An Art Pop-Up Goes Permanent

301 GALLERY CELEBRATES FIVE YEARS AS AN ARTISTS’ COLLECTIVE

THERE WAS A TIME when the old walkin safe with its massive vault door at the back of the historic Butler Bank Building in Hood River was the most interesting attraction in the place. Now, it’s merely a sideshow to the artwork on display in 301 Gallery, which this summer celebrates five years since its start in the building as a pop-up gallery for a group of local artists over the Fourth of July holiday in 2018. The weekend pop-up was such a success that the building’s owner, Steffen Lunding, offered to let the artists use the space through August. Then, since he still didn’t have a tenant, he said they could stay through the end of the year. After that, the artists signed a lease. Since then, 301 Gallery has evolved into one of the most renowned art galleries in the Gorge, if not the region.

It’s hard to separate the gallery from the space itself, since the two seem symbiotic. The historic building at the corner of 3rd and Oak streets was designed by acclaimed Portland architect A.E. Doyle in the early 1920s for Truman Butler, who, along with his father Leslie, operated the Butler Banking Company. The bank, which had been located at 2nd and Oak since its founding in 1900, moved into the new building in 1924.

Five years later, the country plunged into the Great Depression. The Butler Banking Company failed in 1932 and the building sat empty for years. Over the next decades, it housed a variety of tenants including the Hood River County Courthouse, U.S. Bank and the City of Hood River’s administrative offices. With each successive tenant, modifications to the once-elegant Egyptian Revival-style building detracted ever more from its original grandeur.

Holes spanning several feet in places were drilled in the original plaster ceiling to accommodate updated mechanical systems. The holes were left to gape, hidden behind a suspended ceiling that covered the original plaster work with two-foot-square ceiling tiles and fluorescent lighting. The huge windows fronting 3rd Street were painted over, much of them blocked by the dropped ceiling so that light filtered in only through the bottom portion.

When Lundin bought the building in 2011 and began renovating it, he aimed to bring back as much of its original splendor as possible. He even hired plasterers from Portland to restore the ceiling, which required making seven new plaster knives to match the building’s original mouldings.

The group of artists who moved in for the original pop-up shop were all working and exhibiting artists from the Gorge, many of whom had long known each other. As their weekend pop-up settled into something more enduring, the artists formed a collective and set some parameters: member artists must live and work in the Gorge, and everyone shares duties, including working in the gallery two days per month and serving on committees.

“It’s running a business,” said Sally Reichmuth, an oil painter who also handles finance and operations for the gallery. “We have a financial team, a curating team, a marketing team, a housekeeping and facilities team. Everybody has additional responsibilities besides their two days a month on the floor. And that’s on top of being full-time artists.”

Ted Olson, also an oil painter, handles marketing. “We do it all except the external maintenance on the building,” he said. The member artists bring to the gallery a diverse range of skills in both the arts and the business of art, including years in arts organization, show curation, graphic design and marketing, business operations, art education, facilities management and public art installations and murals. With their assorted backgrounds, the gallery members bring a “collective depth and diversity of experience” that helps create a dynamic gallery experience, Olson said.

Functioning as a “flat” organization, with all 15 member artists involved in the gallery’s day-to-day operations and decision-making, can be challenging, but it has worked out well for 301 Gallery. “It’s a big group but it seems to manage itself,” Olson said. The non-hierarchical structure also turned out to be an advantage when the pandemic hit.

“We don’t have paid staff, so our overhead is lower,” Reichmuth said. “Our facility itself, our building, was also helpful during those times. It’s not a small space. It’s big and open.” After shuttering for two months at the start of the pandemic, the gallery opened “gingerly,” according to Reichmuth, and survived the roller coaster that was 2020. Then, in 2021, the gallery had its best year yet. “We called it ‘euphoric travel,’” Olson said. “People wanted so badly to get out of the house and spend money, it was interesting to see the surge.”

IN JULY 2023, 301 Gallery celebrates five years of continuous operation offering the best in fine arts from around the Columbia Gorge region. Stop by 301 Gallery to enjoy paintings and prints, sculpture, photography, ceramics, glass, metals, and jewelry.

301 Gallery is open every day, from 11am to 5pm. See you soon!

Through all the ups and downs over the past five years — and particularly the last three — 301 Gallery has maintained a steady course, building on its strengths: the artists and the art. “A sense of place permeates the original artwork of 301 Gallery’s member artists, and this has become the overarching aesthetic” of the gallery, said Olson. “It’s that passion for place.” You can see it as you walk through the gallery among the artists’ wide range of paintings, ceramics, sculpture, photography and other mediums.

Something akin to a sense of place extends also to the gallery’s home in the heart of Hood River. “One thing that’s important for any business downtown is the connection to other businesses,” Reichmuth said. The gallery has built relationships with fellow downtown businesses and worked to create mutually supportive events. In February, 301 hosted the “Sugar Show,” featuring local confectioners Édeske Patisserie, Ingrid’s Cheesecakes and Canyon Road Chocolates, alongside the ceramic work of Polly Wood and several other member artists.

In July, as part of the gallery’s fifth anniversary celebration, 301 is teaming up with Waucoma Bookstore to feature famous writers and artists alongside the work of guest artist Tom Callos, a printmaker and portrait artist. Recently, the gallery entered into a relationship with Sustain Home where art and home furnishings are shared between the businesses to help clients visualize beautiful settings and environments.

“We’re going to continue to team up with other local businesses because that’s how downtown Hood River works,” Reichmuth said. “Hood River is a very community-oriented place. It’s something our patrons sense, even if it’s not explicitly obvious to them. They pick up on that sense of community in the way we and other businesses operate.”

The top-tier art and the beautiful space bring people in to 301 Gallery, but it’s the artists — whoever happens to be working in the gallery on any given day — who can turn a simple walk-through by a visitor into a meaningful encounter. Olson calls the gallery “the crossroad of the universe.”

“As we each work our shifts, we encounter people from everywhere and anywhere,” he said. All of the artists have “six degrees of separation” stories, and countless other visits with patrons who wander in that are simply memorable in their own right. “It’s always fun, it’s always so positive,” Olson said.

Reichmuth believes that’s one thing that makes the 301 Gallery experience “really different” than most. “It’s not like a retail shop where you hire someone to be there. This is part of the success. It’s artists that are passionate about art and their work, but who also make that connection with people,” she said.

If needed, they can always resort to showing visitors the walk-in safe. But these days at the old Butler Bank Building, the art and the artists of 301 Gallery are much more interesting.

To learn more, go to 301gallery.com.