Portsmouth gallery closing its doors, but starting a new project

Three of the four artists who own the ellO gallery and shop were sitting in the backyard of their downtown Portsmouth location on June 20, after roughly 20 participants in their pinewood derby had left. Anticipated rain showers never came, and despite heading toward their closing reception on Friday, June 26, the owners were as optimistic about the future as ever.

Glenn DiLando, John Fanning and John Winters are beginning ellO Projects when the ellO gallery closes at the end of this month for financial reasons. The fourth owner, Byrdy DiLando, will take the time to focus on her clothing line, which has been difficult while working at the gallery and two other jobs to keep it afloat.

The new venture will have no set location and none of the overhead expenses that come along with it. They will still display art, but at various spots around the Seacoast. They will also hold community events, like the derby with hand-painted cars, and their live music series, Florescent Grey.

In the nearly two years since the ellO gallery was established, the owners have formed a scene for emerging contemporary artists in the Seacoast. The art was often raw, edgy, original, socially relevant and affordable and tended to appeal to the younger crowd that frequented its openings.

The final exhibition at the gallery is titled “Postcards from the Edge” and features regular artists and some not previously shown there. The original works of art sized at 8 by 12 inches don’t all resemble a tourist postcard with a “Greetings from...” format, but the artists were encouraged to explore this idea and design one to four pieces for the show. It runs through June 28, concurrently with Pine Haven Collective’s show, “Revival.”

A closing reception will be held at the gallery on Friday, June 26 from 5 to 9 p.m. It’s open to the public.

“Revival” is a show of new works by Portland, Maine-based artists Katrine Hildebrandt, Jenny McGee Dougherty, Peter Jackson Hussey and Joseph Conway—the Pine Haven Collective. The name, evoking the lonesome beauty surrounding the area, is proudly strung in woven cloth on one white wall of the gallery. In the center of the room is a shelter made of sticks with a braided rug and a book on dreams. It’s a visual representation of the group’s “appreciation for simplicity, self-reliance and the pace of the past.” 

While calling upon the woods and the past, the art is decidedly current. Hildebrandt focuses on clean, geometric patterns within nature, Conway covers a television set in a house of shingles, Dougherty puts abstracted drawings in the middle of hay bale rings, and Hussey integrates a farmer’s rusted barbed wire into blown glass.        

Fanning looks at the ellO’s closing as “just change,” rather than an ending. He said he will continue to organize temporary exhibits and community events in the Seacoast. This way, he said, ellO can still bring the community together in the way it did with gallery openings.
The exhibits will move more toward public art and away from commercialized art. Art doesn’t have to be tangible, Fanning said, it can be an experience. He said maintaining a space and generating interest in it was difficult, and the recession made it much harder.

The new projects may not begin until September, Fanning said, so they can take the summer off to regroup. He said Portsmouth is always changing. While the city is losing a unique gallery, he said, “It might be gaining something more interesting.” 

Glenn DiLando said it is disappointing to feel “priced-out” of your city. “We just got a lot of people who loved us a lot,” he said, but the support wasn’t always extended financially. “People appreciate it. They just don’t invest in it as much.”

Josh Johnson, a photographer represented by ellO, said the gallery had a “genuine following” and its own scene, but that wasn’t enough for it to survive in tough economic times. Many people went to the openings and got their fill visually but didn’t buy anything.

“It was mostly people who appreciate shows rather than having the money to put into art,” he said. But, he added, the shows are what made the gallery a “necessity” to the area. He said people who visited were able to gain a type of ownership of the art by seeing it.
Johnson is the co-owner of Odyssey and Oracle, a new second-hand shop in Portsmouth specializing in records and bikes. He said the shop is interested in hosting exhibits for ellO Projects.

“They’re definitely showing and creating art for the sake of art,” he said. “They’re into it to actually create and enjoy art and do it as long as they can.”

Johnson said part of the reason the gallery didn’t succeed in Portsmouth is because it was doing something different that people in the area weren’t used to. “If it’s not sailboats, nobody wants it around here,” he said, only half joking.

He said the gallery would work better in a less expensive location without too many restrictions on artists trying to express themselves.
“They feel it and put it out there. If it works, it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t,” he said.

The Fluorescent Grey music series continues at the Loaf and Ladle on Penhallow Street in Portsmouth with Massaccesi, a performance project by Fanning, and electronic music by Dover-based Asami Yamazaki, at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, July 31.

The ellO gallery and shop is currently located at 110 State St., Portsmouth. 603-433-9110, www.ellogallery.com.