Provincetown gallery fills its walls Seacoast artists, thanks to one psychic, two predictions and some guts

One day last fall, Dover painter Steven Bowersock was making the rounds of Provincetown, hoping to find a gallery to pick up his work. A  gallery owner asked him if he’d ever thought of opening an artist-owned gallery. No, thought Bowersock, until the gallery owner led him to a vacant space that could be his. All he had to do was give up his job, sell his house and start over in a whole new town.

“It was, literally, we dropped everything and just went with our gut,” says Steven Bowersock of the decision he made with his business and life partner, a practicing psychic for 25 years, who predicted, separately, that he would move to Provincetown and that he would meet a woman who would be a big influence on his life.

That woman, Bowersock feels, is local artist and arts writer Jeanné McCartin—he’d taken a class with her and helped her hang shows at 100 Market Street gallery. Now she helped him connect with the artists he wanted to represent.

“I came home and I wrote down this list of artists, and I told my partner if I can get this list of artists before we commit to anything, then I know it’s a go. I went down and talked to Jeanné,  and I was like these are the artists I would really like to be in the gallery, and would they be interested? Every one of those artists said yes, and I was like, OK, that’s my sign that I’m on the right track.”

That was October. This month, he found himself calling Dustan Knight on the phone to tell her the Bowersock Gallery had sold her first painting, a 42-by-42-inch watercolor (his successful sales pitch: “You like it, right? So what’s to think about?  If you like it and you enjoy it, buy it.”); after dialing Knight’s number, he realized the customer had left her credit card behind.

“She was on a boat there just for the night, so I had to get on my bike, and I was riding up and down the street looking for her, at the same time being excited,” Bowersock relates with a laugh.
This enthusiasm helped get Seacoast artists on board. Most of the dozen artists he represents had never met Bowersock before he sought them out for the gallery.

“He presented his idea of what type of artwork he wanted in his gallery, so that’s always important, and showed me a couple of other artists that he had signed on, and I liked their work and felt we would complement each other. That part of it was important to me,” says Darlou Gams.

Dennis Perrin agrees. “I really feel like you develop a personal relationship with a director or owner, and that’s important to me, how I relate to the people in charge of a gallery. That makes all the difference in the world.”

After considering the location—what artist wouldn’t want to develop a foothold in Provincetown?—Perrin said he liked the idea of working with Bowersock.

“I talked to Steve, I liked his ideas, his approach, his enthusiasm. Those were the factors that convinced me.”

Perrin likes that Bowersock was interested in becoming part of the community, in networking with other galleries, developing relationships with people in and out of the art world, and establishing the gallery as a good friend of the community.

It’s true, Bowersock says.

“We sponsor drag events. We sponsor bars, we sponsor everything we can. We’ve taken out advertising in major magazines. In local papers. We do press releases. … So a lot of people are coming in because they see our ads. They see the caliber of our artists when they come in, and when they come in they tend to stay because we’re unique. Part of our introduction is, ‘We’re a new gallery this year, we feature a lot of artists from the Maine and New Hampshire seacoast...  And they like that. It’s different.”
They host weekly receptions for the theater next door, which helps build repeat business, and hope to help anchor a monthly winter art walk with the other half-dozen galleries in town that stay open through the winter.

Inside the gallery, Bowersock focuses on presentation. The back room is a salon, and the front room features two artists every month. He thinks this helps encourage a “collector” mentality that’s building repeat business.

Artists he currently represents include painter Theresann D’Angelo, jewelry maker Rebecca Fortier, painter Darlou Gams, sculptor Christopher Gowell, painter Patricia Kaufman, painter Dustan Knight, sculptor and maskmaker Jeanné McCartin, painter Dennis Perrin, jewelry maker Lauren Pollaro, painter Scott Schnepf and painter Rose Umerlik. Prices range from $250 for jewelry to $5,000 for paintings. Bowersock, whose work is also represented, paints oils and watercolors.

They opened the doors in late March. Business was slow through June—for everyone, they heard—and gradually picked up in July, with 100-150 customers coming through the door daily. August popped open with a bang. They sold Dustan Knight’s painting and Dennis Perrin’s “Interior with Screen” in the first week.

Bowersock continues to make trips up to New Hampshire to reconnect with friends and the artists he represents. He recenlty picked up paintings from his featured artists for August, Gams and D’Angelo.
“It’s an overall awesome experience,” Bowersock says. “I worked for Eastern Bearings in Newington. It was a very nice place to work for and the guys were awesome, but you know, you’re working for somebody. And I was painting on the side. It came to the point where my art sales were meeting what I was making at work, and it was like, let’s evaluate this, can we pull this off with this gallery? I don’t anticipate the first two years making a profit, but if we can pay our bills and break even and keep moving forward and represent the amazing artists, then let’s have some fun. And ever since we’ve done it, it’s just been fun.”