When opportunity knocked next door, Julie Ahmad answered by knocking down a wall.
The longtime Austin artist had spent six years working alone in her South Austin studio before expanding into the adjoining property this spring, transforming it into The Women’s Gallery. The space is meant to give female artists more visibility and connection in a city where creative real-estate keeps tightening.
Ahmad’s gallery sits in one of Austin’s oldest continuously operating artist complexes on Thornton Road, off Oltorf Street. The low-slung stretch of concrete studios once housed machine shops and storage units, but now buzzes with painters, potters and musicians. Ahmad’s adjoined units glow white with new drywall and paintings from more than a dozen artists…