Re-adjusting, year 5 of Gallery 139.

The demands of the commercial rental market got me and after 4 years leasing on Beaumont Street, I decided if I was going to survive as a Gallery in some form, I needed to reduce the overheads and quick. With the majority of my start-up funds now gone in paying rent and covering the short-falls of exhibitions, it was time to move before I became resentful. Or worse, regretful.

I don’t think of it as wasting money, I think of it as spending money on my education. If I’d gone to Business school or completed some kind of Art Management degree, there would have been fees involved. Instead, I learnt on the job, doing it and making my own mistakes and trying my own ideas. Learning lessons that will, I hope, not be easily forgotten because they were real, they actually happened to me. I didn’t read about them as case-studies in some University text.

But this year has been tough. Both mentally and physically. While I have enjoyed the freedom of not having to be at the gallery for 4 days of week, I have found it very difficult to find a routine to do any business administration. As a result, I an behind and in a paperwork mess! That in turn has affected my mental health and ability to focus on running the gallery as a business. I never have problems with the art-side, getting the exhibitions organised, the artists, the install, finding the art which best suits an exhibition, it’s all the other stuff that goes with it. The stuff that you wish you didn’t have to do but you do.

I was already behind while moving out of the Beaumont St, now my pile has turned into a mountain and I’m definitely feeling overwhelmed.

~ Ahn Wells May 2019