There’s a new art gallery in St Joseph. You might be surprised when you find out where it is. It’s contents may startle you as well.
For now it’s called “The Dooley Room,” named after Dooley Lawrence, the Northwest Missouri artist who recently opened the facility. It’s in the East Hills Mall, across the food court from J.C. Penneys.
“I want to blur the lines between public, retail and personal-studio space,” Mr. Lawrence says, pointing to a large offering of ceramic works created over several years alongside some new paintings that he’s still working on. He says the public has been enthusiastic.
“You walk by this room, you look in here. It’s a big museum space. It just pops” he said in an interview.
“With that back wall and this whole open gallery, people interested in the visual thing going on are walking in the door and going ‘this is cool, who are you?'”
Future plans include possible musical performances in the gallery, but, technically Lawrence is still moving in.
“I’ll continue moving in, probably through the holidays,” he says.
What he’s moved in so far is impressive, including huge soft Maple planks serving as benches, but which Lawrence says would serve very well as sculpture, wall paintings, or other kinds of furniture. He burnishes the 20-foot planks with a grinder. The soft-maple lumber comes from Northwest Missouri river bottoms, via a sawmill in Dekalb, Mo.
Also on display are a series of new paintings rendered on artists’ drop cloths. Mr. Lawrence says he’s still working on many of these, including the mammoth piece that fills that back wall of the gallery.
Lawrence believes his space will serve as a “gap” to which mall-goers can go to leave behind the big box stores, the Coke machines, and the food.
“This is actually what I think a mall is. I think I’m just opening up my space, preserving a kind of cave. And, I’m the cave painter. Come on into the cave and let’s look at the walls together!”
Hours are Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 2-9 p.m. through the end of the year. He says if things work out he’ll negotiate with the mall to stay a little longer.