Recession Inspires New Art Gallery

Although it's billed as an art gallery, you can purchase anything from a Robi Hutas panorama of Hermosa Beach circa 1968 to a vintage evening jacket to an antique dresser. You can even order a new T-shirt picturing your child's first drawing.

"," which happens to be located at 608 N. Francisca Ave. in Redondo Beach, is an art gallery, yes, but it's also a vintage clothing shop and furniture and home décor boutique—although don’t go looking for in terms of size or product.

Kevin Holladay, a Hermosa Beach resident and the inspiration behind the new gallery, offers a lot of local art, plus a little bit of this ("slightly worn" clothing) and a little bit of that (furniture on consignment), as well as odds and ends like vases, Japanese lanterns and purses made from recycled sails.

The gallery sits in what was once an old lumber mill off Catalina Avenue, a large building that is part warehouse, part manufacturing for —the company that makes handbags that Holladay sells—and Tradewinds Custom Canvas, which makes seat cushions and such for yachts.

"I've owned this building for a long time," said Holladay, 57, a building contractor who decided to launch 608 North when his nationwide capital improvement business dried up. "For me to fix this place up, that's what I do, so it was easy."

Since his property cozies up to another art gallery, , Holladay asked Richard Stephens, curator at the legendary site for 20 years, if he minded some competition.

Apparently not.

"Anytime there's another gallery, I'm happy," Stephens said the day of his neighbor's opening. "My goal is to make this a Mecca for art." The former El Camino College art teacher said he was all for more company on the block.

The location is less a block than a couple of historic old buildings wedged down off the highway next to the Information Technology Center—a site all but hidden from the street and not likely to get much walk-in traffic.

Holladay plans to maneuver around that obstacle by word-of-mouth advertising among artists and offering plenty of turnover in terms of exhibits and talent, such as occurred last weekend at 608 North's grand opening.

Produced locally by artists John Cantu of Hermosa Beach and Emiko Wake of Palos Verdes, the festivities included a live jazz band, Japanese vodka and the work of 18 international artists in what Cantu and Wake of Cantu-Wake Unlimited called "Around the World in a Day."

To host the event, Holladay and his Croatian girlfriend, Armina Kulenovic, literally swept the place clean of all paintings and merchandise, so artists from places such as Africa, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Iran, Mexico, the U.S. and Japan could exhibit their paintings, paper cuts, photos, sculpture and graphics.

This week, Holladay, who grew up in Hermosa Beach and surfed off Sixth Street with his three brothers, will haul a decorative motorcycle into his shop, courtesy of Paschoal Revitte of Art on Wheels.

He also hopes to attract "local artists who want to do a show or just have a section of the gallery," he said. As for clientele, "I want this to be [a place] where you come in one week and see one thing, then you come back next week and it's different."

Opening a gallery occurred to Holladay just six months ago, when the design business formerly occupying the space moved out. "I was cleaning it up to get ready to rent again, and artists from next door came over and said, 'Look at these walls, this is so great,'" he said. "They just loved it."

The bad economy also played a factor, he said. "It's so hard to rent anything now, there's so much available."

He originally purchased the building in 1995 to warehouse his "piles of store fixtures and equipment" for his nationwide Holladay Construction business. Although he still does some residential remodels—kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms—Holladay was eager "to do something completely different than construction."

Art, retail and T-shirts seemed an ideal combination.

The T-shirt business started about 18 months ago, when Holladay was flipping through a magazine offering small business ideas at Office Max. At the time, he thought to make T-shirts for construction companies.

"But the economy is so bad, construction workers can't even afford to buy T-shirts," he said, shaking his head.

Now, he's creating T-shirts for neighboring artists and other customers, shirts of all sizes and colors imprinted with gold or silver leaf designs, others displaying cartoons or team names. "I did one for the Sons of Italy car show," he said.

He does the T-shirt jobs in a back room at the gallery with a PC, a printer ("Just like your ink-jet printer at home, only bigger," he explained) and a heat sealing machine.

Images are created from customer-generated files (graphics, pictures or words) on a large computer screen, and then transferred to the printer, which prints atop a T-shirt stretched over a frame. The image is then heat sealed for permanence.

Admitting that he's had a lot to learn about T-shirts in the past months, Holladay is now learning a great deal more about art.

Holladay is quick to note that he's not an artist. "I can't draw a crooked line," he said, laughing. But he has long admired and collected art on his travels, including some stunning Southwest Indian prints he purchased in Monterrey.

The former surfer is admittedly partial to South Bay art, his current exhibits ranging from photographs on canvas of lifeguard stations by Denise Rodgers of Redondo Beach to fantastical sketches of mermaids and sailors by the late Russell Olney of Rolling Hills. There are paintings on glass by John Teague of Hermosa Beach, and watercolors by Debbie Jolls of Redondo Beach.

About the numerous photographs by Robi Hutas of Hermosa Beach, some on exhibit at last weekend's opening, Holladay said, "He didn't realize the historical significance of some of these after 30 years."

One work shows the devastation of the hurricane-like storm that hit Hermosa in 1983, a weather phenomenon that had The Strand and restaurants flooded.

Artists interested in exhibiting at the gallery or those inquiring about individualized T-shirts for Christmas should contact Holladay at kholladay@dslextreme.com or call 310-376-5777.