HOW TO JOIN

Our gallery is owned and oper­at­ed by the artists list­ed on ARTISTS page. How to Join: Oppor­tu­ni­ties arise for new mem­bers when a cur­rent mem­ber departs the gallery. Check out the Mem­bers Infor­ma­tion of being a part of Hills­bor­ough Gallery of Arts. Down­load the fol­low­ing forms. If you would like to be noti­fied when vacan­cies occur, com­plete the Wait­ing List Con­tact Form.

 

HISTORY In July 2006, sev­er­al artists in Hills­bor­ough con­vened in a space with­out air con­di­tion­ing to dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a coop­er­a­tive gallery. The space would be the begin­ning ground for the Hills­bor­ough Gallery of Arts. Most of the peo­ple in that first meet­ing stayed with the project through the ear­ly con­ver­sa­tions and became fif­teen found­ing mem­bers. Over sev­er­al weeks research was done on by-laws and struc­tures of co-ops oper­at­ing in var­i­ous parts of the coun­try, and a draft was cre­at­ed. The idea was that the artists would pitch in for expens­es, run the gallery with the retail help of the book­store that would sub­let the space, and all mem­bers would help with hang­ing, clean­ing, and being in the gallery dur­ing peak times so artists would be on hand to dis­cuss the work with cus­tomers. The empha­sis was on coop­er­a­tion, mutu­al encour­age­ment, and putting the arts more vis­i­bly on the map in Hillsborough.

Through the first year the gallery took much of the form it has today, with month­ly shows con­cen­trat­ing on pairs or trios of mem­bers, and launched dur­ing Hills­bor­ough’s Last Fri­days events. The group decid­ed from the start to show all the works blend­ed togeth­er, rather than sep­a­rat­ing the space by artist. The offi­cers changed, some artists left after the first year and oth­ers joined. The gallery has grown to absorb the space pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied by the book store, gain­ing a large win­dow and more light, but the spir­it of the place remains the same. It’s a joy­ful space, cre­at­ed and run by artists, and filled with the works of their hands, minds and hearts, tak­ing vis­i­ble form for view­ers and customers.
~ Steve Emery, Found­ing president

FIFTEEN FOUNDING MEMBERS

Heather Delisle
Steve Emery
Chris Graebner
Susan Hope
Pat Lloyd
Jude Lobe
Pat Merriman
Melis­sa Miller
Ker­ry Nelson
Ellie Reinhold
Amy Sindermann
Ellen Stoner
Pringle Teetor
Sue Waters
Melis­sa York

 

 

 

 

 

Hills­bor­ough Gallery of Arts, 121 N. Chur­ton St., Hills­bor­ough, NC 27278       DIRECTIONS      919–732-5001