AWAD is pleased to welcome Melissa McCaig-Welles, the founder and director of McCaig-Welles Gallery.
As is our practice with new members, we asked Mellissa to share some of her background and a bit about her business with us.
What is the name of your business and where are you located? When did you start?
McCaig-Welles Gallery NYC, LLC. We started in May of 2000 and had our first official exhibition on March 2001.
What is your professional background?
Art Gallery owner, curator, consultant, art dealer.
What inspired you to take the leap and start your own business?
I was twenty four years old and had been working the Soho gallery scene for a couple men who owned galleries in Soho. I one day in 1999 found myself wandering around Williamsburg and passed by a space with bullet holes in the windows and completely falling apart and decided I needed to rent it. This was the beginning of my 20 plus years owning my own business. That one impulsive move I made, when there was just one or two restaurants in the neighborhood and nothing else.
What does your business offer, in terms of goods and services?
We work with and represent over 25 artists showing every media of art, combined. My favorite is painting and we focus mainly on street and urban artists and female artists.
What excites you about having joined the Association of Women Art Dealers?
To be around like minded art curators who want to empower one another as women art dealers (versus being competitive). Working together with other women in an collaborative effort is exciting to me.
What brings you joy in your work?
What brings joy to me is the ability to bring the right people together to make change and create an impact on the world, or to touch someone’s life, makes me feel very fortunate and honored to do what I do. It’s because of these amazing artists and the relationship we’ve cultivated over the last twenty years that we are able to make projects that seem impossible an actual reality and that is very powerful and rewarding for me.
If you were a work of art, what piece would you be and why?
A child’s drawing that is uninteresting and used instead as a shopping list for Walmart.
Photo Credit – Michael Halsband
