Here is our current home at 210 Clement Street and VIRTUAL TOUR:

And our ANNEX space at 780 Valencia Street. Both in San Francisco.

 

One small. One big. Both local and interconnected and here to give you a depth of what the Bay Area has to offer in our diverse and divergent artist community. 

The beginning....

The Drawing Room began as a storefront art studio and gallery originally located at 3260-62 23rd Street. This space opened in the fall of 2018, and continued its creative journey through December of 2021. In this space, we've put the "open studios" model into play and hosted Studio Renée Carlo as the resident artist, as well as hosted over 23 exhibitions of local artists work, various workshops, poetry readings, artist talks and live drawing events.

In late 2019, we got the keys to a much larger retail space to activate and help the building owner to find a long term tenant while giving exposure to local artists.

    

We did not know that COVID was coming however, having this additional space provided The Drawing Room the ability to continue hosting exhibitions to the public, in a limited capacity. We also hosted an artist residency and small summer camp as the was large enough to safely accomodate limited use. This ANNEX allowed us to collaborate with Curated State/Courtney Norris, and allow us to host 7 large, multi-media exhibitions, connecting us to over 150 new artists, many new organizations and a number of new collectors and supporters. We returned the keys in November of 2020. 

Our smaller home and studio were closed for many months due to COVID and a massive renovation project that directly impacted our space and forced us to be closed. We finally resumed business and a full time studio practice on 23rd Street in January of 2021. 

In November of 2021, we needed to re-evaluate our home on 23rd Street. Many hardships in 2021 forced the decision to find another permanent location. High rents and personal hardship forced our closure in late 2021, however the prospect of activating 780 Valencia temporarily came onto the table. This temporary space afforded the Drawing Room to continue curating large and inclusive exhibitions while re-invigorating that portion of Valencia through the showcasing of local art. Simultaneously, a permanent location was procured on Clement Street, where Studio Renée DeCarlo and our smaller boutique gallery are now located.

Our time at Valencia Street so far has allowed us to host a rotation of exhibitions centered around climate justice, women's justice and body rights, young teen artists and many topics in between. We have also been able to host a number of weekly musical performances to include the GG Symphony and Orchestra, The Community Music Center, Sarah Cahill, Diana Gameros, Allison Lovejoy and Elektra Schmidt and Artist Migration.

Thanks to the generosity and support by 2BLiving and Baskin Investment Group, our collaboration with Curated State and Courtney Norris, we have are looking forward to 6 more months of solid programming and curation. Through our efforts to activate space and showcase art and its creators, we have been able to also activate a partnership with SFUSD, in which we can provide local high school 11-12th graders work experience by teaching them how to help us maintain this space at 780 Valencia. These young interns or "Understudies" help us to create these exhibitions, live events, an upcoming art supply store and the overall maintenance of the building. In turn, we are giving them the opportunity to help build something that is relevant and important to our cultural paradigms, its makers and our neighborhood thoroughfares. We are all connected and art should be more accessible in daily life - or so we hope. 

Thank you for reading this and familiarizing yourself with our space and the work we do. We look forward to seeing you and connecting with you! Please reach out with any questions and consider helping us sustain and grow by donating today!