Annette Block has spent the pandemic figuring out what it means to be part of an artistic community without being able to see much of that artistic community. Before lockdown, the ceramicist periodically opened up her home studio to workshops, pop-up sales and short exhibitions by other artists. Keeping her doors closed was a choice, not a necessity. “If I just felt like focusing on my own work and not having classes or shows in there, I could just not have anything for like two years if I wanted to,” she says.
But she has bristled against the forced isolation of the past two years. When she downsized to a studio apartment in the spring of 2021, the move coincided with that brief moment when we all thought we might get to begin socializing again. But, Block says, “The pandemic just kept going on, as we know.”
And so, Block has launched a solution that merges her desire to support and interact with other artists with the particular constraints of living in a small space during an unpredictable time: Magic Chef Gallery.
Here, the white walls are not Swiss Coffee-painted drywall, but the double doors of a Home Depot-brand refrigerator. Besides the rare houseguest, the only in-person audience is Block herself. Everyone else is following the space on Instagram.
“I needed a creative project and it was just some real estate that I felt like I could utilize—my fridge,” Block explains.
