The 1210 Gallery in La Jolla is one of San Diego’s most unique places to buy and sell art. Run by full time mom and part time pilates instructor Nicole Flaherty, 34, the 1210 Gallery opened its doors in April of 2015 as a place for local artists to exhibit and sell their work. The gallery’s name reflects both the La Jolla Boulevard location and La Jolla nativism of its founder and sole owner, Flaherty. 1210 simply stands for La Jolla since “L” is the 12th letter in the alphabet and “J” is 10th. Flaherty says that one of her biggest inspirations when creating her gallery was her mom, Margaret Jackson, who is an art enthusiast and sits on the board of trustees at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
“People buy a piece of artwork because they want to look at it everyday not because of who signed it,” said Flaherty, who gained such an understanding from her mom. The 1210 Gallery circulates around this idea, the idea of creating unique bonds between artist and buyers, and the idea of pricing artwork so that everyone can afford it. Another thing the gallery prides itself on is that there is always an opening reception where you can meet the artist, so if one of the displayed pieces doesn’t work for you, or is just out of your price you can ask the artist to commission piece for you. The 1210 Gallery is run solely by Flaherty, who prides herself on focusing on local San Diego artists, the kind of people who give up careers to work on their art. She starts every new collection with an opening night reception, and then gives the art three weeks to sell. Unlike your average pop-up gallery, 1210 doesn’t showcase the work of its owner, it showcases the work of others for a short period of time giving it that pop-up gallery feel. In other words the 1210 Gallery is kind of like a host for pop-up galleries. The 1210 Gallery’s upcoming July collection, will exhibit and sell the works of Paul Kauffman. The opening night reception will be July 8, and on every Saturday through July, Kauffman will be doing live demonstrations at the gallery. “[Kauffman’s] progression [over the past year] is fantastic,” said Flaherty, “he conveys a lot of emotion, happiness and anger. He did a fantastic piece on his anger about what has been happening to the Syrian refugees.” The 1210 Gallery is located at 5745 La Jolla Blvd., for more information you can call the gallery at 858-831-8669, email [email protected], or visit 1210gallery.com.