Guest Blog Post – White Sails Gallery
March 23rd 2020 is a date we will remember for a long time to come, as along with many other businesses, White Sails Gallery in Dartmouth closed its doors to customers as the Covid-19 pandemic spread. We thought we would be closed for 4, maybe 8 weeks, but here we are 12 weeks later and life is only just returning to something resembling normal.
For the first few weeks we were quite busy as we finally got around to that ‘Long Term To Do’ list – which we’ve had for about 8years! Our website remained up and running and we offered a 10% discount to encourage online sales. We kept in touch with our artists (who have had lots of time to paint!) and customers via social media and finally got around to setting up an Instagram account #whitesailsgallery.
Finally, in June we were given the news that we would be allowed to re-open on the 15th. A flurry of activity followed to make sure we were COVID secure (which is why the gallery resembles a crime scene), although typically, we were still putting shelves up the night before re-opening!
Of course there will be challenges to face but right now we’re just glad to have our doors open to welcome customers (old and new) into the shop. We have a few new pieces of work by established artists such as Jeanette Smith and Gillian McDonald on show, and a number of new artists which we will promote over the next few
Right now we have no idea how badly Dartmouth will have suffered over the past few months but there is a vibrant community here and we have no doubt that our strong community spirit will see us all through.
