Hands Gallery preserves the High Country’s art scene

Stroll into the Hands Gallery in Boone, North Carolina on any day of the week, and you’ll never know just what, or whom, you’ll find. Sixteen area artists ranging from potters to painters to weavers help run the gallery. For 30 years, their unique cooperative model has played a key role in preserving the High Country’s eclectic art scene.

The artists in the Hands Gallery cooperative are fixtures at the downtown Boone store, meaning visitors don’t just leave with a piece of art — they also leave with a story behind it. The gallery is just as well known for its unrivaled collection of local art as it is for the potters, photographers, weavers, and jewelers you’re liable to run into there. 

On a sunny Friday afternoon in early October, it was painter Chrissie Callejas, who stood behind the counter chatting with customers. One of her eye-catching paintings features an old red pickup truck.

“I found it in Ashe County on a fall day a few years ago,” Callejas says. “I like old things. Old, rusty, broken down stuff — I think it’s beautiful.”

Callejas often draws from her High Country surroundings. It’s the common link among the gallery’s varied artists, several of whom flitted in and out of the store throughout the afternoon. 

The first to stop in was Leslie Wright, a weaver whose foray into textiles began with the impulsive purchase of a lamb at a county fair. Today, Wright spins cotton, rayon, and silk to create her eclectic, vivid line of handwoven women’s clothing. 

“I get inspiration from the colors of my surroundings living on a ridge overlooking the New River in the mountains of North Carolina,” she says.

Potters Gerry and Lynda Pittman come by mid-afternoon to grab some of their functional art — whimsically designed teapots, brightly colored soap dispensers, vases, mugs, plates, and more. The Saluda, N.C.-based couple came to the gallery when the board started selectively admitting members from outside the immediate area. The Pittmans are consignment members — they don’t have to work the requisite two days a month at the gallery, but the shop keeps a steeper percentage of the proceeds from their art.

The gallery is so adamantly local that members of the cooperative wrangled for years over whether to admit artists who lived beyond a 50-mile radius of the shop.

“We’re 35 years old now, and it took us about 20 years to take consignment,” Callejas recalls. 

Local art continues to takes precedent. 

Callejas points to a rack of beautifully handcrafted bells made in Arizona and says they’d have to go if a local artist started making something similar.

The gallery could come across as overly picky, but that’s what has secured its reputation as the go-to place for a glimpse at the local art scene. 

“We have a customer that doesn’t like imports, and we wanted to be specific because so many craft galleries have nothing to do with the area,” Callejas says.

The Hands Gallery has taken on a role of increasing importance because the cost of land means it’s much harder to survive as a mountain artist today. As full-time artists, most of the gallery’s members represent what is becoming a rare breed.

“People would rather go into a corporate business world and make money,” says Callejas. “It takes a special person that devotes themselves to make a living from this.”

Young artists in their 20’s and 30’s have joined the gallery in the past year. Seasoned members of the cooperative are passing on their expertise to the next generation of High Country talent.

“We once wondered if maybe there were no new crafts people coming in, because it’s not a great way to make a living,” Callejas says. “They have a good energy — they’re just starting out, and we’re just sort of finishing.”

Hands Gallery is located in downtown Boone at 543 W. King St. and is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call 828-262-1970 or visit www.handsgallery.org.