The following is part of a work-in progress called The Art Colony.
Do you remember 2008? The world felt different then. Barack Obama was elected president. And although the world economy was falling apart, for a few bright shining years it felt to me and my friends like we could do anything. We were all in our 20s and we were going to build new and creative lives.
I was 28 years old, a newly-minted adjunct English professor, blissfully unaware of the relative poverty I was consigning myself to, happy to be doing something I cared about.
The apartment I’d been living in since 2004 was a gem of a two-bedroom place that sat atop an Italian restaurant/bar in downtown Fullerton called Mulberry St. Ristorante.
Our little apartment had, somewhat to the dismay of our landlord, become a gathering place for local creative types–musicians, artists, filmmakers, writers (like me). These kinds of places are rare, and often hidden, in Orange County.
Our biggest claim to fame at that time was the fact that the band Cold War Kids had gotten their start in the storage room behind our apartment, which was filled with restaurant equipment, random other shit, and paintings by me and my friends.
One of my roommates was Jonnie, the guitar player. In 2004, they would practice in that storage room while I made dinner or graded papers or smoked cigarettes with my friends. I remember thinking, at first: These guys aren’t very good.
And then they were.
In 2005, their debut record Robbers and Cowards was a breakthrough indie hit. Before that, however, they self-released The Mulberry St. EP.
Our apartment became a place for the band and their friends to hang out, along with lots of local folks who might be described as “hipsters.”
Back then (as it is today), Downtown Fullerton was dominated by way too many bars for its own good. There wasn’t much in the way of an art scene.
Some time in 2008, the storefront below our apartment, next to Mulberry St. Ristorante, came up for rent. One of my roommates at the time, Tony, suggested that we rent it out as some kind of creative space.
We floated the idea with my other roommate Landon and our friends Chuck, Ben, and RJ.
Over boozy nights on our rooftop patio, we brainstormed what we might do with this small 600-square foot space.
Tony was an artist. Chuck was a filmmaker. Ben was well-steeped in new art movements like pop surrealism, street art, low brow, and other stuff that filled the pages of cool magazines like Juxtapoz. I was a writer. Landon had a business degree and a deep knowledge of good music (he’d hosted a college radio program at Chapman University). RJ knew about this relatively new thing on the internet called “social media.”
Ultimately, we decided on the idea of an art gallery. We would curate shows by artists we liked, and maybe also host events like film screenings (Chuck’s idea), author readings (my idea), and other cool cultural stuff that didn’t really have much of a home downtown at that time.
We approached the landlord. The rent was $1500 a month. We were all barely starting our careers. None of us could afford that individually. But collectively? With six of us, $1500 worked out to $250 each. That was, like, the price of car insurance. Collectively, we could do it.
And, given the miracle that people actually bought the art that we put on display, that would be even better.
We told our landlord, “We’ll take it.”
We called our gallery Hibbleton, after a fictional barbershop quartet from the TV show “Scrubs.” On the web site urbandictionary.com, Hibbleton now means, “A small group of people who exhibit great amounts of awesomeness, but only when necessary.”
That was us.
We opened Hibbleton Gallery in late May of 2008 with an art show called “To the Fifth Dimension!” featuring art by Timber!, Metasaurus, and Japanland.
The opening reception was packed. We created a space for local artists to see some art that was new and different, to gather and hang out, and people came out of the woodwork, like they were hungry for something like this.
Amazingly, our first show actually sold well, meaning enough to cover our rent.
Thus, we continued with several more art shows, about one a month, featuring artists local, obscure, and interesting to us.
We got some good press by local media like OC Weekly (remember OC Weekly?) and were able to attract some higher-profile artists like Mark Mothersbaugh and Tom Waits’ daughter, Kellisimone Waits.
To view flyers and photos from our art shows between 2008 and 2009 visit HERE.
Our art openings became little cultural gatherings in downtown Fullerton, an alternative space for creative types to meet and gather and feel less alone.
We teamed up with Mulberry St. Ristorante to host “after parties” featuring local DJs.
It was the beginning of something new and exciting.
The real test of Hibbleton’s long-term viability came about six months after we had hosted a number of art shows that brought a lot of people out, and often got good press, but sometimes sold few or no artworks.
It became painfully clear that the gallery was not going to be a money-maker for us.
It was around this time that I began to see the work we were doing as being about something much more than making money. Our art shows, film screenings, open mic nights, poetry readings, and other events were about something much more interesting and important. It was, to me, community-building.
