Starting Friday, July 3rd, we will be open with new gallery hours and three new showing artists. We are so excited to be opening our doors to the public once again, and have been working hard to develop the systems and resources in order to support our volunteers in this “new normal”, as well as safely welcome visitors into the space.
New Hours of Operation - Due to a reduction in our volunteer force we have limited the days the gallery will be open. We will also now be open one evening a week through July. The new gallery hours are as follows:
Wednesday 12-4 pm
Thursday 4-8 pm
Friday and Saturday 12-4 pm
Our first day open in July will be Friday, July 3rd from 12-4 pm.
The gallery is no longer able to host public events, including openings and artist talks. Instead we will continue to encourage artists to gallery sit and we will publicize this opportunity for people to visit the gallery on those days for a chance to meet the artist and learn about their work directly. In addition, we will continue to maintain our online efforts — gallery, shop, and blog posts — for those that want to continue to support the gallery and showing artists but are uncomfortable with being out in public.
Social Distancing - We will limit the number of visitors allowed in the gallery at any one time to no more than about 12 and encourage 6 ft social distancing. There will be place marks on the floor indicating 6 ft distance on all three sides of the desk in order to help volunteers maintain that safe distance from visitors.
Hand Sanitizer - There is a hand sanitizer dispenser at the door and signage will encourage its usage for anyone entering and exiting the gallery.
Masks - The wearing of masks is required in the gallery as per the Municipality of Anchorage mandate pertaining to indoor public spaces.
Cleaning and Sanitizing - Volunteers will be sanitizing touch points consistently during their shift and before they leave. In addition, there will be janitorial cleaning which involves a deeper sanitation process. In order to help maintain best sanitation practices that are easiest for our volunteers, the bathroom will be closed to the public.
Sales - In order to eliminate the need for handling credit cards and close proximity to visitors, we will funnel all sales through our online store. The gallery sitter can direct the customer to our online store to purchase with their smart phone, home computer, or (if they are comfortable doing so) the gallery computer.
Anyone exhibiting symptoms -- be they volunteers, visitors, or studio renters -- should not enter the gallery space.
Bottom line: we are going to approach this in a down-to-earth, rational way, understanding the greatest impact we can have is efforts to reduce the number of people in the gallery space at any given point in time, as well as trust in everyone’s individual responsibility and understanding of the current health risks with being in public spaces in general.