Yes, we’re done with the painting! The ceiling and main walls are “snowdrop” white, according to Messrs Sherwin and Williams. Our inner front wall is a lighter shade of bluish turquoise, to complement the floor. The first of our custom-made fixtures — our desk and checkout station — should arrive later this week from the millwork shop. This means we’ll finally be able to start using the space for our many artist meetings. We, Lady Penelope included, are moving in.

After “When are you opening?”, this is the next most frequently asked question.

Our space will definitely reflect the tastes of its owners. Over time it will also reflect the tastes and recommendations of our advisory board. We’re putting a board in place to ensure we are constantly challenged with new ideas and don’t limit our “inventory” to a narrowly defined focus, which is solely dictated by the owners.

We’re the first commercial gallery in this part of the world. So over time our customers, collectors, and artists will also influence the type of art we show on our walls, as we learn their unique tastes. That said, there are several lines that we will not cross — for instance, we’re not a traditional or Western art gallery. Nor, are we interested in art that most would consider vulgar or violent or pornographic or exploitative.

We’re a contemporary art space. Our influences are modern and post-modern. We’re focused on our local community, but we have a global eye. We’re based in the suburbs, but we’re here to stir things up a little (or a lot), rather than to fade into our homogeneous surroundings. We like bold color and both strong and fluid forms.

We want art that is edgy, brave, different, fresh. We look for art that has meaning, evokes feelings, offers a narrative, or is simply technically adept. We’re interested in artists who have passion about their work and who are passionate about growing as an artist.

Finally, we’re pursuing a holistic approach to filling our space. This means we’re looking for art works that combine well together — not necessarily similar, but rather, act in a complementary fashion.

I get lots of strange emails, many of which are eaten by my spam and junk mail devourer. I received an interesting one today, from China from a company that manufactures telescopic ladders, and I suspect lots of other items as well. Is this phenomenal targeted marketing, from 7,000 miles away, or is it spam? You decide?

Dear Madams/Sirs,

Please let me introduce Myself. I’m Ms Sufee Hua, come from a professional ladders factory.

Zhejiang Bihu Ladder Co., Ltd. is Specializes in designing and developing all types of aluminum ladders.

We are the one of professional ladder manufacturer in Asia and we make laddesr for use in all kinds of environment .

The company passed quality certification of ISO 9001 In May 2002 and En-131 in 2005.Our aluminum ladders go through regular quality inspections and obtain satisfactory inspection reports.

Our insulating ladders passed quality checkings by Ministry of Electrical Power Safe Electrical Equipment Quality Control & Checking Center and Wuhan Pressure Testing Center.

　　We hold an attitude of being responsible for customers and insured all our products with PICC eliminating quality concerns by customers.

Oh, by the way, I already have enough ladders.

We’re about 4-6 weeks away from opening. We’ve entered a fun, rewarding, and sure to be an eventful, phase of our start-up process — finding artists.

Our plan is to fill the space with original art from local and regional artists, both emerging and established. We’re looking for artists with technical talent, creative passion and stories to tell through their art. We’re looking for high quality art that makes a statement and in a variety of media: painting, glass, jewelry, wood, photography, fabric, ceramic, metal, illustration, assemblage, scratchboard.

Over the last 6 months we’ve met and collected names of many local artists and made mental snapshots of their works. Now, with our artist contract finalized we’ve begun approaching those whose art we’d be honored to see hanging on our bare walls.

If you’re not on our initial list of 100+ artists never fear, we’ll soon have submission guidelines spelled out on our website. If you’re in our area we’d be delighted to take a look at your work and listen to your story. I can’t guarantee that we’ll show your art, but we do have an open door policy. So, in the meantime, if you’re an artist and wish to know more about art251, you can contact us by clicking here.

We selected our art251 logo a few months ago and then settled on a color scheme for our business cards, letterhead, banner and other marketing materials. This helped us pick colors for the website, blog and drove our selection of colors for the interior of the space, including the floor. Now with the exterior sign it gets a little harder, for a couple of reasons.

First, we have to comply with a 3 page specification from the landlord and the detailed local code for our specific area within Keller — no phosphorescent pink neon for instance!

Second, we have to select colors that can be seen from up close, and afar, and the colors need to complement and standout from the tan background of our building. Also, we’re trying to stay true to our original color palette. But, we’re having difficulty finding bright colors that address all of these requirements.

So, we’re currently wrestling with color swatches from one of our potential sign vendors. Hmm, should the color for the lettering be “013 zinc yellow” or “054 turquoise”? Martha Stewart where are you?

Our mini-gallery director, Lady Penelope, gives our floor a thumbs up during a brief tour of the art251 space. While our painter was on break we snooped around and uncovered part of the floor. It still needs a final buffing after all the work in the space is complete. But, it’s looking good. Next stop, the ceiling. Our 6-year old would be distraught to find Lady Penelope hanging around up there, so I’ll not post any pictures.

We drew five random names from our many sweepstakes entries gathered during Kellerfest (May 30 – June 1). The five lucky winners will receive one of the art works that we had on display during the event. This includes 2 signed prints by Southlake artist Trish Biddle, an abstract by Melissa Ayr, 2 matching ceramics by local potter Kim Norris and an extruded vase by potter and musician David Hendley. Kim hand delivered the vase to our first winner today – we’re not open yet so unfortunately we couldn’t have winners coming to our space.

If you wish to know the names of the winning entries please send an email to us at the following address – spelled out so as to avoid those nasty spamming bots: i n f o [at] a r t 2 5 1 [dot] c o m.

Well, not quite. It’s our painter’s ladder.

Painting inside the art251 space has begun. We’re going with a greyish off-white for the ceiling and walls, and a lighter shade, compared with the floor, of turquoise for our inner front wall. Our custom designed fixtures and furnishings, to come next, will add a touch of warmth to the cool tones of the space.

We were quietly admiring the first coat of unusual turquoise dye on our newly minted concrete floor.

With sound advice and a car-load of color swatches from our designer — Bryan Wetz — we picked out the remaining hues for our walls and ceiling. We were living quite happily inside an episode of one of those cool designer shows on the HGTV channel. Then, the unexpected happened. Some senior executives from our landlord, Southern Land Company, stopped in during a tour of the development. With open mouths they gaped at the floor. One quietly asked me, “That’s the primer, right?”. With a shake of the head and great pride, I declared that this was just the first coat, and the color would become even more stunning after two more rounds of clear-coat. So, with lease still intact, despite (or due to) the turquoise, we continue with the next phase of our art251 construction. Though, I’m not sure if now our landlord will be watching us and watching our space much more intently.

art251, like other good art spaces, welcomes questions of all shapes and sizes. Placing art with our customers means first making customers comfortable with the great idea of buying art. A key ingredient is to give our customers the information that they need, and even some information that they didn’t know they needed.

So, rather than us giving you, our (potential) customer, an endless monologue on an art -related topic, we’d much prefer to engage you in conversation. Ask us questions. We may not be able to answer them all – we’ll certainly try though. Remember, the more you ask the more we’ll be able to learn about your preferences, your motivations, your goals. We’ll both learn something in the process.

Some questions to help you get started:

Can you tell me more about this work?

How was this made?

What do you like about this piece?

What is the style?

Is the artist local?

How well known is the artist?

Do you have more information that I can take away?

How could I best display this in my home?

Can I get on your mailing list?

Coming next, art251 Q3/251: Will my art purchase go up in value?

During our initial art251 design machinations we settled on turquoise for our floors. We wanted a degree of color in our space but needed to keep our walls and ceiling neutral for obvious reasons. So, most of it ended up on our concrete floor, and our contractors’ shoes.

Incidentally, if you come across any designer running shoes in turquoise at your favorite athletic store you’ll know where you saw them first.

To translate for those of you who are still with me: art251 gets the OK for a Certificate of Occupancy (CO) from the City of Keller (CK). This means we have a real permit to start up and operate our business out of our proposed location.

We’re official. The first commercial art space to open in NE Tarrant County takes another step towards becoming reality.