my last gallery?

For most of my adult life I have maintained some sort of gallery setting for my work. I am not sure if it is the easiest way to sell and show my work but the shortage of conventional galleries and the fact that I work in an unconventional glass medium has made it a necessity. The spaces have all ways been cheap and rundown but I would keep them running till I fell behind in rent or the building would be set for demolition. This is what happened to my last space that I rented in Sidney B.C. from a local arts centre. It was an old farm house with to old trailers attached. I managed to keep it afloat for five years but I finally fell behind in the rent and was evicted. When I left I donated over fifty thousand dollars of finished work for the Winspear Arts Foundation, my landlord, to sell at fund raisers over the next few years.

Now I am in my tenth month in my location in Lunenburg and I have been evicted again for falling behind in the rent and unfortunately I will miss the all important summer tourist season which might have given me a chance to catch up on the rent from the dead winter months. I am trying to find stores to take some of the inventory and the rest I will store in my basement and shed for a few months while I rebuild an old studio on our property. I have been a professional glass artist for over forty years now and have been featured in many media spots and have achieved a solid history of progression in my field.

I will miss the public reaction to my work and I think I could have been a good tourist attraction if things had worked out better financially. It seems for all my achievements the most financially successful thing I have done is become a pensioner. My intentions have always been to retire into teaching and that is what I intend to do now by what ever means I can find to achieve this. The technology I have developed can be taught to trades people and artisans and provide a living by reclaiming waste tempered glass. The techniques allow the user to take an abundant waste material that is uncut-able for the manufacturer and turn it into a cut-able new building material. I will put more time into creating webinars and possibly teaching at a local level in an effort to pass on what I have learned.