Situated alongside a pirate store and a taxidermy shop full of animals and other oddities, is City Arts Gallery, a local artist’s collective. On an early October afternoon in San Francisco, Jeanne Hauser is sitting at the front desk of the gallery. Behind her are stark walls scattered with artwork. She welcomes me and her kind eyes make it easy to ask about the gallery. The art on wall isn't tied together with a general theme—there are paintings of a dog running in the desert hung next to a sculpture of pancakes. She encourages me to look around and take in the art.

“This place fits in well,” says Hauser, referencing her diverse Mission District community. "There is something that everyone can enjoy because all the art shown is diverse. There is different art for all different types of people."

Artists at City Arts Gallery work together to enrich the artistic community, show their art and help beginners get started. Independent artists have owned and operated The City Arts collective for nine years. The gallery features visual art like photography, painting, sculpture, jewelry and digital imaging.

Artists who display their works are required to volunteer in order to keep the gallery regularly open and accessible to the public.

An artists’ collective is an initiative that involves a group of artists working together, usually under their own management and work toward common goals. The aims of the collective include anything relevant to the artists’ needs—from purchasing art supplies, sharing space and materials, and providing each other with artistic feedback.

Artists’ collectives throughout history were organized around particular artistic mediums. The ancient sculpture workshops in Melos, Greece were where artists gathered together in marble quarries and sculpted in the same area. After the French Revolution, the Louvre in Paris was occupied and run as an artists’ collective where some of the world’s greatest works like the Mona Lisa and the Venus Di Milo could be displayed.

Throughout the month every artist featured at City Arts Gallery must take two shifts of “office sitting” where they will cover an eight-hour shift and are present at the gallery while it is open to the public. Artists must also rent their space on the wall, which varies from $40 to $100 a month depending on a placement within the gallery. Katie Gilmartin, a “key core” member of the collective has been with the gallery since it opened. According to Gilmartin, artists at City Arts Gallery make 70 percent of the selling price, the person who sold it gets 10 percent and the gallery only takes 10 percent.
"Basically our artists make all the decisions at City Arts. Anyone who wants to get involved in the key core decision making process can," says Gilmartin.

The first Friday of every month marks the opening of a new season at City Arts Gallery. “The opening is my favorite part of being involved in City Arts—all the artists come together and celebrate their work with the random public and their fellow artists,” says Hauser.

About a half mile away at 851 Capp St., Elizabeth Garcia, one of the newer artists featured at the City Arts Gallery, carves her drawings into linoleum and prints them on to a textured paper. Inside her living room her art blankets the walls. A white 3-foot by 5-foot cupboard with painted gold lining has a glass layer, ink rollers, etching inks, pallet knives, linoleum cutter, burnt plate oil and a printing press on top. The cupboard is in her studio where she avoids interruptions and lets her imagination flow.

“I am an engineer so when I can’t express my creative side at work it comes out full throttle in my art,” says Garcia. For inspiration she calls on her influences. “I read a lot and three specific pieces are based in poems by Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickenson and Tom Waits. Garcia got involved in City Arts after Gilmartin encouraged her at a graphic arts workshop.

“I decided to take an art class and it led me and my art to eventually get featured at a real gallery.” Garcia feels that the City Arts Gallery is a special organization.

“City Arts is not really a regular business but we are doing as well as one. We can all get excited together because it is us and it is in our community,” says Garcia.

Richard Dodds, a photographer whose art was featured in the back room of the City Arts Gallery in October 2007, feels that a co-op gallery helps to get artists involved in the actual selling and displaying of their art.

“At other galleries I just drop my art [off] at the front desk and they handle mounting it and showing it off, then I just pick my art up when the show is done,” says Dodds. “I never even have a chance to meet the other artists.”

Combining their efforts at City Arts Gallery, artists find that working together helps them to reach their full potential artistically and socially. “Everyone always has a job. Even just during the opening, someone is watching the door, someone else is pouring drinks and so on, but helping out in the process of running a gallery helps artists to take pride in the gallery not just their personal work,” says Dodds. “Other artists help me to focus on the aspects of my art that are appealing and that helps me to focus on how I can better present my photos in order to convey my message,” he says.

Each month, artists sign-up for one of 20 wall spaces, which are given out on a first come, first served basis. The City Arts Gallery is open to self-expression but is centered on reinforcing a community for artists where their art can serve its purpose-to be seen.