Downtown building being transformed into gallery
Staff writer
Retired art teacher Jan Davis’ latest canvas is a building on East Main Street. She is converting it into Gallery 101 of the Flint Hills.
As of last week, Davis and a crew of workers, including most of her family, had painted the front of the building, put up carpeted walls to hang paintings and other wall art, and installed track lighting.
She is hoping to have the gallery open by Sept. 18 for Art in the Park. For that to happen she still has to put in air conditioning and heat, hardwood floors, and plumbing in the bathroom and studio and gather all the art.
Getting the art should be easy. Having thousands of art students over a 25-year teaching career has its advantages.
For her opening, Davis will call on artists from all over Marion County.
Paintings, sketches, weavings, sculptures, stained glass, and any variety of art that she can get her hands on will be displayed throughout the gallery.
She has been speaking with former students and friends for months to get pieces for the gallery.
“They’re waiting anxiously for me to be done,” she said, “some of them not very patiently.”
Davis had the idea for a Marion gallery in the back of her mind for 10 years. Her husband, Jim Davis, owner of Jim Davis Air Conditioning, has owned the building for more than 15 years. She seriously thought about the gallery for several years.
When she retired from teaching art at Marion Elementary School this past spring, she had the time to make the gallery a reality.
“I’m retired; I’m going to have fun,” she said.
She has traveled the country visiting galleries to come up with design ideas. Some came from close to home. A gallery at McPherson College inspired the choice for carpeted walls.
“You can’t see the nails,” she said, “and they said they’ve never had to replace it.”
Another idea she picked up was having an open ceiling.
Her main inspiration — her favorite gallery from one of her favorite places — was Exposures International art gallery in Sedona, Ariz.
Exposures features a huge variety of different kinds of art. Davis hopes to draw on many of her former students to get pieces that range from nature paintings to abstracts, from reasonable to pricy.
She also hopes to have a sculpture garden in the lot next to the gallery, although probably not by Sept. 18.
Although she retired from the school system, she won’t stop teaching. Her travels have shown her that working galleries fare the best, and classes she hopes that classes she teaches will provide the majority of her income.
“I’d be happy to pay the bills,” she said. “That’s the only way it really works.”
She will continue to teach art through Butler Community College, as she has done for 18 years, but will also teach classes during the day in a small studio behind the gallery.
“It’s the right time for me,” Davis said. “I’m retired but I still have the energy to do it, and I saved my money.”
Davis hopes the gallery will be something unique for Marion. She realizes it takes a while for a gallery to take off, but with a variety of artists to pull from — for a time she had about three or four students per class who went on to work in some artistic field — she believes the gallery will feature enough unique works to pique public interest.
“A lot of little towns that were losing population,” Davis said, “the art community really saved them.”