'We were having a great year': COVID-19 pandemic affects many local galleries, artisans

April 30, 2020

Editor’s note: This is the third part of a three-part series about how COVID-19 is affecting Brown County’s arts culture.

January and February are usually slow for Brown County shops, restaurants, entertainment venues and art galleries.

But when galleries were forced to close during the COVID-19 pandemic, some were on track to have a year of great sales.

“Our sales were above last year. January and February were great. Even some purchases took place in March. It just cut off,” said Lyn Letsinger-Miller, president of the Brown County Art Gallery Foundation.

“At the time, the economy was doing well, so people had money to spend, and we have beautiful artwork.”

The Brown County Art Gallery closed its doors at the beginning of March when Indiana confirmed its first case of the coronavirus.

“We just thought, there is no way we can expose. Nobody is going to be spending money,” Letsinger-Miller said.

Most galleries have started fundraisers and are working on online shops for folks to search during the stay-at-home order. Galleries have been forced to postpone or cancel major events and fundraisers.

“The events are important for sure, but the buying public is gone. Even though we have two employees, we have 50 artists that exhibit in that building, so they’re not getting anything,” Letsinger-Miller said.

The gallery started an online fundraiser, encouraging people to make donations, like $1,000 to be a “virus warrior.” Letsinger-Miller said the fundraiser was not doing well.

“People just don’t have an appetite for it, which I understand. I’m guessing a lot of people aren’t raising any money right now. People are worried about their own issues, which is completely understandable,” she said.

Galleries still have to pay for utilities and insurance during this closure, too.

“We have a lot of, 500 pieces of, very expensive art in the building. You’re paying $2 million worth of coverage on top of your regular insurance liability coverage and employee benefits and so forth,” Letsinger-Miller said.

The gallery now has an online store where artists to sell their work, along with items from the gift shop and books. “It’s just trying to keep a presence out there. I have no idea what to expect in terms of selling anything, but just to get a presence out there,” Letsinger-Miller said.

“The artists, they pay rent, they pay dues to us and, of course, they are not getting anything out of that right now. But if they want the institution to remain, they have to continue to support us. They just have to. We have to keep it intact.”

Using Facebook to profile artists daily is another way to keep artists on the minds of supporters and visitors, as well as ask for financial support.

“We will pay our staff no matter what,” Letsinger-Miller said.

She added that the gallery was looking into applying for the CARES Act Payroll Protection Plan, but was not having much luck.

“My frustration with this is we are an economic driver for Nashville. We’re a quarter-of-a-million-dollar enterprise that depends on tourism, donors, and our artists depend on us. … That’s what it costs to keep the doors open and people paid,” she said.

“(Visitors) come to the gallery and they go out to eat, they stay and go to the park, so I think protecting some of the really important institutions in Brown County is important.”

Despite all of the uncertainty, Letsinger-Miller is confident the almost 100-year-old art gallery will be OK once the world starts to return to a new normal.

“This gallery has been through worse, like arson fires, the Depression and World War II,” she said.

“The community has always supported this gallery no matter what. … I’m not worried about us going away, but you want to be able to come back strong in the fall.”

‘Continue forward’

The Brown County Art Guild closed March 17. “It was becoming clear that the employees were increasingly uncomfortable being with visitors. I think it was just the overall sentiment at the time,” Director Andra Walters said.

The Guild’s two full-time staff are able to work from home and go into the building when needed.

Like the Brown County Art Gallery, the Guild also been working on getting work online to sell at www.bcartguildshop.com. Visitors can also sign up for future workshops there.

Each day, the Guild features a new piece of work on social media as part of their “Bringing Beauty to the World” series that will also be sold online.

Many spring and early summer events, workshops and exhibitions at the Guild have been postponed.

However, new artwork is expected to come into the Guild mid-August and stay through the fall, she added. The Guild’s Art Colony Weekend is also still being planned for Sept. 11 to 13.

With the closure, Walters said fundraising is also on the mind.

“It’s hard to know what’s going to happen, when things are going to be comfortable again for everyone, what is going to be the phased startup of the economy, and what does that mean for Nashville? What does that mean for the Guild?” Walters said.

“I think those questions, because they cannot be answered by anyone at this point in time, are making it difficult for all of us to project what our year is going to look like financially.”

She was working on sending letters to supporters and anyone signed up for online newsletters. Fundraisers will also be posted on social media.

“But we’re also trying to be sensitive to the situation at hand. The organizations that desperately need the money right now are those helping those in need, and we respect that,” she said.

“Is this impacting us? Absolutely. Is it making things more difficult? Absolutely. But we will find a way to continue forward.”

The Guild is almost 66 years old, so this is not the first challenge it has been through, Walters said.

“Challenges as such as this do always have bright spots. It is forcing organizations to really take a good look at how they practice or do business on a daily basis and how efficient one is,” she added.

“It is helping us see what we can do better, what we need to change and what we should be working on.”

‘A labor of love’

Brown County is also home to nonprofit co-op galleries, where members pay dues and take turns manning them.

The Brown County Craft Gallery went through an unexpected move two years ago that it’s still recovering from, said member Sidney Bolam. The future is still unclear for the gallery, as it still has rent to pay and it’s unclear if it can renew its lease for 2021.

“There’s no telling if we will be OK or not. Things are bleak,” Bolam said. “We also understand that our landlord is in a similar situation and has bills to pay as well.

“This is going to be detrimental to the entire town and tourism industry as a whole in our county.”

Brown County Craft Gallery is an artist-owned co-op that’s been around for more than 40 years. Around 12 members work shifts at the gallery and it has no paid employees.

Since most federal aid involves keeping employees paid, Bolam said the gallery is not eligible since it is run with co-op members.

The gallery temporarily closed to the public on March 21. It’s now focusing on connecting with customers and selling art on Facebook.

“The way the community can help us is by sharing our posts and shopping with us. We invite people to regularly peruse our social media sites to see what we have for sale in the pictures and then message the Facebook page or email us with questions,” Bolam said.

Bolam is one of the youngest and newest members of the craft gallery. She is a stone carver. “Watching this organization struggle has been really hard on me because it represents an artistic home for me in this community,” she said.

Anabel Hopkins founded the Hoosier Artist Gallery around 11 years ago. It’s run by its 20 members, who work two full days per month.

It temporarily closed to the public the week of March 16. “The gal who was supposed to come in on Monday had said she wouldn’t come in, period,” Hopkins said.

“Our sales had been good. We were having a really good year, and we even had a little extra money in the bank, so it has gone to heck.”

The focus now, like at other galleries, is having a social media presence to connect with supporters. Online sales of artwork are left up to individual members, Hopkins said.

Hopkins said many of the artists she knows do not rely on selling their works for a living. “A few months with no income isn’t going to put them under, because they are going to do art no matter what. Art is something you never retire from,” she said.

Other artists do depend on large art shows as a way to sell their art and win prize money. Those have all been postponed or canceled, Hopkins said.

Hoosier Artist Gallery has not applied for any government assistance.

Because the gallery is a co-op, the members share the cost to run it by paying fees to “rent” space in the building. The gallery’s board president, Anne Ryan Miller, said those fees cover the rent due to the building landlord.

“Financially, we need it to come back, because we don’t want to lose members, because at some point, they’ll go, ‘I can’t afford to continue to do this.’ Most people hope to at least make their rent back in a month,” she added.

“Co-op galleries, a lot of it is a labor of love.”

Once life begins to return to normal, Hopkins expects visitors will be eager to get out.

“We feel there will kind of be a pent-up demand for when we do open. Not everybody will have a lot of money, but I think people will be anxious to come to Nashville,” she said. “We’ll make it through.”

“Hopefully, people will come back and they will be desperate to have some more beauty in their life,” said Ryan Miller.

“They will come into our gallery and say, ‘Oh, I really realized how important art is to me.’”

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Find more information about event cancellations or postponements, art sales, or monetary donation opportunities for local galleries here:

Brown County Art Gallery

Facebook: @TheHistoricBrownCountyArtGallery

Website: browncountyartgallery.org

Online shopping: bcartgalleryonline.org

Brown County Art Guild

Facebook: @BrownCountyArtGuild

Website: browncountyartguild.org

Online shopping: bcartguildshop.com