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Most businesses make profit their sole goal. But the owner of Art Gallery for Better Lives has the additional goal of creating happiness.
Better Lives started out as a philanthropic organization. The gallery is part of that larger effort. According to the literature for Better Lives For Children, the organization helps “families, schools, and children in disadvantaged rural areas to progress along their paths to sustainable living.”
Ten percent of the artists’ sales go to Better Lives. In a recent email, owner Christopher Wade wrote that the funds are for schools and children in disadvantaged rural communities in East Africa and Southeast Asia.
Wade first started thinking about it in 2015 “because I started a philanthropy called betterlives.org in 2009. I wanted to have a way of raising funds for the philanthropy and also to assist local artists,” said Wade.
Why an art gallery?
Wade: “Because better lives.org is all about creating happiness for children and families.”
“In addition to having the goal for Better Lives, because I’m an art lover, I wanted to do the same for local artists,” Wade said.
“So I purchased the building so that one day we would have a place to house the gallery. You can see there’s been a number of years between when I had the idea, purchased the building, and finally opening the gallery last October.”
Wade said he was able to assist the gallery because he started a small business software company that took him 14 years to build. “We sold the software business in 2008,” he said.
The money from the sale enabled him to launch Better Lives.
“So, the opening of the gallery is the coming together of the dream of better lives, plus the dream of enjoying art into the future. And I see the gallery as a vehicle for bringing together local artists with citizens of Seal Beach and visitors who enjoy art with the express objective of bringing about a level of enjoyment of the art, in other words, happiness and local artists the connection with Seal Beach,” Wade said.
“So even though a number of our artists are abstract artists, they do use, for example, scenes of nature, like maybe a hill or a beach as an inspiration for their art, which you can interpret in their art. My hope is that visitors to the gallery are going to have a connection with the art and so gain some enjoyment from viewing it, either in the gallery or hopefully in their home or work, a place of work if they choose to purchase,” Wade said.
He said each artist, or pair of artists, has 8 feet of wall space. They rent this wall by hosting the gallery for three hours a week in the gallery.
“We don’t think of ourselves as a cooperative, so we’ve coined the name collaborative, a collaboration of artists,” Wade said.
“My role is to provide the premises, and then you’re almost to what provide the premises. And then the artists manage their sections of wall to show their art,” Wade said.
“We’ve made provisions so that artists can hang original art on the walls,” Wade said.
“But there’s also a picture ledge where below the original art, where matted originals and prints of the originals can be offered for sale,” Wade said.
What is the need that Better Lives is trying to fill? “Sustainable living for the children, the challenges that the children are facing are in the areas of nutrition, housing and education. Better Live strategy is to assist their parents and their schools to address these challenges,” Wade said. “Regarding the solutions to the challenges are provided through three programs: the Grow, the Earn and the Build programs The Grow program, according to the Better Lives literature, helps “families and schools grow vegetables and bananas so that their children can eat nutritious meals at home, and breakfast at school.”
The Earn program helps families earn money by selling surplus vegetables from their home gardens. The build program builds rent-to-own homes in Cambodia and hygiene facilities in Tanzania.
“The gallery is a for profit. It’s just that it’s a for profit business,” Wade said. “But it’s just that 10% of the sales are donated by the artists to Better Lives.”
The artists in the gallery include Gino Nardo.
“Many, many people in Seal Beach know Gino because he actually worked in the post office and he’s now enjoying his artistic work in his retirement, and Gino is a very creative man,” Wade said.
For now the gallery is open only Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Better Lives is at 219 Main St.
“Because the artists are local, some of the artists are open to painting commissions, and I see this as an opportunity for the local artists’ knowledge of the area, for them to connect with a local subject, but also for the person who requests the commission to enjoy that connection they have with the subject for many years when it’s hanging on their wall,” Wade said.
