Making connections at InSight Gallery
By Megan Willome
InSight Gallery is located on Main Street, in the heart of Fredericksburg. It represents some of the finest painters and sculptors in the country. Anyone can and does wander in.
“We had a gentleman who came in while on jury duty, every day. He said, ‘I like to come over here during lunch and just be.’ It was such a lovely compliment,” said Elizabeth Harris, who co-owns the gallery with her husband, Stephen.
Galleries, like museums, can be places of respite. “There’s something healing in beauty,” Harris said.
In a world filled with screens, she says we need the healing art can bring.
“I recently finished reading Donna Tartt’s ‘The Goldfinch.’ One particular passage resonated with me, about why anyone loves a piece of art: ‘It’s a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes, you.’ We can’t always articulate what speaks to us about a piece of art because it’s an intangible connection.”
Harris hopes to forge those connections at InSight. Maybe it’s the piece itself, or maybe it’s the artist’s story.
Like Robert Moore, who is completely colorblind, yet paints with wild color.
“People would say to him, ‘You can’t be an artist,’ But he didn’t subscribe to that self-limiting belief. He had to take the color theory class three times, but he kept taking it,” Harris said.
Other people are drawn to the gallery’s Western art. “People connect with the romantic idea of the West. They want to have a ranch and the Yellowstone experience,” she said.
InSight opened in 2009, and Harris began working there in 2010. She is from Austin, but she and her husband moved to Fredericksburg from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, after he had a skiing accident.
“It took him two years to walk again,” she said. “We moved here because everything was easy—I could get errands done in 30 minutes. I thought we’d be here for a year, then go back to Jackson. That was 18 years ago.”
Harris double majored in art and interior design and initially worked with an architecture firm. In Jackson she expressed her creativity through event planning and flowers, while also starting a jewelry design business. After moving to Fredericksburg she initially worked in weddings, but found it wasn’t a family-friendly career.
“Our kids were little, but old enough to notice I was gone Thursday through Saturday. Working at the gallery offered more regular hours. I fell into it backwards,” she said.
In 2015, the original owners were ready to sell, and at the same time, Stephen was ready to leave the world of banking.
“He does the financial part at the gallery, but I joke that he’s also our highly overpaid shipping manager. His motto is, ‘Go slow,’” Harris said. “He can pick up sculptures. He willingly schleps things for us. I do sales, marketing, graphic design.”
In addition to the Harrises, InSight has a staff of four, along with Ollie, the Harris’ golden doodle.
“He’s been coming since he was 10 weeks old. He’s got such a sweet nature. He sits with the people who sit. He loves strollers,” Harris said. The website adds, “Occasionally known to nap on the job, he still nominates himself regularly for employee of the month.”
The 60 artists represented at InSight include American Impressionist Society Masters, Cowboy Artists of America, Master Oil Painters of America, and Pastel Society of America Masters. The artists participate in prestigious national shows and are featured in national art magazines.
Even though Fredericksburg isn’t the center of the art world, it is known beyond Texas, in part because of the caliber of artists at InSight.
“The national art market has to do more with who you represent and how well you represent them,” Harris said. “We don’t rely on people coming in the door. We ship probably 60% of our art. We’re available to people no matter where you are.”
When considering a new artist, Harris says she examines their entire body of work.
“If we’re taking someone on, we look at our gallery as a whole—where we need someone to fill a niche. We try not to have artists that overlap,” she said. “We like to get to know the artist. It’s someone we like working with.”
Because the Harrises are business people, they serve their artists well.
“We pay once a week. That’s a big deal. We have our website set up so an artist can always look and see what has sold, so they can know if they’re getting a check,” she said. “Artists are people we’re in business with, and it’s a partnership.”
The Harrises also give artists space to let creativity unfold.
“Even if you create and look back and say, ‘That’s not my best work,’ you went through the process. You committed to the medium and finished it. That’s what counts. You still learned something from that and can bring that to your next work,” she said.
In that way, she says, art is not unlike football.
“You don’t keep running just one play. You do it again with different circumstances,” Harris said. “Painting is the same way. The next time you do it, it’s a different light, different subject matter.”
Harris’ goal is to provide a hospitable environment for art collectors, lovers, and novices, and its location is part of that welcoming spirit. InSight resides in the 1907 Schwarz building, with tall ceilings, original pine floors and rock walls, and more than 8,000 square feet of open space.
“Happy and Candy Feller restored the building as a gift to Fredericksburg,” she said. “When we travel and go to art galleries, we always pinch ourselves that we have this building and the space that we do.”
Every now and then a group of curious teenagers wanders in. Maybe they’re drawn by a painting of aspen trees, and they’ve never seen that tree because they’ve never left Texas. Or maybe a sculpture of a raven catches their eye. Or a scene from the American West that reminds them of stories their grandfather told.
“Every now and then there’s one—there’s one in every group—who stops and looks at how it’s done. They’ve connected with a piece of art,” Harris said.
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