Making a mess.

Finally got some decisions made and help together. Today we took out the front of the store - the windows (broken plate glass) and glass block below them.

This is a view similar to the one in the first post.

With just a beginning of a knee wall, the day was ending so sheething was put up to keep weather and the curious away. That is Steve O'Byrne and Joel (?) doing the real work.

Much of the glass block is salvagable. One of the artists clean them up and make table lamps and Christmas decorations.

The LeRoy Independent newspaper ran a nice front-page article on the Gallery. It should be available at www.leroyindependent.com. Look for the 4/23/09 articles.

More mess tomorrow. Hopefully a lot of wood work will get done.

Trying to balance the level of detail in this thing. Don't want to bore you with trivia, nor set up the expectation of daily posting. Oh, well. It will probably never be just right. Sorry about that.

Discovered another 'opportunity'. All the (active) wiring is currently in conduit and the sockets are the modern 3-prong grounded type. That is good, modern and up to code. Even though the outlets and conduit are at waist level, I can work around them for the displays. I had to remove some of the conduit to get at the wall and discovered that there are only 2 wires, not 3, to each socket. So a grounded plug does no good, just gives you a false sense of safety. I was thinking of adding another wire for a ground, but in talking with a neighbor with lots of remodeling experience I see I'll get a better system if I scrap the conduit and run new wiring behind the baseboard. It will be truly up to code and be more flexible for shelving and displays. Oh, well.

Web site

Created a web site tonight using one of the tools provided by 1and1. Like the physical store, it needs a lot of work, but that will come in due time. It is at www.leroycca.com.

Speaking of store, the front brick facing is bowed out in places and may well need to be taken off. If I do that, which is my current thought, I'll have an overhang built on and just regular siding. That will give the customers shelter from the elements and keep the hottest sun off the windows. We'll see.

Later

First time

So, what IS the LeRoy Center for the Creative Arts? (Glad you asked that!)

Well, the Center is many things to many people.

• Basically it is a consignment Art and Craft store. Vendors bring their creations in and the Center displays and sells them.




• There is space for general classes and workshops.




• There is additional space devoted to sculpting borosilicate (Pyrex type) glass, usually called Flame Working.




• The Center should bring visitors, students and vendors from outside of just LeRoy.




• Personally, this is an attempt to 'give back' to the community at large.

The address is 111 East Main, LeRoy, MN 55951

The building used to house a taxidermy and is being remodeled to look something like:

There's a ton of work ahead, but it should all work.

So, if you have something you've created that you want displayed and sold, let me know.