Most people drive by the mural off Independence Avenue and Van Brunt Boulevard without giving it a second glance. Painted in vivid colors, folk dancers honor their Mexican ancestry. Phyllis Hernandez, a native of Kansas City, created it. She recalls receiving a canvas and a set of oil paints from her parents when she was twelve years old. She carried that memory with her for many years. She eventually opened a gallery as a result of it.
Sala de Arte, which translates to “art gallery” in Spanish, is located in Kansas City’s Historic Northeast in a comfortable storefront at 4828 E 9th Street. It lacks the sleek white walls of a modern downtown area. It lacks the ominous silence of a place where you feel unprepared. It seems to have something more difficult to replicate: the sense that your work belongs there.
Hernandez doesn’t take commissions from artists. She is unique just because of that. However, it becomes evident from speaking with those who exhibit there that the gallery’s appeal extends beyond money. To put it simply, young artist Luis Alfredo Gonzalez learned about Sala de Arte through word of mouth. He claimed that there is a competitive vibe to other galleries, an implicit ranking you sense as soon as you enter. None of that is present here.
His artwork simply exists next to everyone else’s on the wall. No analogy. “I never thought my stuff would sell,” Gonzalez stated. There is no hierarchy. And there’s a lot in that sentence. It speaks to a more general reality for young artists in areas that haven’t always had dedicated gallery spaces, where the thought of exhibiting your work in public may seem like something that only happens to other people. One open house at a time, Sala de Arte appears to be subtly undermining that presumption.
Hernandez claims there weren’t many venues for art exhibits on the West Side of Kansas City, where she grew up. Although it’s not exclusive to Kansas City, the absence of obvious creative infrastructure in some neighborhoods affects how young people in those areas envision their own futures. It was more than just a commission when she painted the mural on Independence Avenue in the summer before the gallery opened; it was a sign. This is a way of saying that something similar could be found in the neighborhood.
Hernandez’s project seems to be more than just a commercial art gallery. It’s more akin to a meeting spot, where culture is conserved as opposed to curated for external consumption. She has discussed inspiring young people in the neighborhood to value their own heritage. You wouldn’t find a mission statement like that on a grant application. It’s what people say when they truly mean it.
Kansas City’s artistic identity has been gradually developing. The largest One Percent for Art project in the city’s history, the new KCI terminal was transformed into a vast public art project. In collaboration with organizations such as the Museum of Art and Light, the Kansas City Artists Coalition has initiated a digital art series. The Nelson-Atkins keeps broadening its representation of regional perspectives. That’s all true and important.
On 9th Street, however, something different is taking place. It’s a smaller scale. It’s a simpler mechanism. At the age of twelve, a woman who fell in love with painting decided not to take a cut, opened a storefront, and hung other people’s paintings on the walls. It’s difficult to ignore the significance of that for the artists who enter, some of whom are doing so for the first time and aren’t sure if their work is good enough to show.
Most likely, it is. And they get to discover that for themselves in Hernandez’s gallery.
