Editor’s note: For Dallas Arts Month in April, this is one of a series of stories from The Dallas Morning News examining how North Texas artists and arts groups are coping and moving forward one year after the start of the pandemic.
— To see more from our Art and the City 2021 collection, click/tap here.
Since opening almost seven years ago, the Erin Cluley Gallery has distinguished itself by pulling off the near-impossible. For one, it staged the work of two Havana artists by managing to import from Cuba several of the pair’s most audacious pieces. No small feat.
And now, Cluley has introduced another innovation. She is opening a satellite space, Cluley Projects, which will showcase regional artists including the multitalented Xxavier Edward Carter, whose work will inaugurate the space run by Cluley’s new partner, Nell Potasznik Langford.
The show opens April 17, in conjunction with Dallas Gallery Day. So, Cluley is expanding, at a time when galleries around the world are simply trying to hang on through the pandemic.
“I had been thinking, in the seven-year life of the gallery, how could I be innovative?” Cluley says. “And then last fall, we were working with a collector who acquired a large piece of Nic Nicosia’s” — Nicosia being an ace in Cluley’s stable of 15 artists.
Langford had been working for the same collector on a freelance basis, and soon, he became a matchmaker of sorts in pairing Cluley with Langford.
Langford had been wondering, Cluley says, about where to find a platform for regional artists, “for exhibition and presentation.” The collector happened to own a space that seemed tailor-made for such a purpose. It was, Cluley says, “like the stars aligning.”
Cluley’s flagship location is in the River Bend development of the Dallas Design District, at 150 Manufacturing St. She moved in almost two years ago. Before she became a gallery owner, she had spent five years working at Dallas Contemporary.
Her satellite location run by Langford is at 2123 Sylvan Ave. in West Dallas, near the Belmont Hotel. Cluley says she sees the satellite endeavor as being like “a farm team.”
“Erin Cluley Gallery is like the parent gallery,” she says. “And Cluley Projects is like this space that can serve as an incubator, a place for discovery where we can offer a mentorship and guide artists in good professional practices for their careers.”
Since launching a gallery in 2014, Cluley has averaged 10 shows a year. And then came the pandemic.
“Early on, we were able to pivot pretty seamlessly,” she says, noting she already had a decent cyber presence via the venue’s website. Even so, “It felt pretty dark,” with a nagging question hovering overhead: “Why would anyone need to buy art? But we pretty quickly realized, if nothing else, people wanted to see joyful things.”
And now aiding in her effort is Langford. Born in San Antonio, she’s the daughter of a father from New Jersey and an artist mother from Belgium. She grew up in the Park Cities, where her French-speaking mom did not speak English. Her mom mastered the language by watching Sesame Street and General Hospital.
Langford went to the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas, working in fashion and retail during her education and beyond. She worked in luxury goods, in particular at Highland Park Village.
“Growing up in those beautiful retail spaces, working for Hermès, where I could use my French language, gave me some really great opportunities and insight, especially as an artist in those environments among all those beautiful things that are handmade and artfully crafted.”
Langford toyed with the idea of heading east but in the end had to ask herself, “Why should I go to New York when I can do it all here?”
She suffered a setback when she was laid off because of COVID, which she called “a jolt to my identity.” So, once again, she took up painting, and then came the opportunity with Cluley.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we had a space where we focused on local artists?” says Langford, who remembers working with clients during her retail days “who would get in their jets and fly to New York to buy Texas art. I thought that was such a tragedy. There’s no shortage of talent here, of patrons and collectors.”
Cluley has carved out a thriving business, one she now shares with Langford.
As an art city, Langford says, “Dallas has tremendous potential” — which she and Cluley are all too willing to tap.
“It’s a partnership,” Langford says. “Cluley Projects allows us to do some fun and exciting and off-the-beaten-path shows which you won’t see in a traditional gallery. But in that same vein, I will be there to sell the work and help these artists and push their careers.
“Many of them have not had the shot to do anything. But we will be there — with open arms. We see it as a feel-good story, in the wake of so much hardship and so many places that have closed. It’s a time to celebrate our differences and similarities and do something that makes us think and be engaged.”
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