Artist loses his salon with closing of Sea Gull Gallery

Jessica Johnson
The Post and Courier

The Sea Gull Gallery will host a farewell open house 6-8 p.m. Oct. 29 before closing Oct. 31.

Jessica Johnson
The Post and Courier

Jim Meyer

Jim Meyer became a professional artist in high school, sketching charcoal portraits during the Depression.

He set up his easel at the county fair and people gathered round. Each profile took about 20 minutes and he charged them a dollar.

"A dollar wasn't very much in 1938. Things were cheap, but you didn't get paid much either," Meyer said.

The now-retired Mount Pleasant engineer, who is 87, said he had a choice after graduating from a high school in La Porte, Ind. He could attend the Art Institute of Chicago or study engineering at Indiana's Purdue University.

"I heard about the starving artists living in garrets, so I decided to go to engineering school."

Sitting in the Sea Gull Gallery on Coleman Boulevard, where Meyer displays prints of his original acrylic works, Meyer said he made the right decision.

"I probably wouldn't be here. I'd be so thin you couldn't see me," Meyer said laughing.

When the Sea Gull Gallery closes Oct. 31, making way for a five-story office building, the chapter of Meyer's life as a professional artist will close as well.

The gallery opened in 1975 to promote arts east of the Cooper. Member artists pay a monthly fee and 10 percent of any sale to pay the building's $500 per month rent. Each artist takes turns sitting at the gallery where Lowcountry scenes of pelicans, sand dunes, sea oats and Rainbow Row hang from battleship gray pegboards.

Meyer's wife, Sally, sits for her husband.

Some days, four people stop in; sometimes it might be 10.

"There's no guarantee," Sally Meyer said.

Just eight artists are left, but as many as 20 once participated.

Jim Meyer joined the consortium of artists in 1990 as an additional outlet to selling his work in art shows. He and his wife drove two cars loaded with prints of the favorites "The Netmaker," "The Oyster Shuckers" and "Miss Edisto" once selling 1,000 prints in a single day.

"Those were the days," Sally Meyer said.

Now, the couple are physically unable to participate in art shows. When the gallery closes, any remaining prints will eventually go to his family.

The gallery will hold a farewell party 6-8 p.m. Oct. 29 and raffle $15, $100 and $200 coupons that would go toward any work in the building.

Reach Jessica Johnson at 937-5921 or jjohnson@postandcourier.com.