Spill! Mew Gallery 2nd Annual Fundraiser and Art Auction
Join Mew Gallery and friends tomorrow evening--that's Wednesday March 5th, as they host their 2nd annual Fundraiser Show and Art Auction at The North Star Bar. Featuring arts and crafts from Philadelphia locals and surrounding, and with music from entertaining local acts Rio Vouga, Rarebirds, Movable Type, Siou and Nicole Carey, the night promises to be packed with people to see, songs to enjoy, and wonderful and creative art to fawn over, and hopefully take home with you! This year's Fundraiser Show is hoping for another successful evening, and in keeping with last year's silent art auction, there will be raffles featuring work from Hobo Arona, Itty Bitty Bags, Melissa Crotty, Aviaire, j.l. Schnabel, Alaina G, and many more talented local artists! Raffle tickets will give ticket buyers a chance to win jewelry, ceramics, clothing, journals, stationary, and "more hand-made awesomeness."
Local artist and musician, Carolynne McNeel (Rarebirds, Grammar Debate!, Ports of Call), is a busy gal about town herself, who we were still able to steal away for a few moments on the eve before her fundraiser to talk about what she does, when she isn't involved in the music scene--at her very own arts haven, and local shoppe: Mew Gallery.
Girl About Town: Mew Gallery has been a successful art gallery and multi-media artist space for going towards two years now--what do you see in Mew Gallery's future as it evolves?
Carolynne McNeel: We actually just passed the one year mark in October ('07)! As we evolve and grow as a business, I also see us growing more as a community center--and creating a more involved workshop/artist event scene. We are also working on getting our newly launched web shop more developed and as awesome as the physical store!
What are some of the things that we may not be aware of that Mew Gallery offers for both artists and the public?
Mew Gallery offers our artists (most of which are unknown, emerging artists) a venue to get their wares seen and sold. In the year and a half that we've been here, we've been gaining a steady following of loyal customers and building our reputation in the community--and artists are constantly submitting their work to us for consideration--which is a great feeling! We offer the community a place where they can comfortably shop for socially responsible products (about 95% of which are hand-made in the Philadelphia area!), and view current artwork of local emerging artists in the gallery. The boutique and gallery are very accessible and welcoming to everyone. In the past we've held workshops, and craft nights, and in the future we hope to continue this.
We also have gallery opening receptions that are free and open to the public every six weeks--these always fall on a Saturday. And in the past we've also held specialized events such as; book readings and signings (Big Kids, Little Kids by John Freeborn, How Sassy Changed My Life by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer), and we've also hosted the first ever Dr. Sketchy's anti-art school drawing event in Philadelphia.
We've had live music at some of the gallery openings as well, and we also host Acoustic Mew-sic Saturdays, which feature one local band per session. The sets are usually a little more stripped down than usual, sometimes completely acoustic.
What's the story behind Mew Gallery? How did it begin; both as an idea and a space?
Lauren [Parker] and I have worked together at various jobs since Fall of 2002, after I graduated from Drexel's fashion design program. We actually were in the same program, but Lauren graduated a couple years ahead of me, and it wasn't until we were both working at Mothers Work (in the design office of the Mimi Maternity division) that we got to know each other. We both left there and went to work for And 1; the basketball apparel company, until they were sold and the entire company began getting laid-off. We had collaborated on crafty stuff together in the past, doing some craft fairs, etc, but it wasn't until the reality of impending unemployment began to settle in, that we decided to take the risk and jump head first into writing a business plan and looking for spaces to set up shop.
We knew we worked well as a team together (we also both teach at Fleisher Art Memorial, and co-taught a class there for a couple years as well!--we just can't get enough of each other--ha, ha). We started writing our plan in November of 2005, and by may of '06 we filed as an LLC. By June we had found a space--a huge dark gloomy mess of a place in the heart of the Italian Market, and after some second-guessing our renovation abilities, decided to take the plunge. We spent four months renovating (the place was really pretty much just a shell with one lonely light bulb dangling from the middle of the room and holes in the floor looking down into the basement (and when I say we renovated, I mean it was Lauren and myself, and our contractor friend--just the three of us--doing the bulk of the hands-on work ourselves). We did have a couple of very generous friends help us to paint, and help with the finishing touches, which was completely invaluable. Now that I'm reminiscing about this; I'm actually looking around the shop, and it's really quite amazing to see how far we've come!
Tell us about some of the great things happening in the gallery right now.
Currently we have the Tolbert Brothers Photography exhibit up--that runs until March 14th. Right now, we're trying to take a step away and get a good look at everything objectively and see what we can do to make things bigger and better. We're doing some re-organization in the boutique and gallery, and we're also about to start an artist co-op shop area where we will have a few people setting up their own little "shops" to sell their wares. So far we've held two monthly Philadelphia Etsy trunk shows, and we plan on hosting more. If you're not familiar with etsy.com, you should definitely check it out--it's an online marketplace for artists and crafters to set up their own online shops and sell their wares. We also host the monthly Philadelphia Etsy Street Team meetings.
March 1st, we commenced "Artists of the Month", where two artists are featured in the front window here at the shop each month. We will change the display to feature two more Philly artists every four weeks. The pieces will be displayed along with a little write up about the artists and their work. Each piece will also be featured in our web shop and consistently priced at $200.
We're starting this month with two favorites: Isaac Bushkin (check out his current exhibition at Art Star in Northern Liberties! It's awesome!) and Nikki Virbitsky. Come by at any time of the day or night in March to see the new display and just stop by any month to learn about local artists and their work! Not from the area? That's okay! We're posting their info right on our web site.
We're also planning on holding monthly Mew Raffles, where we'll sell inexpensive raffle tickets for an individual piece, or groupings of a few hand-crafted pieces. The raffled item(s) will be on display at Mew Gallery, as well as on the web site.
What do the donations to the gallery help with?
The donations help with all of the expenses that we run into while holding these local events; gallery openings, workshops, etc. along with our general day to day expenses, which really add up even as streamlined as we try to make things. They say it takes a business 3 years to get their feet on the ground, and we've just crossed the first year mark. We're really proud of ourselves, and that we've made it this far, but want to be around for a really long time! Lauren and I don't take home a salary, even though this is our full-time thing (we really can not afford to right now!), so everything that the business currently makes goes right back into the business (which is why we each have about five different jobs and don't sleep at all!),
How can people get involved with Mew Gallery and the upcoming Fundraiser?
The fundraiser is tomorrow (!!!) so time is really of the essence, but we're definitely still accepting donations in the form of hand-crafted artwork to be auctioned/raffled off in our silent auction. And if people show up and pay the $5 cover (which is really low compared to what the North Star usually charges for a show--we wanted to make it affordable for all!) then that will really help out. If people buy raffle tickets or bid on the auction items, that will also help out, and they'll possibly get to take home something really cool! Every little bit helps. If people want to help out and don't have anything to donate, or can't make it out to the event, we will accept monetary donations either by check or through PayPal (mewgallery@yahoo.com).
Will we be seeing many more Mew events with live local artists?
We plan on continuing with the Acoustic Mew-sic events, and the Etsy trunk shows. Last year, we collaborated with Gleaner's Cafe and DiBruno Bros. (our friends around the corner) to create the Art Extravaganza on the Piazza, which was an outdoor craft fair with music, food and hand-crafted items. we held two separate events for that, and plan on doing more (possibly monthly) events in the Spring.
What is Mew Gallery's favorite thing about Philadelphia?
All of the awesome talent! The friendly community that surrounds the artist/D.I.Y. scene that we have here; what's not to love?
In spite of the credit crisis, most customers who go to a fine art auction, aren't affected by the middle class press or imploding housing market, as 6,000 to 7,000 eager bidders appeared at many of the fine art auctions this year.
Posted by: art auction | May 27, 2009 at 08:47 AM