Desert Edge Arts * Gallery * Picture Framing * Art Supplies * Progress

We are so excited as we continue to plod along with preparation of the shops for Desert Edge Arts Gallery-Picture Framing-Art Supplies

The 2 shops that will house Desert Edge Arts 87 & 89 Nelson Street will become the cohesive home that houses Desert Edge Arts Gallery. Gallery, Picture Framing, Art Supplies, as well as running weekly workshops in Karen’s Open Studio Space at Desert Edge Arts.

Shop 87 has these beautiful wings that come out from the front door and bring to my mind that they are like arms reaching out to hug you. These beautiful shop front windows will make awesome displays to the street scape of Nhill and be very visible to the community from the super market across the road, always a hive of activity and for the traffic that pass’s by the front door on the Western Highway, one of Victoria’s busiest highways.

So even before you enter the shop itself, these beautiful windows offering 3 metres of wall display space each and being a bit over a metre wide, will be a beautiful addition to the street scape of Nhill.

We have been busy plugging up pin holes in the walls of these L shaped windows as they have been used as notice boards for quite some time. Being the size that they are, we intend to have a professional hanging system in the windows as well.

The last of the prep for the walls in ready for painting has now been done in preparation for the beautiful contemporary colour scheme we have chosen for the gallery walls. A lot of research went into the choice of the gallery walls colour so that all artworks displayed in the gallery will always be the Hero.

We have a good starting point in shelving for the art supplies that are coming into the store, but will need to add more to this to house all the Art supplies that are coming into the space. Desert Edge Arts aim to house the largest supply of art materials in the Wimmera, but to begin with we have a decent selection of a wide variety of materials and this will continue to grow we are excited to be bringing this business of Gallery, Picture Framing and Art Supply’s to our community in Nhill.

The flooring we are still debating between carpet or leaving as boards, for a bit of a rustic feel, or the more sensible carpet tiles would be the quickest solution and perhaps also the most cost effective, and reduce noise and keep the room warmer in winter.

We are also finding out the history of the shop its origins being it was originally  the shop front of one of the original garages in Nhill this could also mean the floor boards have more history on them than we want, and be the decider between rustic or carpet tiles.

A New Journey As Desert Edge Arts Finds A New Home

Introducing the new home of Desert Edge Arts . I have secured 2 shops side by side that are connected internally and  will house my Gallery space, the new Gallery space doubles the amount I previously had. I will sell Art Supplies,  Picture Framing , and a beautiful light filled room for art workshops and my studio. Through my blog I will take you on my journey as I renovate, repair, clean, paint, clean, did I mention Clean lol there is a lot of cleaning to bring these 2 spaces to Glory housing the new home of Desert Edge Arts.

Shop 89 was an Ice-Cream Parlour hence the sign-age, 89 will become my workshop/studio space this beautiful room is over 40 feet long, I know I’m showing my age working in feet a little exercise for anyone who wants to convert it and about 25 feet wide with a kitchen and toilet. 89 needs some attention before it opens its doors to do its job.

Apart from the cosmetics of cleaning 89 and painting it, and removing unwanted botch y cupboards 89 has sat idle and unloved for 2 years, so  white ants moved through a section of the skirting board and part of the floor so some repairs are needed. The first day I received the keys I removed sticky signs from the right hand window.

Paint is peeling of the ceiling as well as the walls and some ugly notice boards removed from the wall yesterday revealed some vintage art sign-age, and still so many more stickers of walls and window before a paint brush can go near the walls or ceiling lots of preparation.

End of day 2 and the second window is now free of sticky advertising 

 Shop 87 has a beautiful big open frontage of glass display windows that capture the light. 87 will house a beautiful New Gallery for Nhill, a fantastic assortment of art supplies.The front windows are going to be fantastic for display, being quite roomy and the way they wrap the entrance the shop front is highly visible from the supermarket across the road, the post office on the corner and the Shire buildings opposite. 87 is also only one shop away from the busiest take away food outlet in-town.  87 used to be a clothing store and we will remove all the unnecessary fittings making it a beautiful large light filled Gallery space with art supplies as well.

Today we removed the change rooms that we don’t want, removing these from the space gives the gallery an extra 13 feet of hanging space.

Removing some of the other fittings of the walls also freed up another 8 feet of wall space. We have been mindful to preserve the materials as we have removed them so there is the potential for them to be up-cycled else where in the shop or by some-one else. We are just going about it like the tortoise slow and steady and we will get there. We anticipate we will be open and trading mid Feb. We plan to have our Official Opening when ‘Kinship’ the Australia wide touring exhibition by Jandamarra Cadd comes into the Gallery in April 2015