News — Ella Carty

As the end of the year approaches, it's a natural time to review how our first year panned out. Well, we have to say it wasn't what we expected!  Being forced to close three weeks after opening wasn't an action anyone could have predicted. Completely necessary for the health of the country it hurt in more ways than one. A new business with very little paperwork of income, we didn't qualify for any of the government help and had to rely on our fantastic resident artists for financial support. However, the most frustrating aspect of the lockdown was the change to...

Our move to Cornwall in 1986 and again in 2015 were both partially motivated by the need to be near the sea. It has provided a place of solace and inspiration in both periods of our lives. We are not alone in our adoration of water. Most Cornish artists have captured the sea as sketch or painting at some point in their career. In fact, our current exhibitor Ella Carty decided to dedicate her whole show to the rockpools at St Ives and the Scilly isles. And our next exhibitor Jon White has documented his memories of the sea as a creative response to his recently...

With our second exhibition and new sample artwork to display, came a change of stock to our window display. Luckily back in February when all the retail goodies arrived, we were already familiar with the pieces going into our first two exhibitions. Our first - an eclectic exhibition of our three resident artists - perfectly complemented the subtle blue and green Scandinavian tones of the Snowbunting and Mizzle & Haze stock for our first window display. Illuminated by the wacky mojito ball light string, the gorgeous patterned glassware grabbed everyone's attention at night and subsequently sold well. Our second exhibition...

We first met Ella at an Open Studios event in Redruth. We had heard on the grapevine about this amazing art collective based at the old grammar school, known as Krowji. The Melting Pot cafe was also rumoured to offer yummy gluten-free cake too, which was high on the priority list for a wet Saturday afternoon. Krowji is a place we have since returned to time and time again. During our visits, we have gradually made acquaintances with many of the artists who open their studios. Ella is amongst one of our favourite Krowji artists, and we have been tempted...

It’s strange how a business evolves. When we opened the gallery, we knew we needed an online presence, not only for a place of contact but also because art sales through a web portal can significantly boost any business. However, we never anticipated that our online offering would be our sole source of sales and our biggest marketing tool. Now it seems our choice of website structure was invaluable. We had never used Shopify to build a website before. But after some substantial research, we decided that the clean relatively easy to adapt software was begrudgingly worth the $29 basic monthly...