Bill Delavan never thought he would be an art gallery owner. Today, after exhibiting the works of more than 130 artists, his Delavan Art Gallery in Syracuse is celebrating six years in business

By Margaret McCormick

Bill Delavan will never forget the Labor Day storm of 1998. Its ferocity tore the roof off the Delavan Center on West Fayette Street in Syracuse and dropped it on nearby Wyoming Street, causing extensive damage to the building’s core office space.

But seeing a section of the building stripped of its roof, ceilings and walls gave the owner of the Delavan Center a “eureka’’ moment — and a second career.

“This looks like a nice open area,’’ Delavan recalls thinking as the building underwent repair. “Since it was necessary to fix the place up, I decided it would be nice to create a gallery.’’

And so he did.

As a landlord to more than 70 business tenants, including dozens of area artists, Delavan, now 66, was keenly aware of the lack of quality exhibition space in Syracuse for artists to show and sell their works.
The Delavan Art Gallery opened in 2003, five years to the week, Delavan likes to say, after the Labor Day storm. In the six years since its debut, the gallery has hosted the works of more than 130 artists, most of them from Central New York, or with ties to it.

“There is a need for good exhibit space and shows. There aren’t enough galleries to do it,’’ Delavan says. “You build up a gallery and artists so people can attend and not only attend but buy.’’

Delavan describes himself as a landlord first, gallery owner second. “I rent space,’’ he says. “I run a building.’’

He grew up in Skaneateles and excelled at math and science in school. “I could not describe it as an artistic household,’’ he recalls. He studied economics and history in college, and worked as a systems analyst at IBM for five years before assuming management duties at the Delavan Center in 1971.

“Running an art gallery was the last thing I could have imagined for the future,’’ he says.

But getting to know the artists he rented studio space to gave him an appreciation for their work — and an understanding of the challenges they face getting their art seen. The gallery’s mission, from day one, has been to show and sell fine art by mostly area artists.

The gallery features 3,800 square feet of space, gleaming hardwood floors, high ceilings, white walls, track lighting and white panels that can be reconfigured for each show to accommodate multiple artists and styles of art. The changeable background panels and lighting system allow a different layout for each show.

“It’s such a big space, with great lighting and a lot of room to stand back and actually view the art,’’ Kirouac adds. “It’s always interesting for an artist to walk in and see how their work is displayed.’’

To have their work considered for show, artists usually come to Delavan or Gallery Manager Caroline Szozda McGowan with slides or a disk showing examples of their work.

“We review the work of that artist, along with other artists,’’ Delavan says. “And we give them an answer of yes or no. That’s the fairly quick part. They have to have a body of work that can be shown as a group.

“The next part of the decision,’’ Delavan says, “is the when. That’s the much harder part. That can take some time. We have limited spots. The artist’s schedule we have to look at also. We try to mix the media: pastels, photos, drawings, prints, sculpture, oil. We look for some degree of theme or commonality. We want work, quite frankly, that we like.’’

Delavan and his staff are already considering and scheduling artists for shows to begin around the middle of 2010.

In the beginning, exhibits changed every three weeks, an exhausting schedule that Delavan says was difficult to sustain. The gallery took a hiatus in 2008 and reopened with a new focus: an area for continuing artists (whose work has been exhibited previously); an area for a seven-week show and a “Wild Card’’ area, which sometimes spotlights works by artists from outside Central New York.

While one show is taken down and a new show installed, the other shows can still be viewed by visitors.
Even before the country’s financial meltdown and current recession, artwork has been “a difficult sell,’’ Delavan says.

“It’s a discretionary purchase,’’ Delavan says. “And there has been a feeling among some area people that artwork by local artists is not as good as art work by artists in cities like New York and Boston.’’
Getting people in the door can be a difficult sell, too, Delavan says. There’s a perception that art is highbrow, even intimidating to people.

“There has been a feeling among some people of walking into a gallery and feeling uncomfortable,” Delavan says. “I actually had one person call and say, ‘What should I wear?’ I responded, ‘It’s November. I suggest you wear clothes.”

Delavan credits Th3, the citywide art open that takes place on the third Thursday of the month, with giving visitors an introduction to his gallery and others. More than 20 galleries and museums take part in the event each month, but the average visitor has time to visit only three or four of them. So it’s important, Delavan says, to try to sustain the “Third Thursday’’ energy and keep the gallery forward-thinking and moving.
“The art scene here is very active. There’s a lot going on, not just in the visual arts but performing arts, music. There’s a lot of energy going on here.’’

In addition to selecting artists and scheduling shows, Delavan and his staff are thinking forward in other ways. They are studying the potential for Internet sales, Delavan says, and talking about the addition of a virtual gallery at the gallery’s Web site. Earlier this fall, the gallery hired an independent art critic from Syracuse University to review shows immediately on their opening for the gallery’s blog (go to www.delavanartgallery.com and click on blog). The beauty of the blog format, Delevan says, is that it allows response — from readers and the gallery staff.

“We’re evolving,’’ Delavan says. “If part of our objective is to change things, I think we have met that.’

The Delavan Center is at 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse, a few blocks west of Armory Square. Gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. For more information, call 425-7500 or go to www.delavanartgallery.com