Sow and Tailor | The Seeds That Grow

Photos by Shei Marcelline

Amidst a hopeful spring, a young flower awaits the almost perfect conditions that encourage a continuous and fruitful bloom—a generous sun, ever-flowing water, and a tender breeze to carefully sow seeds. For family-owned gallery Sow and Tailor, tending to a young floret comes easy as they reinvent how we approach presenting, interacting, and relating with art. The Los Angeles-based gallery, which has only celebrated a year since their doors opened, has become a place of convergence for the LA art community. Rejuvenating the previous cut-and-sew shop the gallery space now inhabits, artist Greg Ito, his wife Karen Galloway, and family-friend Stefano Di Paola together created a space for young artists to proliferate and grow, so as to also allow this softness for Ito and Galloway’s daughter and S&T’s inspiration, Spring, to blossom. 

It was at the turn of 2021, that Ito and the then-expecting Galloway’s whisper of a dream of starting working studio space to be turned into the new wave gallery. As their own family began to grow, it became a natural thought to begin to foster a place where their daughter could explore without boundary or consequence, which was instilled early on in Galloway, whose mother filled her childhood not only with plentiful trips to museums, movies, and galleries but also the courage wander and wonder. Continuing the tradition, Sow and Tailor stays true to their intentions of being a guiding light for early-growing artists. Ito shares, “Since we are a project family-run space, family is there for you and look out for you. For these younger artists, we’re sharing knowledge of what things to look out for. You know, just to be a kind of an advisor and give advice on how to build a career.” An inherent storyteller, Ito creates transportive and symbolic paintings and has exhibitions from Anat Ebgi, ICA San Diego, Art Basel Hong Kong, Frieze LA, and more.  Now with his all-encompassing knowledge, he is paying it forward through the way of S&T. 

Sow and Tailor debuts at The Armory this weekend in New York in support of their artist Tidawhitney Lek, known for her tender narrative paintings of her familiars. Her presentation traverses through the experience of finding yourself in an in-between, a supercut of the people and memories that inevitably make us who we are. Disembodied hands reach through the entrance of the gate–where it leads, we don’t know–a worn-out couch embraces a mother and child, a corner of a neighborhood is brought to light by a friend. It is apparent that Lek has found intention and tenderness in her work, one that comes from a journey through self-actualization and the acceptance of the unknown. It is like the artist has almost returned home through S&T, as the gallery allows this grace for artists to follow and also trust their voice and vision, whether its tendrils fall onto a paved path or not. 

Di Paola shares, “I think the structure is very much that there is no real structure. The space is really art-centric—the idea is that we’re really focusing on the artists that we’re working with. So the structure sort of shapes around them. It's always about pushing and shifting and allowing each one of these artists to grow in their own way and kind of using the Sow and Tailor space as an armature for them. To provide something and change what we can do for them.” The gallery becomes a place for new artists to explore what they have within themselves or a place for known artists to experiment with what they didn’t know they have. Di Paola continues, “I think that even goes back to kind of an impetus that Karen and Greg had with their own daughter, Spring. It's about nurturing, it's about growing—this is about helping shape people to go into the world, and I think that kind of motherly instinct is like a beautiful thing that Karen brings to that.”

Cairo Pertum, who joined S&T during their debut exhibition and is also Galloway’s nephew, shares on the ethos, “Inviting people from certain communities and leaving the door open to that kind of gathering, and that’s helped us get to where we are today.” As S&T Director, Galloway, confers sharing, “It just kind of flows and they have to reciprocate it as well. It’s like the relationship has to work. There’s plenty of people who we have tried to potentially work with or who have wanted to work with us, and it just has to happen more organically, it can’t be forced.” The relationship between gallery and artist has transcended to not this give and take cycle but instead takes form in a constant gravity and grounding that can only come from the connection of family.

Di Paola poses, “I think there also has to be a willingness in the artists that we work with to be part of what we consider the Sow and Tailor family. I mean, it really is approached like a family, and you have to be willing to be part of that closeness and proximity and really enjoy that experience because we really are a non-traditional model in the way that we approach works of arts.” He continues, “So, I think that a big part of finding the artists that we show are also finding people that are interested in that and want to participate. That they see the beauty and the strength that comes from having a team that supports them.” 

S&T evergrowing roots continue to spread, and even though it may be unseen it is deeply felt. “We’re also all from LA so it's like we want to build something that is special to LA. We’re elevating artists whose voices are not heard or seen and we want them to work with bigger galleries, we want to cultivate that energy for them, but also for them to know that they have a home that can come through in tough times, [and when making] tough decisions.” Ito confesses, “It’s daunting, you know, it really is daunting. As an artist myself, before finding a support system in the art world, you really feel like you have to do everything on your own and at one point you do, but when you find that family to really help you out, that’s great. But, a lot of the bigger galleries take advantage of these younger artists, framing them as being there for them when, you know, they’re not, let's say valuable anymore then they don't get that immersion. So, it's a warm place here.”

And warm it is. Following The Armory, Sow and Tailor will co-host with K11 Musea, HOT CONCRETE, a group exhibition in Hong Kong that not only creates a dialogue between the two buzzing cities but also allows multi-generational artists who have found purpose in their idiosyncratic experiences into something tangible and productive. S&T will then take it home with West LA-based painter, Miranda Byk’s solo exhibition to close out the year. 

While Sow and Tailor will only continue to blossom, their purpose will always stay true: to create a space for a lush and evergreen spring. Ito concludes, “I think that the number one thing we always do in the end is that whatever show, or artist, or decision or project we work on we only work on things that we feel good about. We don't follow trends. We don’t do the, ‘We should’ve done this art.’ We only work with things that feel good to us even if it’s a risk. As long as we put our hearts to it, it comes back tenfold. For us to trust our intuition and work together,  following our heart is very important.”