The beginning

To understand the beginning of IR Gallery, one must have a vague grasp on Integration Research, something I never anticipated being a difficult proposition, but apparently is.

Integration Research is a nonprofit incubator for ideas, processes, and technologies that aid in artistry, personal creative process, and community development. We develop software, partner with other software developers, collect knowledge concerning the creative process, and nurture spaces both virtual and physical that facilitate various artistic communities.

In case it's not apparent, the gallery fit into IR's broader schemes via "physical space that facilitates various artistic communities." Sarah Jane described it as "a space devoted to connecting artists and art patrons in mutually beneficial ways," to which we both responded, "duh," but in the end never managed to pen a more elaborate description. A gallery space, and other things that require physical space, were always in the plan for IR. However, they were in the plans for a number of years down the road (IR was founded in 2003 and received its nonprofit status in 2004).

IR Gallery came to be in approximately 24 hours. I was living in the Expo Park area, and had attended a show at a gallery in a space that was next door to what would become IR Gallery (Cathy Miller was part of that show, in fact). I observed at said show that the gallery layout was similar to that which I had imagined for IR gallery/public/office space. Later I noticed (I'm not very detail-oriented, or I might have noticed sooner) that the space next door was available. I immediately assumed it would be too much for IR's (read: my) measly budget. Turned out it was somewhat manageable. However I had a more pressing problem: time. I did not have the time to manage a gallery.

I had met Sarah Jane at the Magnolia Bar gallery space just a few weeks prior. I realized that there was no way I could pull this thing off, and I also realized that this person I barely knew was my only candidate to do just that. I sent an email to the address on the business card, and in apparently the first of a series of serendipitous events, the email address that was normally only checked once every few months was checked on the day I had to try and pull this gallery together (why I only had approximately 24 hours to decide if the gallery was going to happen is another story, but suffice to say if it took longer, it wasn't going to happen). A meeting was arranged for later in the day, and when Paul and Sarah Jane left "the coffeehouse" I had a "99%" commitment. I went to negotiate for the new space and within the week we were preparing for an opening a month out.

Sarah Jane and I ended up sharing that opening show, "newspace" and "artifacts," which tell the story of the gallery's beginnings better than I just did.

During...

The point of this narrative primarily revolves around the relationships that were fostered by the gallery. First, from my perspective, the creative business partnership between Sarah Jane and myself. Secondly, the relationships between the artists and the advocates (I'm speaking of Sarah Jane, myself, Nyddia Hannah, other artists in the community, and our regular patrons). Highlights (each show was a highlight, I'm having to be particularly selective here):

• John Kim, which was such a pleasant experience from start to finish it made my "top 10 cultural things of 2004." From that:

Towards the end of his time in the Gallery, I said to Sarah Jane, "We need more artists like John." The media really picked up on this one, and John took full advantage of his time in the space, meeting potential buyers at least once a week. And for good reason: elegant, beautiful work you can count on only becoming more and more valuable.

Bottom line, John was great to work with, and has become a good friend and constructive thinker/partner in our work to assist and improve the visual arts in our community. This is a relatively common thread in the relationships built through this space.

• Stephen Lapthisophon. I never really interacted with Stephen, but his energy spilled out via Sarah Jane, and his use of our space was indicative of the broader relationships occurring between Sarah Jane, Nyddia, and some more academic circles around UTD.

• Patrick Rhodes was also great to work with, and used the space well. Always nice to work with educated, hard working artists!

• Halls of the Machine (pics + pics), simply because it took balls on everyone's part to do this, and then it turned out so well. Escalator Maintenance Society followed up in this category, and the collective "we" are rather interested in doing more things like this in whatever spaces we occupy in the future.



The future

The original vision for the IR Gallery space, which we cultivated and planned for and in the end have not yet executed on, was to be more than just a gallery. We met every week, trying to figure out what this gap in the local arts resource base was. There were resources available, geared towards the local community. But those instances lacked the actual community. Here we sat right in the big fat middle of it, essentially just a large group of our amazingly talented peers. From our notes:

...The collaboration between IR and IR Gallery has begun to explore in detail the real life issues that face visual artists. From production to dissemination, IR Gallery strives to give space to local prolific artists in all mediums a space to communicate. IR imagines the development of the IR Gallery space into a focal point for the local arts community...

IR seeks to add space within the gallery to provide an area for local artists to have technological access in the form of internet, computer usage, and research resources. In addition, IR Gallery seeks to host educational meetings such as art talks, business seminars, and provide resources in the form of computers and a library of books to aid artists at all levels in their business, their craft, and in researching public art projects and grant writing...

IR intends to expand its activities into publishing and other culture industries, parlaying the knowledge gained through its work in the visual arts into solutions for artists in other arenas. Just as IR leverages its technological offerings (software, website, etc) and the gallery space for the benefit of visual artists, the same software and knowledge can be used to offer creative solutions and community development to local writers, musicians, storytellers, etc...

Obviously this was not actualized in the Expo Park space. There are a number of reasons, financial and emotional, that need not be enumerated here. However, Integration Research continues to exist and move forward, and physical space for such collaboration is certainly part of its plans. The spirit of the gallery continues on in Pigeon Stone Project, in even more creative, sustainable ways.

Look for a revamped IR site in the coming months, elaboration on all the various IR projects, and the open sourcing of its software and ideas.

This site will see much less activity, for obvious reasons. It will continue, however, likely in a more "blogish" style, making note of important events in our cultural communities and perhaps documenting our search for the next...IR Gallery.