Harrison Gallery

Harrison Gallery is at 825 White Street, and it is Helen and Ben Harrison's, independently, since 1986. The work to look for first is Helen's. She trained in art school and then learned the craft properly the hard way, spending the mid-1970s in Costa Rica building a thirty-eight foot sailboat by hand using traditional wood techniques she taught herself. She and Ben sailed and lived aboard it for eleven years, tied up for a while at what is now Truman Waterfront Park, and when they came ashore in Key West in 1979 she applied the hand and power tool skills from the boat to sculpture. She works from the island's own raw materials, and the results are smooth, organic and strongly physical. She makes jewelry by hand too.

Ben is the other half of the operation, as co-founder, technical adviser, musician and author. He played his first Key West gig at Two Friends on his second day on the island, and he has written books including "Undying Love," an account of a true Key West story, and "Sailing Down the Mountain." The gallery began earlier in the 1980s as a combined music store and gallery, which is why music has never quite left the building.

Beyond the Harrisons' own work, the gallery curates a substantial roster of other artists, running to around thirty names and including nationally collected wood artists alongside painters and makers from across the country and overseas. Helen's own description of what the gallery has been for her: "this gallery has been my door to the world, given all the artists I've shown from everywhere."

They run a season of shows with openings roughly monthly through the winter, usually with music attached, so the schedule is worth checking before you plan a week. The gallery keeps afternoon hours Monday through Saturday and will open by appointment, which is a useful option given the window is a short one.