Leon Gallery's #LongLiveLeon Campaign Raises $20,000

When Eric Dallimore, Matthew Buford and Lindsay Giles McWilliams opened Leon Gallery in 2011, the trio had one goal: to provide a space where artistic risk takers, outliers and forward thinkers would be welcomed with open arms.

"I think commercial galleries are important to the arts ecosystem. But I also knew there weren't spaces that took more risk or had more challenging work," says Dallimore, who is also the gallery's current board chair. "A lot of times these are businesses that were trying to focus on sales, and I believe that's one role for art to play. The other role is to create work that isn't quite sellable, that might not fit on someone's wall behind their couch."

Buford and McWilliams left the gallery in 2014. That same year, longtime artist, composer and creative Eric Nord, now the executive director, joined the team.

Since its opening, the gallery has displayed a variety of work, ranging from photographs documenting police brutality protests in Iran to Diego Rodriguez-Warner's mixed-media pieces. A photo of the gallery even appeared in a 2021 New York Times article about Raafi Rivero's "Unarmed" series. Rivero created jerseys honoring Black victims of violence, and his work was shown in Leon in 2020. The gallery also hosts yoga classes as well as live music and poetry events.

To continue supporting new and boundary-pushing artists, Leon reworked its business strategy and became a nonprofit in 2019. It was recently approved as a Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) Tier 3 organization, a status that took five years of nonprofit financial records to achieve and qualifies the gallery for additional funding opportunities.

Despite its artistic successes, Leon has been struggling. SCFD funds aren't awarded until October — too little, too late for a gallery burdened by the financial hardships of COVID-19, rising rent prices and increasing competition for grants. For the last two months, Nord has been working without pay, and by mid-January, the gallery was at risk of losing its lease at 1112 East 17th Avenue.

"This past year has been particularly difficult on the organization financially because the vast majority of COVID relief funding has been discontinued," Nord says. "But also, with everything that's going on in the country politically and with the government and the economy, art sales have been...really down.

"Art is always a difficult industry because the vast majority of people consider art a luxury rather than a necessity," he adds. "So if there are any kind of economic problems, it seems like something they're not willing to spend their money on."

And when artists work with Leon, they pocket 70 percent of the sales revenue, a generous number compared to the usual 50-50 split that most galleries adhere to. Those who exhibit their work in the space also receive a $1,000 stipend; these payments are central to the gallery's art-centered ethos.

"Our focus is to help artists make more money," Dallimore says. "I want to continue helping Denver showcase really powerful, forward-thinking work. And the best way we can do that is to offer artists a little extra income."

So on January 21, the gallery turned to the Denver community for support and launched the #LongLiveLeon fundraiser campaign with a video on Instagram. "Leon is committed to representing artists from Denver and beyond. If we were to lose this space. it's not going to be the end of our gallery. It would just be the end of an era," Dallimore says in the video.

The goal of the emergency appeal was to raise $5,000 by January 31 and an additional $15,000 by March 31 to cover the gallery's operating costs. Dallimore says the fundraiser hit the $20,000 goal within five days, an unexpected turnout that shocked him and Nord.

"It's astounding to see people show up and say, 'This space means too much to me. This space is a place where I come to gather and see art and be a part of a community,'" Dallimore reflects. "Our community stepped up and said, 'Nope, you can't close your doors.'"

Although the gallery has enough to make it through the next few months, Leon is not quite out of the red.

"One of the things that our board has talked about is the emergency appeal is not icing on the cake. It's the flour and eggs to make the cake. It's the bare minimum of what we need to keep the doors open," Nord explains. "And that doesn't include salaries at all. That's just our rent and utilities and insurance."

So in the meantime, Leon Gallery is calling for the community to continue showing up, donating and buying work from the local artists who have made the space an artistic home.

"It's not just about showing beautiful work on the walls, and a 'Hey, that's pretty, hang it up' and then sell it" mentality, Dallimore says. "It goes way deeper than that. And I think that relationship between the gallery and the artists is what means the most to me as well as the community that comes out to support them."

Leon Gallery is located at 1112 East 17th Avenue, find out more about Leon Gallery on its website.