Great Falls 01/29/2010, Page L01
Nine women started Gallery 16 — 40 years ago
Group of female artists still operating Central Avenue mainstay; anniversary celebration gets under way on Feb. 5
By POLLY KOLSTAD For the Tribune
Gallery 16 is officially over the hill and its members couldn’t be prouder.
Forty years old this year, the gallery got its start in 1970, made up of nine women looking for an opportunity to show their work. Most were working at home at their dining room tables. Judy Crowder, Jean Halverson, Lela Tonkin Hamley, Muriel Kittock, Sam Borchers, Marilyn Christ-Janer, Kay DeMille, Pat Hoiland and Val Knight were the founding members, taking over Contemporary Ideas. The gallery, at 309 16th St. N., was run by a group of men who were ready to give it up.
“So in we went, a gutsy move,” recalled artist and Gallery 16 member Judy Ericksen.
“They were all beginning artists, except Val Knight who was enormously accom& shy;plished,” Ericksen said of the original members. “She was the lightning rod, the spark plug.”
The gallery’s founding members drew up incorporation papers, chipped in $15 a month for rent and enlisted the help of their husbands to build display furniture. Because it was located on 16th Street, they called it Gallery 16.
Gallery 16 grew and moved across the street from the C.M. Russell Museum in about 1972. Eventually they were drawn to a location downtown, next door to a popular restaurant at the time, Green Goods, which is now the Penington Place.
From there, they moved to 319 Central Ave., and in the 1980s, when they outgrew that location, relocated to the current site, 608 Central Ave.
“We have decided it’s going to be feet-first, if we have to move again,” Ericksen said.
Gallery 16 had a satellite shop for a time at Paris Gibson Square but soon realized they didn’t have the staff to o perate both.
While the artwork is the backbone of the gallery’s four decades of success, the artists’ tight bond has held it all together.
“It’s a wonderful family,” Ericksen said.
“We get to talk up other people’s art. We are one of the few incubator shops — a place for people to start and grow,” President Joyce Ranum said. “We are friendship, a family, a big support network, not just a 9 to 5. We are all there for each other.”
Today, the gallery features 10 to 12 shows a year, show
See GALLERY 16, 2L
TRIBUNE PHOTOS/ RION SANDERS
Gallery 16 members from left, Pat Erickson, Judy Ericksen, and Marcia Hocevar show works by Mary Ann Young, Jean Halverson and Alice Chambers Paige, three of the original nine artists of Gallery 16. The gallery will celebrate its 40th anniversary Feb. 5, from 5 to 9 p.m.
Gallery 16 features not only a several artists, but also a variety of media.
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