The Opening of a Gallery and a new home for American Handmade Art!

I wanted to open a bricks-and-mortar gallery. Have since we started the online gallery four years ago. Well, in late October we did just that. We’ve sublet some space at 30 Cutler in Warren, Rhode Island, and set up shop. Our grand opening is November 13th . . . yup tonight! We’ll be there (30 Cutler Street, Warren, RI behind the new Tom’s Market) from 6 to 8:30pm tonight and 10:30 to 4 pm on Saturday. There will be wine, cheese, other munchies, good people, and great craft. An additional bonus is that an architectural art show is open as well.

The space really looks great. It’s so nice to see nearly all our inventory out, lit, and looking really cool. We’ve never been able to do that before. You see since we buy all the pieces that we sell, rather than have artists drop ship their works once we sell them like most online companies do, we’ve been storing some really great pieces in our attic---not very glamorous, eh?
We’ve been open for a couple of weeks now and the hours have been rather “flexible” let’s say, but there are still some people that wander by and others who are taking ceramics classes at Mudstone Gallery from who we sublet to keep Karen busy on site. It also gives her the opportunity to get out of the house and think about other topics then laundry, loveable challenging children, and, well . . . me.

There was a walk of Warren the weekend we opened and a lot of people came in to our space and the 30 Cutler complex in general along with galleries all over town. There were a lot of great comments, substantive oohs and ahs, and a buying clientele. That was good for business of course, but it was also good for the old jitters. You see, we’ve “built” it, now we have to see if they will come (“If you build it they will come” is a famous Field of Dreams quote, baseball movie, guy builds a baseball diamond in his cornfield because some voice tells him to, shoeless Joe Jackson comes to play with his buddies, yeah, he’s a ghost of some sort. Cool movie, put it on your Netflix list).

We’re psyched to be open and hope that we’ll be able to show you the Red Elephant Gallery in the flesh, well, bricks and mortar (it’s an old brick mill so the term really works for us!), check out what we have to offer and if it suits your fancy, take something home with you. You’ll cherish the experience and the item. Fine craft is cool like that.
See you there! – Michael

Gallery hours: Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 10:30am - 3pm, Saturday 11am - 4:30pm. Any day by appointment - just call (401-965-0724)!