- May 6, 2024
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J. J. Graham opened Hollingsworth Gallery in 2009. In 2011, he plans to expand his space and create a real art community in Palm Coast.
Today, J.J. Graham owns Hollingsworth Gallery, but in 2002, he was an artist in Mississippi without a space. When Denise Dengler listed her downstairs studio as a space for rent, Graham jumped at the opportunity.
He helped fix up the space and together Graham, Dengler and another artist set up a temporary gallery.
“The show looked good, very professional,” Dengler said. “The comment when people came in was, ‘This reminds me of a real art gallery in New York.’ It was a big space — each piece has its own space to breathe. It didn’t look like a bargain basement art sale.”
Graham sold quite a few paintings that night, but the gallery had to shut down because of fire codes.
“This proved to him that he can survive with his art,” Dengler said of Graham.
After the big show, Graham stayed and painted in Dengler’s basement studio for a while and eventually began teaching with her at a college-for-kids program.
Dengler said: “John lost his mother, and I lost a son so we had a joke: I was his art mom, he was my art son.”
Graham is hoping to bring the kind of creative space he had in Mississippi to Palm Coast in 2011, when he expands his gallery space to include studios available for artists to rent.
Graham and the gallery will not only provide art space for the community but will strive to help keep City Marketplace alive.
“From a socioeconomic point of view, where the artists are producing people will follow,” Dengler said. “Where people go, businesses will thrive.”
And Graham is already laying the foundation. On any given day, there are teenagers hanging around the gallery creating art.
“They just showed up one day, so then I had to make a decision: Do I let them stay?” Graham said. “The kids here need a place to hang out. I really think that it’s meaningful to me because if I were their age, I would be hanging out here.”
Graham has also had success teaching adults.
“He has been a tremendous friend to me,” said Betty Joe Sansbury, who took one of Graham’s painting classes. “I was not excited about living here, and J.J. encouraged me and opened me back up to painting. He made Palm Coast become a place that I’m really excited to live now and be a part of.”
Graham said he never set out to be a gallery owner, but he saw a need for an art center in Palm Coast.
Graham said: “It’s a miracle what happened here — every month that we stay alive.”
J.J. GRAHAM
Age: 34
Title: Owner, Hollingsworth Gallery; abstract impressionist painter
Number: 24 — Graham’s magic number
