At present, we are not accepting new artist’s work. Our first priority is to the 20+ gallery artists we currently represent. They were invited or referred to us by other artists and collectors and were selected based on their work style so that we can offer a diverse collection or selection of artwork to buyers, collectors, and to show out-of-town guests the range of talent from the area. We are currently not accepting new pieces due to lack of space, not lack of interest in your work.
We do maintain a waiting list of local artists (Chattanooga-based or those living in the immediate surrounding areas). If you are local, please email our co-owner and gallery director, Keeli Crewe, at keeli.crewe@me.com. Include your full contact info — this includes where you live — your email, cell phone and images of your work or link to your online work whether website, or social media platforms.
When we remix the artist work in our gallery, we review the images for work diversity, looking specifically for styles that do not directly compete with our current representation. We’ll then contact the artist to see if they are still interested in our gallery, discuss their available work at the time and provide the details of our gallery business model.
With our relocation from our original gallery location in the Chattanooga downtown Southside district to the City Center Dec. 2019, our overhead was tripled. At the time, it was either move where there is opportunity to have contact with more out-of-town visitors within the main conference and convention hotel district as well as a large population of downtown employees, or close. It was only with our gallery artists commitment to a monthly gallery fee per artist that we able to move and reopen. Our business model is not an artist collective, but it is similar as there is a monthly fee and the sales commission split is less than the typical commercial gallery 50/50 (artist/gallery) split. The details will be explained when space becomes available, but if you are not interested in this business model, then our gallery isn't for you.
We do everything we can to bring awareness to Chattanooga’s local artistic talent in addition to running our gallery. But again, our first priority is to the artists we currently host and represent. We may not get back to all the requests we receive to be included in our gallery as promptly as we’d like and that has nothing to do with your art or talent. Please don’t take our slow response to your submission personally — be kind to yourself and true to your creative spirit — we want all artists to succeed and have a sustainable career in creating and selling art. We’ll acknowledge receipt of your submission and wait list status as soon as we can.
Thank you for your interest in Area 61 gallery and we look forward to seeing your work,
Keeli, David & Rudd