We were lucky to catch up with Chris Unclebach recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chris, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.

We really feel like we’re serving two underserved markets- both the up and coming artist and the art buyer that doesn’t make six figures. We’re all about accessibility at Insomnia Gallery. We love showcasing an artist for the first time and the vibe and energy that comes with that. We love hearing from patrons that they bought their first art print at one of our shows! The fine art community has a million outlets for both artists and patrons and we respect that, but don’t have any association with that world at all.

Chris, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We actually started out as a video game culture store back in 2011. This is where we started offering consignment to local artists primarily doing video game or anime fan art. When we moved locations in 2014, we had a dedicated gallery space where we could put on small art shows and solo shows and did that until we outgrew the space, moving to the East End of Houston in 2017. From there we changed the name (previously Insomnia Video Game Culture) to Insomnia Gallery and began focusing entirely on events- art shows, vendor markets, live music and even dance parties! In 2020, after being shut down due to governmental restrictions during the Covid pandemic, we moved to our current home at Hardy & Nance Studios where we put on about one group show a month until we find our next (semi) permanent home!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Our entire journey has been full of pivoting, adapting and finding new ways to connect with our community. One great example was that I had opened a record store with my good friend John Baldwin called Deep End Records back in 2015. We opened inside a music venue (Walter’s Downtown) and when that business lost its lease, we moved the entire record store into the art gallery’s front gift shop! It didn’t make a ton of sense on nights that we didn’t have live music, but an art gallery/record store was an absolute blast of a hybrid space!

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

This is a great lesson in what NOT to do lol! We bootstrapped this business entirely on small savings and maxing out about 7 credit cards! This was kinda pre-Kickstarter or else that’s absolutely the route I would have taken, but instead I was saddled with credit card debt until about the 4th year of business. We took on a lot of consignment to help build our inventory and improve our offerings to the community without having to put any investment up front.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theinsomniagallery.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theinsomniagallery
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/insomgallery
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNiMk79aYsiLAk9yj2ln-bw

Image Credits
Jordan Asinas