So Long, Sally Centigrade: Lowbrow Gallery Owners Off for California

Entrepreneurs Scott Bailey and Myah London Harwell are travelers by nature. As they bounced around the country, they opened their first gallery, Benjamin Benjamin, in Hood River, Oregon (later moving it to Portland). In 2011, they finally decided to settle in Denver, where three years later they opened a new space – lowbrow art gallery Sally Centigrade – in Larimer Square.

In 2017, they were off again, but this time just a few miles away to Lakewood, where they found a more welcoming sense of community in a rented space on artsy Block 7 in Belmar.

From the get-go, Sally Centigrade served the pop surrealism and lowbrow art community well, serving as a conduit between artists and collectors, and earning a reputation as an affordable gallery with an informal, party-down ambience. For most shows, a national artist would be paired with a local one, ensuring good exposure for the hometown artists.

Over the years, the couple had their favorite combinations. “To me, the show that best epitomized what our gallery was about was Elena Gunderson and Happy D in 2017,” Bailey recalls. “It really fit our idea of bringing national attention to a Denver artist and bringing an exciting artist to Denver that we don’t think would have shown in Colorado if not for us. And as it happens, it was a really good show. We booked beauty appointments for the two artists at the L Style Bar across from us, and the shop had glass windows, so as the crowd gathered they could see the artists getting their makeup done, and everyone got excited for them to emerge. When they finally walked into the gallery, it was so cool, a total diva entrance.

“We’re also very proud of the Diamond Show, with 75 artists from all over the world, including some pretty big names, like Jasmine Becket-Griffith, in 2015,” he adds. “Of course, we are very partial to Myah’s solo show in 2019, where she built a full installation, including an oversized art-vending machine.”

Bailey and Harwell love living here, they say, but when the pandemic put the damper on their business two years ago, they wanted something more solid, without the vagaries of having a landlord, and decided to buy a building of their own. They started looking at spaces in the Denver area, but found the stiff requirements for buying commercial real estate to be too much of a gamble for newbies in a red-hot market.

“There are so many hoops to doing this, and for most commercial spaces here, they make you put down a third up front. Less would be nice,” notes Bailey. In their dreams, they envisioned two spaces: “one in an urban location and another in a resorty space, with a super-fun buildout,” he says.

Bailey and Harwell  looked around various cities, and finally focused on the greater Los Angeles area, Veteran travelers that they are, they already had connections. “We were lucky to find spaces we can actually get,” Bailey says. Not only that, but the terms also suited the duo’s financial requirements. With a plan in place, they turned in the keys to Sally Centigrade on January 1, when their lease expired.

Even as they relocate to California, they plan to visit Colorado often, keeping their ties to Denver strong. Bailey also hopes to continue representing favorite Colorado artists from California.

While they are hush-hush about where, exactly, they’ll be building out their new places in that state, they say they plan to roll out the resort-area store first, with a compact, arcade-style 800-square-foot floor plan fronted by a twenty-foot-wide window for the entry; receptions will be held in front. The other store will follow next year.

“We have some cool ideas coming up. It’s like when you first move out of your parents’ house,” Bailey explains. “We feel like kids doing whatever comes to mind. The idea for a new space that mimics a vending machine with a more fantastical, very interesting kind of mid-mod look came out of a fantasy of mine. During the pandemic, I wanted to go to art openings, but I was not able to go. But if something was outside, I could go.”

At the height of the pandemic, Bailey experimented with the idea of taking it to the street at Sally Centigrade. Now he’s tweaking the model to suit a different space, while also preparing to adapt to any COVID concerns even as they book shows.

“The resort space will open in April with Rebel Queens, a show from Italian artist Simona Candini,” Bailey reveals. “It’s about powerful women historical figures.” And that sounds challenging, considering that Candini’s specialty is painting big-eyed child-women, mermaids and unicorns.

But they’ve taken on challenges before – and metro Denver certainly benefited from their work. Now, though, “Sally Centigrade is over,” concludes Bailey. “Any physical or online presence will be under a different name.”