About 6 years ago, I had the hope of opening a gallery of sorts in the town I live in.  I looked all over the place for a building that I thought would suit my needs.  It's not to say we have a lack of suitable buildings.  We don't.  If anything we have an over abundance of them.  Empty, abandoned, burned out, or just plain sitting vacant.  And they were well out of any practical price range I was willing to go into hock for.  I don't consider $350,000 reasonable for a building that's been standing empty for so long that most of the locals can't recall when it last had something in it.  Nor do I find it reasonable that a burned out building on the verge of collapse should be worth $250,000 when the land is not worth $1200 according to the tax office.  I give these sad examples because in a town of less than 8000 people, 85% are on public assistance.

Only a fool would even think to try and open a gallery in a town where the average mean income is less than $19,500 when we moved into the area and it's dropped since then to below $18,000.  I tried to hang a shingle outside my home to quietly advertise an artist lived there.  I quickly discovered that the city frowned on such things unless you paid $65 for the privilege of getting taxed for the supplies twice and the finished product twice and this goes on year after year after year with the city demanding access to my home to inventory things themselves.  You can imagine my frustration, aggravation, and annoyance at this.  Oh... And I had to take the shingle down.  I can't advertise to let anyone know I was there.

Well now it's 2009.  I've been here 7 years in this town and businesses are leaving for greener pastures and less restrictions on their businesses...  That or they just plain gave up.  The town is scenic if panhandlers are your idea of picturesque.  When we moved here 7 years ago there were 25 businesses on Main Street.  Don't get excited.  Main Street is only a block long.  I took a drive down Main Street and there are only 10 or so left.  I can't hope to do anything there because the parking is very limited and Main Street rolls up its sidewalks at 5 PM.  Wednesdays everything closes at 1 PM.  Kinda strange if you ask me.

The local university bought up what I hoped would be a prime location, but after 8 walk throughs with building inspectors, appraisers, and a hand picked group of friends armed with cameras and flash lights, I said no.  The foundation was collapsing, the roof showed signs that it was breaking on the diagonal, the interior had massive termite damage and an ongoing infestation.  Those people I brought along verified my worst fear... It would take over $3 million dollars to fix the mess and there was no guarantee that it would attract attention or get traffic.  

The university said it was opening a gallery for their students and that it would be functioning the middle of February.  It was still empty as of my drive through the town.  Nothing had been done to speak of since the great flop and twitch "grand opening" at the beginning of February.

So I turned my attention away from the downtown as I did not want to have to pay for beautification efforts that get stolen every couple of weeks and risk the likelihood of an armed robber coming in and demanding what was in the till and trashing the art when they did not get as much as they were expecting.  That's already happened to 3 businesses 3 times and the armed assailant has never been captured.  Yeah... I'm not going to bother with the downtown.

I looked to something closer to me.  Lo and behold there were 2 buildings that might work within 3 blocks of me.  One was 6500 square feet and when I looked at it the first time, it was roomy, tidy, and airy.  I would look at it again.  I should not have done that.  It went for $149,000.  Not bad given the building is steel and it sits on an acre in town.  The new owner said they put a lot of money into it and they demanded $250,000.  The condition was appalling.  The floors were cracked and dirty, it smelled nasty, and it looked dingy and dank.  I was shocked and dismayed.  So much for that building.

Behind it was another building.  Solid brick tile, the interior walls were the same brick tile.  The floors were the old fashioned linoleum that I remember from my school days.  Even the glass in the windows were similar.  800 square feet of office space delegated to a few tidy offices and interior storage rooms.  The rest of it, 5000 square feet of heated area that would be a gym with a corrugated steel addition on the east side that was as wide as the original brick building and 30 feet shorter than the building, plus 5 massive roll up doors.  WOW.  It's a Hell of a building.  1940s light industrial with a hint of overgrown parking lot.  It was love at first sight.  This was not something pristine but had a feel of comfortable wear.  A light layer of dust covered steel shelving units, some standing, others partially disassembled.  The floors in the back part of the building and the steel encased addition were concrete that showed no globs of grease or pock marks.  Perfect.  Even the ceilings in the main building delighted me.  Old acoustical tiles in the office with vintage florescent fixtures and in the back plywood painted flat white.  But the best part was the overhead rail.  My God!  An overhead rail!  All I needed would be a 1 or 2 ton come-along and I'd be set! (Provided the overhead rail could hold that sort of weight.)

So I made my query.  The man that owned it said there was an acre of land that went with it and he had it listed at $150,000.  He was open to negotiation on the price and was willing to come down on it.  The zoning office was willing to make it a combined zone.  Residential/Commercial.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... This got the wheels turning.

This pretty much brings things up to date and why I am actually making a journal entry.

As you can see by the title, I have this project I call Milhojas Celestiales.  It's my effort to raise the capital I need to buy the building and make any repairs/changes to turn that building into a working gallery and live studio.  To do this, I propose to offer paper stars.  Folded ribbon stars made from 100% recycled paper in sets of 6, sealed with beeswax and ready to hang as an ornament.  Perfect for the winter Holidays.

I'm asking $2/per star or $12/ set of 6.  Each one hand made, hand-dipped, hand boxed.  My goal is 250,000 paper stars.  I have 2500 made so far.  Every star I sell puts me that much closer to finally achieving something I have been dreaming of for 7 years.  

I know the number sounds insane.  Most people would say that dreaming big is crazy.  I think dreaming big is why artists make.  I think it's what makes people do amazing things to see something they imagine come to reality.  It led me to do so many different things with so many different mediums and let me carve materials so rare and hard to come by that I never thought it would be possible.

So here is the deal.  You think making a gallery is a worthy project, pass this blog on to others you think might be interested.  You want to support this project, buy a star.  Buy a set of stars.  I'll keep making stars until I reach my goal and I may just keep making stars to buy a second building to convert to a working gallery and live studio for other artists.

This town needs us as artists to share a vision of a positive future and a positive force for growth and change.

What do you think?