Health & Fitness
Art in Search of a Home
The 267-member Los Gatos Art Association is looking for a permanent venue.
Tucked away in a warm pocket of verdant foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the quaint little town of Los Gatos is a charming village with restaurants, boutique shops, inns, a farmers’ market and a beautiful town square.
In the 1930s, it was a vacation destination for the fog-chilled population of San Francisco. Many of the small, historic homes that grace its streets were once get-away cabins, improved over the years to become the “charmers” of today’s residents.
It is the kind of place one would expect to find any number of galleries dedicated to local artists, but there is really only one: The gallery at 54 N. Santa Cruz, which is sponsored by the
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The Art Museum of Los Gatos itself, on the corner of West Main and Tait streets, shows only nationally known artists. , 101 W. Main St., and the and Los Osos Café, 19 N. Santa Cruz Ave., do have small rotating displays of local artists. That’s it. The Peabody Gallery that sold nationally known artists has recently closed its Los Gatos location and moved to Menlo Park.
So what’s going on here? For one thing, the high cost of renting a space in downtown Los Gatos has gone through the roof. No pun intended.
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When the Los Gatos Museum of Art decided to limit its exhibits to only nationally known artists, the local 267-member Los Gatos Art Association found itself without a venue for its two annual juried shows. They needed an airy space close to downtown that would hold at least 100 pieces of art to be on display for one month.
Karen Bemis, president of the Los Gatos Art Association, soon found that short-term rentals are not easy to come by. Most landlords want a six-month or longer lease, and the costs were prohibitive.
Luckily LGAA found a place that would accommodate one art show, has a lot of foot traffic and was free. The beautiful new Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center on Oka Road was more than happy to lend its walls for the LGAA Annual Members Juried Show coming up in November 2011. Crisis averted. For now. Next up: the LGAA Annual Open Juried Show next spring. Got room?
