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When the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic sent Boston's art galleries into lockdown-prompted limbo in 2020, Gallery 263 in Cambridge Exhibitions Director and artist Doug Breault saw the forced isolation of quarantine as an opportunity for introspection, a step forward he said many gallery members and resident artists took in the face of unprecedented uncertainty.
"Artists are inherently introspective people," Breault said. "I think a lot of people really have a renewed investment in their own crafting of their work, and even in their identity and relationship to it."
The prolonged absence of in-person spaces for artists to create and share their work turned narrow bedroom walls and living room floors into full-time studios, but closed doors on the Cambridgeport corner of Pearl Street and Putnam Avenue left Gallery 263 and its artists in search of social continuity and financial security, much like the nearly 50 million Americans who filed for unemployment during the first three months of the pandemic alone.
But on a mid-September Friday evening, the small art gallery once again welcomed patrons in for its tenth Annual Members' Exhibition during its first public reception since the start of the pandemic. The exhibit featured the wide range of community-sourced mediums, styles, and content that the gallery's local artists contribute to the scene. Outside, guests gathered in the communal backyard patio garden for outdoor socializing. As the gallery pushes forward with new exhibitions, receptions, and pop-up events every week 18 months into the pandemic, there is much to celebrate.
For Managing Director Alexa Photopoulos, it was the little things that brought the gallery back to life. "I bought way too many snacks," she laughed, "I was just, like, 'When we get to have a reception, I'm going to buy all the cheese and some little oranges and some this and some that,' but it had this sense of joy, 'I get to buy fancy snacks for friends of the gallery again.'"
Photopoulos, who grew up just four blocks away from the gallery and is now a staff member at the nearby Morse Elementary School, has a history with Gallery 263 dating back an entire decade to when she was an inaugural member and held her own residency as an artist creating displays comprised of different materials and prosthetic-like parts resembling chairs. She said her early days at the gallery were what taught her the importance of the in-person space and the experiences it precipitates.
"The feeling that there's an organization that is valuing space and time and resources for artists is also really powerful," she said. "That did feel very supportive, just the time and space to think through different ideas was really important."
As a small nonprofit space, Gallery 263's continued survival and success isn't tethered to artist sales, which Doug Breault said helps serve the gallery's function as a launchpad for 2020 MFA graduates who may have been unable to hold their long-awaited thesis shows as well as older artists looking for the freedom to be more experimental with their work.
"I like being a stepping stone because we've worked with a lot of young people who are excited but also people who are retired from other careers or have been artists for like 40, 50 years of their life and they're just sort of looking for a new place to show an experiment," Breault said.
As exhibitions director, Breault has witnessed local artists like Hana Godine take their Gallery 263 show from Cambridgeport to New York City, even traveling as far as Belgium.
But when lockdown made opportunities like that seem like a distant memory, virtual showings, gallery tours, and introspective experimentation vividly captured the community's resilience.
Returning to gallery receptions and artist talks once again a year-and-a-half into the pandemic, over two dozen people circulated the gallery, mingling in conversation over Zach Horn's food and family-inspired exhibition "Cookout" on a warm early October evening by its wall-consuming installations and on the front stoop and sidewalks outside.
"Cookout" boasted Horn"s large, colorful yet simple depictions of everything from everyday kitchenware to nostalgia-informed, lifelike recreations of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bagels with cream cheese. Gallery Treasurer and Co-founder David Craft said it felt refreshing to engage with something fun and light amidst a never-ending wave of Covid-prompted media and news.
For Horn, seeing his exhibition in a gallery he said has tapped into its community to bring its artists and residents together spurred joy and validation unmatched by any Zoom showing or seminar.
"People actually get to see the work, that makes all the difference. Our work is supposed to be public," Horn said as guests, including his family and friends, navigated "Cookout." "It's not supposed to be something I make in my studio at home and then hide away forever, because it doesn't get completed until it goes up on the wall and other people get to interpret it their own way and see something in it that I never intended but it's like part of it."
For exhibit attendee Mark Lang, a software engineer and musician, Gallery 263 represents everything he hopes to create through his own art -- his music. Lang, who lives just a short walk away from the gallery, likes to drop by to see the latest artwork on its walls and said he hopes to collaborate with Gallery 263 in an effort to potentially bring intimate music performances back to the space.
"It's just amazing to be able to come in and see whatever is on the wall and also to meet people and introduce myself or immerse myself in different types of art," Lang said. "It's a really amazing way to find inspiration for my own work and to see what they think about when they create art. I love the exchange of ideas that happens from different types of work."
Longtime Somerville resident Steve Iskovitz, another guest at "Cookout" who started going to art shows as soon as they reopened, said he sees art shows as more than just an opportunity to see new work.
"I look at art shows as events," he said. "To me they're the greatest thing there is, really, because you get a group of people together, get art, people and wine, and then you just can't go wrong from there."
Looking ahead, Doug Breault feels more hopeful than ever. The arrival of full-time remote work at home coupled with the occasional virtual exhibition in 2020 served as an awakening for many local artists that their art was something they wanted to dedicate more time to, Breault said.
"We're getting more submissions, and I feel really excited about what I'm seeing, and I think the best sort of way to tell if a piece of art is good is if you're jealous that you didn"t make it," he said. "There's just so many terrible things in the world, so I think it's really powerful to meet someone and talk about their work and they're feeling really strongly about it."
