The Rectangle Gallery & Creative Space will host its fourth Young Artists Show and Exhibition this year after two years off due to COVID-19-related restrictions.
The show will feature the work of 22 artists ranging in age from 7 to 12. It will be held from April 8 to May 4, with an opening gala set for 6 p.m. Friday, April 8 at the gallery, located at 209 N. Tower Ave. in Centralia.
Jan Nontell, owner of the Rectangle Gallery, told The Chronicle that everyone from Lewis County commissioners to community members who want to enjoy fresh art and kid-friendly snacks are welcome to attend the gala and the subsequent exhibition.
“The gala is just a big, opening party,” Nontell said. “And it is the event of the year in Southwest Washington — maybe the whole world. The kids are so excited when they come and they are so wonderful. The kids are ready to come and talk about their art.”
The kids’ artwork will be shown interspersed on the walls alongside the gallery’s artwork from adults.
The show was open to any young artist that walked in the doors during the sign-up period on a first-come, first-served basis.
“When they come and sign up, it’s not a matter of them coming in and just signing up on a piece of paper. We sit down and go over a memorandum of understanding together, like a contract,” Nontell said. “It’s the same thing I do with the adults. I try to treat them as much as adult artists as I can, because I take kids’ artwork really, really seriously. I love these guys. I just love them. They make me so happy.”
Since Nontell wants to give recognition and a sense of pomp and circumstance to the young artists, she pays to have their artwork professionally framed and matted so they blend in and compliment the other artwork seen around the gallery
“There are parents that don’t understand that framing matters with kids’ art, so I get the frames for them,” Nontell said.
Nontell said she urges parents to refrain from simply putting their child’s artwork on the refrigerator, but to instead get frames to showcase their child’s art on the walls of their home, possibly switching out the art in the frames on a rotating basis.
The kids set the prices for their artwork, which will be for sale along with any other installations in the gallery, though Nontell marks up each price by $5 to help offset the $15 cost of each frame.
“We had one child, one year, who set the price for his artwork at $30,000,” Nontell said with a laugh. “And we discussed that and talked about how he was just getting started, how he had to make a name for himself before he could ask for that much money. And so then he decided that $3 would be OK. And then we discussed it a little more and we set it at $25.”
Most of the kids’ art will be on sale for between $25 and $45, though one year a kid’s clay sculpture of a dragon sold for $300.
“This is my big rule: I will not sell to the artists’ mom or dad, or aunties and uncles or grandmas and grandpas. I want to sell to someone who loves the artwork, not the artists,” Nontell said.
Whenever a piece of art is sold in the gallery, Nontell puts a “sold” marker on it to let folks know that it’s spoken for until the end of its participation in the exhibition.
“Sold stickers for artwork are just little red dots, and the kids figure that out real quick,” Nontell said. “Every time I leave from (the counter) they are all like, ‘Where is she going to put it? Who is she going to give it to?’”
Nontell recalled one little gentleman who came to a past year’s gala in a suit and bowtie because he’d been told that galas require evening attire.
The kid was quite a salesman and advocate for his art, she said, because he stood by his installation and, whenever a person came by, he attracted their attention and told them everything he knew about his artistic process and the meaning behind the art.
Nontell said it was like watching an experienced artist speak to onlookers at an opening gala for a professional art show.
It didn’t take long for the kid to sell the piece, and Nontell went over to put a sold sticker on his art while he was in the bathroom.
Wise to what the sold sticker meant, all the kids rushed over to the little gentleman as he was exiting the bathroom, urging him to tell them the secrets of showmanship, Nontell said.
From that point on, all the kids in the show grabbed whoever they could to tell them all about the hard work they put into their pieces.
The kids’ art will be available for viewing from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays after the opening gala on April 8 up until the exhibition’s closing on May 4.
