Reprinted from the April 7, 2008 Charleston Gazette

By Bob Schwarz

Local art dealer Callen McJunkin will reopen her gallery April 15, this time at 219 Hale St., in the loft upstairs from Gina Puzzuoli Miller’s Stray Dog Antiques.

The Callen McJunkin Gallery most recently was across from Taylor Books on Capitol Street, where McJunkin shared a storefront with photographer Steve Payne. At the time, she said it was her best space yet, but she gave it up when Payne decided two years ago to run his photography business out of his home.

The Hale Street loft will give her three times as much exhibit space as she had on Capitol Street and nearly twice as much as she had at an earlier location on the corner of Hale and Quarrier streets. “This gives me the versatility to have a solo show and still display my other artists,” McJunkin said.

Adonis Smith has renovated the 1,800-square-foot space, leaving bare bricks below and above the new drywall, adding track lighting, and painting the concrete floor. “I like the space,” McJunkin said. “It’s very urban. It’s like the Chelsea galleries we go to in New York.”

McJunkin first opened a downtown gallery in 1990, and has closed and reopened several times since. When she lacked a storefront, she ran her art-consultant business out of her home, representing many of the same artists whose work will be shown on Hale Street.

Her first gallery space opened at 819 Lee St. East in 1990, the same month that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. “We are no stranger to world controversy and unsettled markets,” McJunkin said. “We have weathered them before. We take the long view, and in the interim, art is a welcome sanctuary from world turmoil and a reconnection to humanity.”

McJunkin returns downtown as the art scene expands on a nearby stretch of Quarrier Street. Art Emporium nearly doubled its display space recently on the Dickinson Street corner. Chuck Hamsher will soon move The Purple Moon from Lee Street into larger quarters beside the Blossom Deli, in a space vacated by Showcase West Virginia.

The McJunkin Gallery will again participate in Art Walks from 5 to 8 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month. Entry is through Stray Dog Antiques and up a stairway. Elevator access must be pre-arranged. Gallery hours will be 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday and by appointment. McJunkin offers customers free parking at Huntington Bank’s garage and at Spyro’s lots with a gallery stamp. Parking in the alley behind must be pre-arranged.

For information about the gallery, visit www.mcjunkingallery.com or call 342-5647.

To contact staff writer Bob Schwarz, use e-mail or call 348-1249.

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