"If you want a good art scene, you have to just do it." Those words inspired senior studio art major Adam Huston to open his own nonprofit art gallery in his living room this past summer.
The idea first came to him during the spring when artist Dina Sherman of Columbus, Ohio, came to speak at the Ball State. With her she brought her own project called The IMA Gallery, a dollhouse-sized gallery used to exhibit smaller pieces of art that can be move locations. Sherman brought The IMA Gallery along with her to prove an important point - there is always an opportunity to exhibit art no matter where you are. Sherman's talk planted the seed that brought Huston's gallery, called The Living Room Gallery into reality.
"She [Sherman] talked about how any place you choose can be considered a gallery space, or at least an exhibition space," Huston said. "That was when the first notion of holding a few temporary shows popped into my head."
Then in June, Huston and his friend Andrew McCauley began to talk about the art scene in Muncie and how much better it could be if only someone would put in the effort to bring the artists together.
"We had this great conversation about how there doesn't seem to be much going on in Muncie art-wise that is mainly student driven. We've got great examples of what art students are doing regularly at other universities, but we're not doing those kinds of things here," Huston said. "That's when Dina Sherman's words came back to me - this amazing idea that if you want a good art scene, you have to just do it. So I said that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to turn my living room into a gallery to show local and student work and hopefully encourage some collaborative work."
Two weeks later The Living Room Gallery hosted its first show.
Huston spent the weeks before the first show opened preparing the gallery. Finding out how the local galleries were run was a key point because he wanted to be sure that people could be directed to those galleries, as well as the possibility that they might send some people his way.
After that, getting the gallery up and running was mostly just a matter of posting fliers around town, moving the furniture out of his living room and actually hanging the pieces for the show.
From July 2 to 5, Huston displayed the work of two professors, three alumni and five undergraduate students in the first exhibition at the Living Room Gallery.
There was also a permanent collection on display featuring the work of five artists throughout the month of July.
There was a wide variety of work on display, including an entire wall full of watercolors by Andrew McCauley and a string installation piece by Shannon Mehaffey.
The show even included works by professors Hannah Barnes and Scott Anderson.
Exhibitions will be held on the first Thursday of each month and will continue for four days. The next show will open Sept. 3 and will host a variety of work from several artists, and in October the show will be have a horror theme.
The gallery will be open to the public from 4 to 10 p.m., and is located at 101 S. Talley, Apt. C. Huston hopes to give as many artists as possible the chance to display their work in his gallery. All forms of art are welcome, from painting to performance art, as long as the gallery itself is not damaged by the work and as long as it will fit into the available space, a room approximately 10 by 20 feet.
There is also a possibility for special showings outside of the monthly exhibitions for students wishing to show performance art, video art and any other form of art that may be difficult to show with other works on display.
Submissions are always being accepted for all shows. If there is not enough room to fit every piece submitted into a show, some works might have to be turned away, but there is also the chance of the piece being saved for the next show.
Any local artists are welcome to submit pieces, whether affiliated with the university or not.
"There is a definite focus on the university and students right now but I would be really excited if I got some local artists in the gallery as well," Huston said. "It would feel like I'm accomplishing something toward the mission of building a stronger local art community if I get a good mix of local and student talent."
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