It's hard to believe, but it has now been four years since we closed our little gallery here in town, thereby closing the book on our final attempt at doing brick-and-mortar business, in our lifetime.
Sounds very "final," doesn't it?
Actually, I just found myself reflecting on the way we humans tend to observe anniversaries of events and life changes that had a major impact on our existence.
I don't exactly "celebrate" the closing of the Red Dragonfly Gallery, but I do pause to have a few moments of remembrance. It usually happens on July 4th because it's a public holiday here in the USA, so it's usually a slower day than usual.
I always loved being in the art business! That is to say that I loved "being IN the biz" far more than the daunting proposition of actually trying to make a financial go of it.
Truth be known, it's difficult to just break even in the art gallery business, and I was often advised that running an art gallery was very much like charity.
We actually had little not expectations of generating a large amount of income, we just hoped to about break even and cover expenses, and help a group of aspiring and talented young artists find their footing in the world.
Due to a number of circumstances, even that turned out to be a tall order.
The thing about life is that you can get both positive and negative breaks... and they have nothing to do with your actual effort and intent!
We experienced "a series of unfortunate events" that eventually led us to the end of the road, at the end of June 2019. Four years ago.
The Red Dragonfly blog was actually quite successful, back before there even was a Hive. Hard to believe, now...
We were an active part of the now defunct @sndbox creative initiative and we'd developed quite a following for our posts from "inside" the art world.
Sadly, so many of those people are now gone from the landscape, and this has become more of a "legacy page" than an ongoing active endeavor... although I would mind coming up with a new direction.
For now, though, I'm content to just stop by occasionally to look for old friends, and to post a few observations when the mood grabs me.
Besides, Hive needs "semi-active" contributors as much as "always active" contributors... we all a little bit of occasional "flavor!"
Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to leave a comment, if you feel so inclined!
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All images are our own, unless otherwise attributed