NORTHAMPTON — The arts organization Human Scale Art Space, despite its name, went years without having a physical space.
When founder Rick Colson wanted to host classes and workshops, he had no choice but to do so elsewhere, at venues like 33 Hawley and Easthampton City Arts. While Colson appreciated the relationships he built with those venues, “None of them are in a position to be able to give us space for an exhibition that’s going to be hanging for two weeks, six weeks, two months,” he said. “To do that, we really needed our own space.”
Now, he’s got it — and it’s about to open.
Human Scale Art Space will celebrate the opening of its first physical space at 245 Main St., Suite 201 (underneath the awning of Broadside Bookshop) in Northampton on Saturday, from noon to 8 p.m. The first show in the space will feature Chinese-style watercolor paintings by artist Vartus Varadian.
“This is our first space, and it’s a relatively humble space, but to me, it’s the Taj Mahal,” Colson said. “I’m so grateful to have a space where we can exhibit people’s work — the first time in two years we’ve been able to do that.”
The space is about 400 square feet and sits across from Pulaski Park in the building whose condo association Colson and his wife, Marcia Sailor, are part of. When they found out it would be available, it seemed like a good choice. The price was right, though they did have to make some renovations, like painting the walls and repairing the floors.
“This was just a little gem that we wouldn’t have discovered because the owner hadn’t advertised it, but we walked by … and, just by that, a conversation happened,” Sailor said.
Colson and Sailor used money from their retirement savings to purchase both the gallery space and a two-bedroom condo directly upstairs from it, which they spent months rehabbing and intend to rent out to subsidize their gallery expenses. The upstairs unit features two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a large open area in the middle.
“It’s been eight months of hard work … but you know we got it as good as we can get it,” Colson said.
Once the space is open, it will host additional gallery shows as well as workshops, classes, and presentations; the first workshop, “The Reflected Image,” taught by Northampton photographer Dave Madeloni on Saturday, July 25, will be about images created in water reflections as “works of art and intrigue,” according to a flyer.
In the fall, Colson will host a professional development series to train local artists to mentor other artists. At the end of the year, he plans to have an exhibition featuring work created by workshop participants throughout the next five months, though it will likely be hosted somewhere other than the Main Street space due to the gallery’s size.
Colson is also aiming to bring in revenue by offering large-format printing services for artists and through a small “store” in the gallery space selling previously owned photography and audio equipment as well as art and photo books.
Still, all of the workshops will be based on a suggested donation price. “If an artist can’t afford the $50, they pay what they can afford, and if they can’t afford anything, they come free,” Colson said. “And that’s been our policy since we began, and it will continue to be our policy, to the best of our knowledge.”
In the future, Colson and Sailor hope to make it possible, perhaps by hiring an intern, to have regular hours at the gallery. Right now, other than the opening reception, the space is open by appointment only. In fact, they want to grow enough that they can expand into an even larger space in Northampton or Easthampton.
In the meantime, though, they’re getting ready to host programming in a space that’s all their own.
“For now, I’m grateful to have this much space,” Colson said. “This is just perfect for us right now. It’s affordable for the nonprofit, a little bit of a stretch, but … it’s a good beginning for where we’d like to go.”
