Amanda Vaughan
Northern News Services
Wednesday, August 8, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Arrowmakers Fine Traditional Art Gallery has packed up its Centre Square Mall location and moved into a new home in the Explorer Hotel.

Employee Kristin Hansen, left, and general manager Cynthia Cardinal-James stand in front of the last sculpture to be packed at Arrowmakers Fine Traditional Art Gallery, just before the move to its new location in the Explorer Hotel. - Amanda Vaughan/NNSL photo

The gallery's general manager, Cynthia Cardinal-James, is impressed with how her staff coped with the "massive job" of packing up all the art for moving.

"We have quite a bit of space here," said Cardinal-James.

"There's a large inventory, and it takes mega packing materials," she laughed, saying the move had actually gone very smooth up until that point.

Cardinal-James said the gallery has been looking for a new home for some time, but decided on the gift shop space in the Explorer after careful consideration.

"It's an excellent venue for us," she said, noting that the hotel is expanding to add 60 more rooms, and is also a hotspot for conferences and business travelers - the operations prime customer base.

She also said the Explorer has agreed to let the gallery display artwork in other places in the hotel, but haven't worked out exactly where yet.

Cardinal James said the new location is smaller, but she figures there is almost as much wall space for displays as at the mall, and just a little less open space for sculptures.

The new location will also feature a computer at a desk where customers can view the gallery's entire inventory electronically.

Arrowmakers plans to focus on online sales after the move, according to Cardinal-James.

She said the entire inventory, including pieces in storage, will be available for viewing and sale on the website soon. e-mail notifications on sales and new pieces will also go out to regular customers of the gallery.

The new space has a similar amount of storage room and Arrowmakers also has offsite storage for its large inventory of Northern arts. Cardinal-James said she and her staff rotate their displays to make sure everything is getting its day in the sun.

The gallery brought movers in to carry all the boxes to the new location on Monday, and before the weekend, Cardinal-James was optimistic everything would go well.

She said they planned on having staff in both locations to facilitate the move, and start the unpacking process. The packing was all finished except for one last sculpture on Thursday afternoon when Cardinal-James and one of her employees, Kristin Hansen, just had cleaning left to do.

Hansen said packing an art gallery was a lot of work, and each of the sculptures needed to be boxed separately, with lots of cushioning materials.

She is a new employee of the gallery, hired to help finish the move, as Arrowmakers' other employees had previously scheduled vacation at the time.

"It's been full-time packing," Hansen said, adding they started with the inventory in storage on July 17, while the gallery was still open.

Cardinal-James said she hopes Arrowmakers will re-open by today, and that an open house in the new location is in the works for some time this fall.