The History of The Erin Hanson Gallery
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
I thought you would enjoy the story behind the creation of The Erin Hanson Gallery. About 8 years ago I was happily painting in my 3-car garage, located snugly in the Burbank hills with a great view overlooking Downtown Los Angeles. One day I got a knock on my door, and a city representative appeared saying that there have been reports of "too many canvases" being made on my property. The City of Burbank has a very strict policy of not allowing businesses to be run out of people's homes, and the representative told me I had 2 weeks to move every piece of paint and canvas out of my home.
Luckily I had already been eyeing this warehouse down in Glendale, across the street from my favorite breakfast spot. I had even emailed the owner to see if I could possibly have afforded it, but had decided it was far more sensible to keep my expenses down and remain painting in my garage. With this sudden encouraging push from the city, however, I decided I should be a leaseholder after all, and The Erin Hanson Gallery was born.
My first gallery and studio was 2,000 square feet, with a small gallery showroom in the front, a studio in the middle, and a warehouse in the back. The well-known painting North Rim Hexaptych was created to cover a 6-paneled, wooden accordian wall I built to separate my warehouse from the studio.
At the end of 2016, I decided to move to San Diego. The cooler weather beckoned invitingly, and I was looking forward to getting out of the city. I spent months looking at every available industrial property that came on the market. Since I am painter, and I wanted to paint on site, I needed my building to be zoned for industrial. The good news was that I could afford a much larger industrial space than I could a retail location. I finally settled on a pristine warehouse, 5,000-square feet, off Miramar Rd, the heart of San Diego's interior design district. The building was 2 blocks from the 15 freeway, easy to access from North County and downtown San Diego, and only 15 minutes from La Jolla. Plus, there was air conditioning!
The best thing about this property was that it was completely gutted, and I was offered $80K in building modifications so I could build it to suit. This was a real dream come true. I spent weeks huddled over graph paper drawing detailed layout plans, making mockups in Photoshop, and measuring everything I owned to see where it would fit on my floorplan.
The final result was a brand-new Erin Hanson Gallery. We had our grand opening in February, 2017. I kept the dark blue gallery walls, and I had two collection releases in 2017: The Coastal Show and The Super Bloom Show. I love living in San Diego; I feel much closer to nature here, and the city is drenched in natural beauty.
- Erin Hanson
ERIN HANSON has been painting in oils since she was 8 years old. As a young artist, she worked at a mural studio creating 40-foot-tall paintings on canvas, while selling art commissions on the side. After getting a degree in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley, Erin became a rock climber at Red Rock Canyon, Nevada. Inspired by the colorful scenery she was climbing, she decided to paint one painting every week for the rest of her life. She has stuck to that decision ever since, becoming one of the most prolific artists in history. Erin Hanson's style is known as "Open Impressionism" and is now taught in art schools worldwide. With thousands of collectors eagerly anticipating her work and millions of followers online, Hanson has become an iconic, driving force in the rebirth of contemporary impressionism.