Flametree Clay Art Gallery, a favorite downtown destination for art lovers – and art buyers – will close its doors forever after Dec. 31, three months before its sixth anniversary.
That is, unless the gallery’s current owners, Karen “Keko” Economou, Maria Sparsis and Trudy von Linsowe, can find a new owner willing to purchase Flametree’s business assets and negotiate a fresh lease for the space the gallery shares with the Cultural Council, across from the historic Florida Theatre.
It’s one of the rare gallery closures or changes of ownership the arts district has faced since it began taking shape a decade ago.
If an owner steps up, the lease should be no problem, says property manager Kirk Koehler. He says galleries have been a key draw to the downtown area, contributing to its revitalization along with restaurants and shops.
“We are pleased with our relationship with Flametree and would like to continue, if not with them, then with another gallery in the same space,” Koehler says.
The gallery has been in business since March 2011.
Though Economou, Sparsis and von Linsowe hope to sell the gallery before the date they’ve all agreed to close, there is no doubt in any of their minds that the Flametree as it is today will cease to exist come the New Year.
They all say the gallery isn’t closing for lack of business.
“We are all too busy,” says Sparsis. “And we are not doing the gallery any justice by not giving it enough attention. I can’t emphasize how much I hope the gallery will keep going in some fashion.”
So far the women have been spreading the word of the offering via flyers and Flametree’s Facebook page.
The brass tacks of the offer: $5,000 – or best offer – buys the Flametree name, its extensive customer list, display fixtures, office furniture and computer.
The most valuable asset, though, is Flametree’s reputation. The gallery is known as a place where a customer can pick up an original work of ceramic art for well under $100.
Sparsis says the affordable prices encourage customers to buy ceramic art as gifts.
“It’s difficult to walk into a painting gallery and buy a birthday gift for a friend, unless it’s a very special friend,” Sparsis says.
Prices at Flametree start as low as $15 for a small clay ornament to as high as $2,400 for von Linsowe’s masterpiece, “Lauren’s Lesson.” It is a realistic sculpture of a violin (with a stand in the shape an elegantly gowned woman) made of raku-fired clay.
The gallery has also been known for having a different themed exhibition every month, from garden art to teapots to its annual “Deck the Halls” holiday show and group invitationals. The variety of the gallery’s offerings alone has made it a favorite stop on downtown Vero’s First Friday Gallery Stroll.
And speaking of reputation, the gallery’s famously infamous “Sexpot” shows in 2013 and 2015 made for packed opening nights and brisk sales in the weeks that followed. The theme was provocative enough to draw numerous calls of complaint in advance of the show, including threats to picket. Those threats never materialized, though costumed crowds of gallery-goers swarmed the door for hours, waiting for space to free up inside.
Describing the art in the Sexpot show, von Linsowe says, “Some of it was just lightly suggestive, and some of it was over the top.”
“It was looking right back at you,” laughs Economou.
Von Linsowe, whose duties at the gallery include logging sales and bookkeeping, says that the gallery’s annual income rose as much as $8,000 in the years the Sexpot exhibition took place.
Even having to sign a waiver and show a doorkeeper that you were 18 or older to enter did not deter visitors. Sexpot had 1,500 visitors on opening night alone in 2013; in 2015, there were a staggering 1,800 who passed through the cramped back room.
Von Linsowe notes that on one of those opening nights, the gallery sold 52 artworks, half of them directly from the Sexpot exhibition. The rest was G-rated ware from the main gallery.
If it sounds like Flametree’s three principals have had their share of joy as well as hard work in running the gallery, it is because it has been a labor of love from the start.
All three of the women have been happy with their own sales through Flametree, but if a prospective owner thinks she will make enough money to pay herself a salary, she’d better think again.
“Don’t count on it as your primary source of income,” says Sparsis.
Before its transformation into a trendy art gallery, the space the three moved into was just a wide, deep entryway off the street, one wall of which was punctuated by a row of doors to five small offices.
Within its first year of operation Flametree had, in addition to the original space, taken over a large office in the back corner and started accepting applications to exhibit other clay artists. Currently the gallery has 14 exhibitors.
If a new owner offers them the opportunity, would Economou, Sparsis and von Linsowe stay at the Flametree Gallery as exhibiting artists?
“It is my hope that somebody will buy it who has the time to put in that we don’t have,” says Sparsis. “I will pay my rent and help as much as I can, but not as much as I’m doing now. I just can’t.”
