Meet Devan Kallas

Today we’d like to introduce you to Devan Kallas. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Half Crown Creative is an ongoing project that artist Sara Bendix started in 2018 with the support of Bean Cycle owners. Sara’s ambition was to have artists working in-resident smack dab in the middle of the community. Bendix recruited local artists Abby Galvin and Devan Kallas to test and advise her initial program. All three of us made art in Bean Cycle for around a year while customers drank coffee just tables away.

Alongside Bendix guidance, we curated several shows and provided a Sunday maker’s meet-up. We also coordinated an art installation to donate, in which we took blanket donations to make a blanket fort installation. We collected and cleaned over 100 blankets, and after a month of a blanket fort installed inside a coffee shop, we then donated the blankets to the local shelters.

Since then, the Bean Cycle has seen a lot of changes. Sara Bendix had other opportunities presented to her and has been accepted to a graduate program in Chicago. Bendix left HCC in the hands of Devan Kallas and with the help of Jenna Biedscheid, who wrote a flexible business outline together. Together, we knew we wanted a place where artists had space to work, make money from art, and grow as artists.

Today, we have three studio spaces, which are rented out three months at a time, a gallery, and an annual F(ine)ART sale. As part of the residency program, artists keep 100% of sales while in residence, receive free coffee, and have the opportunity to market or coordinate events.

We all face challenges, but would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road has been a flexible one because of the giving and kind nature of bean cycle owners Penelope Flasher and Ryan Foley. When Wolverive Farm acquired their own building and moved out of Bean Cycle, a large space was left open in the building. So, while Sara Bendix took a lot of the immediate initiative to use the space for an artist collective, she suffered a serious loss with her mother. So, while Devan Kallas (myself) had been an initial tester for her program, when she left to grieve, I offered to help pass it on.

Initially, I was fresh out of college and didn’t want the responsibility of running a business. I just wanted to make art and be in the art community outside of college. Then, after months of planning the possibilities of what HCC could be, we were a bit frozen with the possibilities of so many juicy ideas; we couldn’t pick, and we didn’t move. I realized while I wasn’t great at it, I was the only one in our group who had gone past ideas and just started trying things. I had never run a business hell, and I had barely sold my art.

But because Penelope had told us I believe “Please just use the space,” and for no rent fee I felt I couldn’t let that opportunity go to waste, I couldn’t imagine that happened ever and I didn’t want to waste it. So I changed the space up a bit we had three empty 10×10 spaces in the back and I thought back to college and having a room full of artists all sharing a space and how that collaboration and just being around other artists changed my life. So we rented out the spaces for a very affordable $100 a month in downtown Fort Collins.

We used the money to buy things to improve the space; we paid artist Grace Kenninson to make us a gallery sign; we used the money to buy food and beer for artists’ shows, and we very often just did and do give out the space free to artists and in turn they just paint the gallery or do a small task as a trade. Often, people couldn’t afford the space but wanted the opportunity to work in a studio space. Honestly, the only other struggle we have had is with a few male artists, which I found two really interesting trends.

One they priced all of their work at significantly higher prices than their female counterparts in the space regardless of age/experience or talent. Second was that if there was a problem to address, such as failing to read a contract or a misunderstanding, I was immediately approached with anger/threats and even stalking. I was shocked that their initial interaction with a very simple misunderstanding was intimidation.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
Half Crown Creative exists as an affordable community space for local artists to market themselves, curate shows, benefit from art critiques, and gain residential experience. HCC is located inside The Bean Cycle. We have a lot of flexibility, so if an artist has an idea they want to do and they want to put in the effort to do it, I couldn’t be more thrilled.

We once had an artist named Ally Eden who wanted to install grass. It was during the pandemic that she wanted this interactive piece where people could come to lay in the grass, and she took care of the grass. So I said hell ya, let’s grow grass inside. What do you need? She took it from there, and instead of using her studio space to work in, she had a three-month art installation, the whole floor filled with grass.

I think art can sometimes be too constrained and only used for aesthetic purposes. So when someone wants to make art that’s maybe hard to convey, or they are uncertain how it would fit in the art world or how it would sell, I want to give them a space to, at the very least, explore what that looks like.

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
I think my best advice is to treat every person who’s in your field with curiosity and equality, no matter how experienced you are; people tend to open up if you treat them as capable. It’s amazing to see what people are capable of when you accept them for where and who they are, not what the world expects of them.

My other advice would be just try, just be bad at things, then try again, and be ok with just making bad art. The trying gets you a hell of a lot farther than being a perfectionist.

Pricing:

• Studio Rentals $100 a month
• Gallery Monthly Rental $45 a month
• Studio artists keep 100% of their Sales while renting a studio
• Other artists keep 75% of sales

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/halfcrowncreative/

Image Credits
Saskia Becker, Ellise Hillbrand, and Ally Eden