History of The Erin Hanson Gallery

Erin Hanson Newsletter No images? [Click here]( [The Erin Hanson Newsletter]( [The Erin Hanson Gallery]( History of The Erin Hanson Gallery Dear {NAME}, I thought you would enjoy the story behind the creation of The Erin Hanson Gallery. About 8 years ago I was happily painting in my 3-car garage, located snugly in the Burbank hills with a great view overlooking Downtown Los Angeles. One day I got a knock on my door, and a city representative appeared saying that there have been reports of "too many canvases" being made on my property. The City of Burbank has a very strict policy of not allowing businesses to be run out of people's homes, and the representative told me I had 2 weeks to move every piece of paint and canvas out of my home. Luckily I had already been eyeing a warehouse property down in Glendale, across the street from my favorite breakfast spot. I had even emailed the owner to see if I could possibly have afforded it, but had decided it was far more sensible to keep my expenses down and remain painting in my garage. With this sudden encouraging push from the city, however, I decided I should be a leaseholder after all, and The Erin Hanson Gallery was born. My first gallery and studio was 2,000 square feet, with a small gallery showroom in the front, a studio in the middle, and a warehouse in the back. The well-known painting North Rim Hexaptych was created to cover a 6-paneled, wooden accordian wall I built to separate my warehouse from the studio. While I was working here, I went to a great expressionist exhibition at LACMA, and I fell in love with the museum's dark blue walls. I liked the way the dark color made the gold frames pop. I decided to paint my own gallery in this color. Three years later, after publishing a few art books (which arrived on ten pallets and ate up most of my warehouse), and running very short on floor space, I relocated my gallery to an artist district near Downtown L.A., which was called "Frogtown" due to its proximity to the L.A. River. With the sudden doubling of space, I felt like I could truly expand as an artist. For the first time, I was able to create a large collection of related paintings and release them all at once in my gallery. The first such collection was The Orange Show. The high ceilings, polished concrete floors, and large skylights made my new gallery an ideal place to paint... until the summer of 2016 hit, and I discovered how hot a Los Angeles warehouse could get without air conditioning. At the end of 2016, I decided to move to San Diego. The cooler weather beckoned invitingly, and I was looking forward to getting out of the big city. I spent months looking at every available industrial property that came on the market. Since I am painter, and I wanted to paint on site, I needed my building to be zoned for industrial. The good news was that I could afford a much larger industrial space than I could a retail location. I finally settled on a pristine warehouse, 7,000-square feet, off Miramar Rd, the heart of San Diego's interior design district. The building was two blocks from the 15 freeway, easy to access from North County and downtown San Diego, and only 15 minutes from La Jolla. Best of all, there was air conditioning! The warehous property had been completely gutted, and I was offered $80K in building modifications so I could build it to suit. This was a real dream come true. I spent weeks huddled over graph paper drawing detailed layout plans, making mockups in Photoshop, and measuring everything I owned to see where it would fit on my floorplan. The final result was a brand-new Erin Hanson Gallery. We had our grand opening in February, 2017. I kept the dark blue gallery walls, and I had two collection releases in 2017: The Coastal Show and The Super Bloom Show. San Diego was a wonderful home for my gallery; I felt much closer to nature here, and the city is drenched in natural beauty. One weekend, a few years later, I was enjoying breakfast in Carmel-by-the-Sea, after a successful art exhibition at Holman Ranch Winery. I decided I should really have my own gallery in Carmel. There are nearly 100 art galleries in a one-mile radius in Carmel, and art lovers travel from all over the world to purchase art for their homes. Well, always being one to follow words with action, I started knocking on the doors of Carmel real estate offices, and pretty soon I found someone who knew of an available property that hadn't gone on the market yet. One week later, I had signed a lease for a charming little retail location just north of Ocean Avenue, on San Carlos Street. Again, I was hunched over my graph paper, crunching numbers and making lists of things to do before the grand opening. Learning how to navigate Carmel's street address system (there are no building numbers in Carmel) and their very strict signage approval system, I managed to get all the construction completed and the signage up one month later, ready for the grand opening. When I flew up to Carmel again with my 4-month old baby, I hadn't seen the gallery since it had red carpet and white walls, and the newly renovated space was exactly what I had envisioned. To complement the cool colors of ocean-themed paintings, I went with a dark burgundy wall color, rich mahogany molding, and green leather chairs. We had our grand opening in October, 2019. Now, in 2021, I am relocating my studio gallery from San Diego to McMinnville, Oregon! After the birth of my daughter in 2019, I decided I wanted to buy some land outside of the city and expand my gallery into a larger working facility. We now have our newest location of The Erin Hanson Gallery: two industrial buildings that are the length of a football field, located in the center of gorgeous Oregon wine country. The showroom is painted in a deep mauve and visitors can see my newest paintings fresh from the easel. We also have the room now to bring our printing in-house, so we are now manufacturing our own Erin Hanson prints and shipping directly to our collectors. What are my plans for the future? In maybe five years I hope to own some property and build my own Erin Hanson Gallery from scratch. I have dreams of winding gardens and water features, with tall cypress trees shading a Italian facade. I am already sketching out buliding ideas and interior layouts in my spare time. I love to dream up new futures. It is the job of every artist. - Erin Hanson [The Erin Hanson Gallery]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( [Pinterest]( The Erin Hanson Gallery 9705 Carroll Centre Road San Diego CA 92126 (858) 324-4644 Please call or text us at the number above to make an appointment at the gallery. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to Erin Hanson's artist newsletter. [Unsubscribe](