LOS ANGELES — Two years ago, Long Beach, California, artist Dave Clark exhibited a small sculpture of his called “Together. Forever. Maybe. Regret” at the local Mantel Gallery — itself a small, repurposed Little Free Library that does double duty: When it’s not filled with books, it displays the works of artists like Clark.
At the time, Clark and his wife, Carol, were struck by the concept. “That’s cool,” he said. “But what if I had something bigger? You can put more art in there, and it becomes more of a real functional art gallery.”
While his neighborhood had many artists, he noted, it did not have any galleries.
Inspired, he designed and built a micro-gallery measuring about 16 inches wide and 14 inches tall. It has movable walls, a floor and a ceiling that could be adapted for rotating artworks; a solar panel powers the little ceiling light.
He installed it on the front yard of their house in the Wrigley neighborhood. They named it Gallery 17, the sum of the numbers on their Eucalyptus Avenue address.