The Next Chapter for 23 Sandy Gallery

May 2017

Dear Friends,

I dropped a tiny hint in my most recent newsletter that said 10 years in the gallery has “been a page-turner of a journey and I can't wait for the next chapter.” Well, the time for the next chapter has come and I am very excited to share the news with you.

As you know, 23 Sandy is a two-pronged operation. First, the art gallery, which has hosted 91 exhibitions over the last 10 years. Second, the traveling book dealer selling artist books to libraries and museums.

Steve and I have loved living in the house behind the gallery and the low overhead of owning the building has made for a wonderful business for each of those 10 exciting years. But things change and the time has come to sell the building. That means the gallery side of the operation will be closing as soon as we wrap up the BUILT exhibition in May. I am planning to take a sabbatical from exhibitions for a year and am looking forward to finally finding studio time for my own books.

The good news is that the book dealer side of the business will continue. Here’s what I have planned:

• I will continue selling books via the 23sandy.com web site and via sales trips and conferences. You can still order books from the web site and I’ll continue to ship and invoice as always.
• I will continue to archive all of the books you have collected on the web site. I regularly get queries about older or sold out titles and will maintain that database of artist book history, for cataloging efforts and research requests.
• The on-line catalogs of past exhibitions in the gallery will remain in an effort to keep documentation in tact.
• Wayfinders, the exhibition scheduled for this fall, is postponed until 2019. I’ll keep you posted on location plans. I look forward to a post-sabbatical return to organizing and curating exhibitions, most likely on a freelance basis.
• I will continue my email newsletter with artist book news and announcements every 6-8 weeks.

Words cannot express my deep gratitude for your part in this incredibly rich experience. I feel so fortunate to work in this exciting field. Your support means so much in so many ways. It was my dream to bring an art-gallery-level "cred" to book art and hopefully that has helped advance our field. Thank you for your help making that dream come true. I’m very excited about the future.

Have a good day,

Laura