200 Main Gallery, 200 Main St, Eau Claire
By Chloe Ackerman
I met with Jo Ellen Burke of 200 Main Gallery, and she told me about her hopes of bringing together Eau Claire’s creative community with their future events. The gallery’s latest attraction is Eau Claire’s first wine dispenser. Gallery patrons can buy wine and hang out before local events, read, write, or meet with friends.
As Burke gave me a tour of the gallery, she explained how Eau Claire’s diverse art scene has seen much of its success because of constant collaboration and support from local artists and venues. We also talked about the history of the 200 Main Gallery’s building (200 Main St., Eau Claire), how Eau Claire’s art culture has developed over time and the gallery’s new series of literary events focusing on local women writers. Join us on our virtual tour!
JO ELLEN BURKE: Often people will just come in and work. They’ll work on their computer or read at the bar. During the week we are open Wednesday through Saturday noon to ten or eleven depending on what’s going on. As I show you around, you can see, we have a lounge area with some merchandise for sale, but it’s also a meeting room for book groups or writer’s groups. It can fit about eight or ten people. We really like the privacy of this room; it’s kind of a cozier spot.
You might like the idea that the whole place used to be a book bindery, so as a book bindery they kept their paperwork in a vault instead of a bank. Paper was precious; there was no way to back books up in terms of a computer, so they treated it as a very valuable source. Now the book bindery’s vault is where we keep our wine.
CHLOE ACKERMAN: Is a lot of the art throughout the gallery by local artists?
JB: It’s pretty much local artists except for just a few. There’s a sculptor from Wausau, and we have a ceramic art teacher from Sturgeon Bay, and then we have another ceramic artist from Lake Geneva, and the rest are pretty much from Eau Claire.
I do a lot of textile work, so I do the mirrors and napkins, and I like painting on textiles, so that’s a lot of what I do along with some painting. A lot of the work around here is from Terry, who’s my partner and is a sculptor and a painter. Terry sculpts a lot of horses; you’ve probably seen them at the Oxbow. He did the big tall steel horses that were downtown for a while, they called it Tres Caballos.
Could you tell me what types of events you hold that bring together different facets of the local art scene, and about the upcoming events?
JB: We will have writers and authors. We are also going to have demonstrations. For example, Terry does live painting, and we auction off what he’s painted. So you can come and watch him; he’s very comfortable painting in front of people.
We’ve had two musicians here. We like to have live music and collaborate with the area musicians. We had Robin Mink on guitar, and we had Julie Majkowski on flute. We really like the ambiance that that’s created for the arts through music as well.
Our only restriction is space, but it’s a cozy atmosphere; people feel comfortable here. In January or February, we are going to launch what we’re calling 200 Main Mobile, and that’s a means of getting artwork out to the public and to public businesses and nonprofits.
Why did you choose to host events highlighting local women writers?
JB: One of the big things that we believe in is an array of art. We believe in music, theater, writers, and others, and we know we have so many great authors in town. As we talked about writers, we saw many events that were highlighting the great writers in our area, but we didn’t see too many that focused on women.
I felt it was timely, and it is a nice opportunity to focus on women writers. We decided that, on the first Wednesday of every month, we’d host something called Women Writers on Wednesday. Now, we’re thinking we should probably do it more than once a month because there are so many great writers, but we’ll just start with every month for now.
The first natural choice was Cathy Sultan. She is so knowledgeable and articulate. She writes beautifully, and she has this expertise in the Middle East that is really instructive. She was here on the 5th of December. We ended up selling out the first day; we filled thirty seats with free tickets.
In January, we’ll have Patti See. Then in February, we will have Molly Patterson, and we are eager to have her and get to know her a little better. In March, we are going to have Jan Carroll, and we have others that we are reaching out to.
There is such a great writers community in this town. People really support each other, people like BJ Hollars, he’s a wonderful person and I think he’s done a great job collaborating with writers and bringing some light to the talents that we have here. The Pablo Center has done wonderful things for writers, too. We want to really support and continue that kind of momentum. There’s this wave in the creative economy here. I think it’s less of a wave, and it’s embedded in our culture now in a way that is very positive and strong.
CA: I grew up in Eau Claire, and I can tell that the art scene has definitely grown since I was younger.
JB: Yeah, it’s such a different city. You might remember just five to eight years ago, you’d go downtown and there was nothing going on. Now, thanks to Volume One and other investors like Zach Halmstad, it’s really made a difference.
Not to get too philosophical, but our community has embraced the arts so well, and I think the momentum for the arts has just really carried on. The factors in the creative economy are somewhat like silos. I think that theater is a silo, music is a silo, the fine arts are a silo, and writing is a silo. I think if we can do a little more collaboration and meshing of those, it creates a better and more fluid art scene. I am hoping that we can be a part of that and show the respect that we all want for the other disciplines of the other types of art, so it’s a win-win.