Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rachel Lechocki. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Rachel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
Our space is just under 2, 000 square feet, big brick walls and a full window panel, letting in the sun to illuminate the art from the street. It is our legit baby. it has allowed us to produce some incredible events anywhere from community art shows to art and yoga workshops to live music and art events, a sideshow gallery festival and live body painting showcases. That is just a few since we developed originally as an arts collective in 2017. In 2019 Andrew embarked on a project to plan an exhibit that set huge (pun intended) things into motion for our gallery and all of the artists involved.
What if we challenged some selected artists to work on their largest size canvas to date? Wouldn’t those be beautiful ‘backdrops’ for dancers? These were some of the questions we tossed around while brainstorming and that is exactly what we did.
Andrew embarked on constructing 4x6ft wooden canvases as well as individualized wooden frames.
This was a huge project to work on alone but it got done and well.
Most of the artists from the show all work on a much larger scale or murals ever since.
I started thinking about how this can encapsulate many arts and people from the community so we invited Hot Crowd to dance as Adia from blnk soul kitchen and others sang live. It was so magical to see it come together so organically night of.
Rachel , 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?
[blnk] is an all-inclusive brave space to make, exhibit, meet and meditate with like minded souls. [blnk] discovers, explores, showcases, and promotes multidisciplinary artists, while actively defining the term; urban contemporary art. We are laying down strong roots in the communities we serve to make opportunities accessible for all, whether that be be running sliding scale yoga classes or negotiable rental rates. We believe in the endless power of art and dedicated tribes of people to produce progressive and positive change and are eager to continue the conversation of, “what is _______ art?”
We proudly offer opportunities for free or low rates from up and coming artists to well seasoned. We also are looking to expand [blnk] into being a full healing arts space.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Society can embrace artists as business people and valued members of society who facilitate ideas, messages and change with our crafts. We don’t need to be ‘outsiders’ or seen as doing something, ‘so brave,’ for pursuing the arts, it can just be part of the fabric of our working society. Artists of all types should be paid for what they’re worth without having to negotiate, convince someone or settle for lower. If society would open up to helping us do this more maybe artists wouldn’t have to still work 9-5 jobs or hustle so hard self care is forgotten.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
As most would say, during the pandemic we had pivot over night and get comfortable with being outside of our comfort zone. Andrew and I have day jobs, families and our dogs, so running the gallery just the two of us was already really trying at times and tested our patience, passion and finances. However, we weren’t at all ready to give up so we hired someone to help us create a website, gathered pro photos of artists work we represented and got to selling virtually. We also remodeled a room at home to be an artist interview room and conducted live interviews to check in on artists and their new home practice each week.
Contact Info:
- Website: blnkhaus.com
- Instagram: @_blnkhaus
- Other: @blnksoulkitchen