Founder promotes sponsorship of local artists

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

The economy may technically be improving, but times are still tough for many. Business owners, coping with a slow recovery, have had to come up with creative ways to keep their doors open.

Count Pam Dixon among them. The founder of Gallery 621, which opened last year, is looking to bring more artists —and more community members — to the First Street gallery, and she may have found the answer: sponsorships.

Gallery 621 houses a diverse range of artists, from plein air painters to sculptors. The gallery was begun as a venue for the different styles and mediums of city and regional artists well represented in their membership and exhibits. “And we’ve achieved that,” Dixon said last week.

“What we haven’t achieved is a full membership.”

The gallery’s membership has fluctuated between 13 to 15, she said, but to have a “full house” it really needs 22 members.

She said the smaller membership not only is causing financial difficulties, it is straining the process of management and exhibition.

“Because there’s not too many of us on board, we don’t get too much done except hanging a new show every month, and yet we won’t give up a new show every month because that’s really a good thing to do. We don’t want to be a boring gallery,” Dixon said.

Pondering the problem recently, she said she had one of those “Aha!” moments.

“I kept mulling over a sponsorship idea,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it, agonizing over it, and I woke up one day and there it was: this little blinking sign said, ‘Layaway, layaway, layaway!’ Because I’ve had retail experience.”

She explained the idea to members Lee Wilder Snider and Toby Tover Krein. Krein contacted Renée Jordan, who owns Jordan Real Estate, 1038 First St., where local artists are often featured.

“We all got together,” Dixon said. “Before I knew it I was talking to Renée. She was so eager about the whole thing, and it was such a good idea, that she sold me again on it!”

Jordan offered to become Gallery 621’s first artist sponsor.

“(Dixon) told me of her idea, and asked me what I thought of her idea,” Jordan said. “I said, ‘You know what? I think it’s a perfect plan.’ I just feel that it is a great idea to be able to get artists who just can’t afford that overhead in the door. What better way to do it?”

Jordan won’t be the gallery’s only sponsor. Dixon’s daughter, Heidi Joulios, also will sponsor a Benicia artist, agreeing to pay that person’s monthly share of rent for the gallery for one year.

Sponsored artists still are responsible for the $50 per month that goes toward upkeep of the gallery and marketing, and still are committed to participating in running and promoting the gallery, Dixon said, but they “don’t have to dig down every month.

“Without 22 members, it is somewhat a hardship. And we’ve all been working under a hardship. We need 22, that’s the ideal number.”

What does the sponsor get out of it? “Each artist that is sponsored will enter into an agreement with their sponsor for a piece of art that is valued at $1,500,” Dixon said. “$125 a month for 12 months equals $1,500. So the sponsor actually has something.

“It’s like a layaway program.”

And it’s what Dixon called a “win win win situation”: The gallery gets a new member, the artist gets a committed sponsor and the sponsor gets a piece of artwork.

“This is terrific for everybody,” she said.

Now Jordan is helping to get other sponsors. “I’m working on another community person to sponsor a different artist that I think will be a very good match. I think they will be happy to do it as well,” she said.

“It’s a fabulous idea, and I’m happy to be on board,” Jordan said. “It’s nice to be able to give back to the community in ways that aren’t normally considered giving. It’s an unconventional way of giving to the community.

“You’re giving an artist a chance to show their work, to bring interesting and beautiful things before us that normally wouldn’t have a chance.”

Dixon said she’s talked with other Bay Area gallery owners and dealers about the sponsorship idea and “they’ve said, ‘My God, what a fabulous program that is.’ This is really one of those facilitating things that will make a difference for a gallery,” she said.

And Dixon noted one last benefit: Sponsorships fulfill the need to show the community that area artists are accessible.

“We need to involve the public more. We need to have more access for the people of Benicia. We need to be more accessible. We’re all here, we shop with them, for goodness’ sake.

“We shop with them. It is a community-based gallery. Luckily it’s also a part of the art map of the greater Bay Area.”