything. Except a radical openness. We’re leaving our walls bare and we are trusting you to cover them with your beautiful work.
Could we end of with little to no work? Sure. Could we end up having to put our gallery’s reputation on the line with some less than stellar work? Indeed.
I’m not the least bit worried.
We decided to do this a while back–months ago actually. We let the cat out of the bag officially in the Alberta Avenue WHAT’S ON poster. After that, before we shared a word of this online, you started to email us.
You had questions. You wanted to send in your work. You wanted to know when and how.
So Grace Law, our Art Lead, and myself put our heads together and got the documents online in a hurry. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect as much interest as fast.
Then, last week, one of you dropped a submission in my mailbox. Another of you dropped by the gallery with your signed Loan Agreement Form.
Last Friday I was interviewed for the Rat Creek Press about the show, in a piece printing this November. Earlier this week word went out with some of you on Twitter. Today, more of you had ideas for submissions on Facebook.
So whose crazy idea was this?
Like any good idea, we kinda-sorta-stole it from people we admire. The Edmonton Art Gallery (now Art Gallery of Alberta) held a show called Free For All before it demolished its former building in 2007.
Here’s an excerpt from an article about the closing of that building.
The gallery has been bustling in its final weeks, with more than 7,000 people coming to check out the Free For All Show, which saw the gallery open its doors to works by any and all Alberta artists, professional and amateur. Nearly 3,000 pieces were chosen for exhibit from the flood of submissions.
I don’t know if you made it to Free For All, but I did, and it left a big impression on me. The beautiful mess of it all–thousands of works on every inch of wall–showed me just how much beauty there is in the world. Or at least the tip of that dazzling iceberg.
The real problem is going to be how to fit all of this art.
But the good news is that’s our problem, not yours. We’ll figure it out, and I’m guessing we’ll have a fun time doing so.
To help, we’re limiting submissions to one piece per artist.
So get set to submit, because the show starts up next week.
Get the details from our Call for Submissions. Drop your piece off, fill out a Loan Agreement Form, tells us if its for sale and for how much and we’ll hang it.
Your art, on our walls, for three glorious weeks.
OPEN WALLS opens October 24th and closes November 14.
Please share our OPEN WALLS microsite here. Or share the Facebook event.
The more the merrier.