SMALLS Gallery
by Tobias
by Tobias
In 2011, Cynthia Hollis, founded SMALLS. She took a small garage beneath her house and with the help of her MFA students turned the space into an art gallery. For one day per month for over a decade, Cynthia’s SMALLS has hosted an artist. Seeking to promote artists of all mediums, SMALLS has shown works ranging from visual and performing artists to poets.
Cynthia grew up in rural Kansas. Since arriving in Tallahassee in 1995 she has been the Director of Art Exhibitions and Programs at the Brogan Museum of Art and Science, (1999 – 2008), the Director of Millstone Institute for Preservation (2008 – 2010) and the Executive Director of the 621 Gallery (2010 – 2017). She also taught as an adjunct professor of Contemporary Art History in the MFA program at Florida State University’s College of Visual Arts (2009 – 2017).
Cynthia lived in Los Angeles from 1989 to 1993, overlapping with architect Frank Gehry who was teaching at USC. While never a student of his, he made an impression on her. Gehry taught his students to push the boundaries of what the idea of a house or structure was, how it could be aesthetically different but also functional. “That’s the prime thing, it’s useful and it doesn’t have to look like everything else looks,” Cynthia reflected. “Although SMALLS is more traditional looking on the inside, there is nothing traditional about it in the sense of how it’s used, how it’s been used, [and] future uses.”
SMALLS at its conception:
SMALLS Today:
Business model
SMALLS is ‘a non-capitalistic enterprise’. Cynthia takes no commission from art sales, which transpire directly between the public and the artist. “I have this sign that I put on the wall that says that this is a noncapitalistic enterprise and this is how it works and if you are interested in supporting SMALLS, I have this little basket on the drinks table and you can throw some cash in if you want to. That's it. No exchange of money, no taxes, it is simply between the public and the artist.”
Marketing
Cynthia also doesn’t publicize SMALLS. Outside of a mailing list sent out via email prior to an opening. “There is no marketing. There is no media ahead of time at all. I don’t want 500 people showing up. I tell the artist you can invite anyone you want but you have to tell them this is a neighborhood - other people live here - be careful where you park so you don’t piss anyone off, we don't need cops showing up saying what’s going on here? Etcetera. And people are very respectful of that. People understand it.”
She adds, “I don't put anything out... No I don’t. And it's not because I want to keep it small and precious, I want to be respectful of my neighborhood. And people understand it. And it makes the art better.”
What are your thoughts on the future of these sorts of informal spaces?
“I think that there are going to be more and more of them. I think there have been more and more of them. Probably any city of any size has at least one, and some of my former students have gone on to run a museum or other formal entity. And in a certain way, spaces like SMALLS are equivalent, if not more important, than the large, more architectural spaces of big museums.”
“(and I thought this will either work or it will just crash and burn) I found that people love the idea that they can come every month and other like-minded people will be there as well. Conversations happen… lots of conversations happen in this space. It’s like a tribe in a way… it has this feeling that if I had an issue there are 150 people that would jump to my defense.”
On Replication - Transitory Commons & The Gallery
The efficacy of SMALLS in particular as an exhibition space is its unique site. “People have to figure this out on their own. When I was teaching, I did have a couple graduate students that opened spaces of their own. We would talk about SMALLS gallery and places that I had encountered before I even lived in Tallahassee. So the garage thing was opportunistic.”
SMALLS Gallery:
Transitory Commons:
While SMALLS can never be replicated exactly, we can try to understand its efficacy. I hope this blog post can serve as inspiration, example, or reference for your own future intervention.
It was that sense of social responsibility - that, in order to be relevant, the buildings had to have some kind of social relationship with the community, with the world. You’re building a city. You’re building places for people to live. Making the two come together - art and that social idea - has always been a difficult marriage.
- Frank Gehry (1929-2025)
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