Carolyn Velletri and Cindy Gilmer, the volunteer curators of Trillium Gallery, sent this update and appeal to “artists and enthusiasts” on January 7. Contact: trilliumgallerytnfw@gmail.com. (Edited for brevity and clarity.)
Happy New Year from the Trillium Gallery! Our two-year anniversary seems like a good time to give everyone an update and to talk about our path forward.
As of November 1st 2025 Trillium Gallery marked the end of its second year of operations. What started as an experiment has turned into a resounding success. Over the past two years we have had over 50 local artists exhibit in the Trillium Gallery.
Our first-year revenues were $8,345 and our second-year revenue grew to $11,074. Our partner, The Nature Foundation at Wintergreen, gets 30 percent and our local artists get 70 percent of sold artwork, so everyone benefits. Numerous compliments on what a good addition the gallery is to our mountain community spur us along. We are very proud of our accomplishments thus far.
Trillium Gallery’s September 2025 show spotlighting the work of local artist LaVel Rude was featured in the WBB.
We have visions of where the gallery can go from here:
We want to drive foot traffic.
We want to increase our roster of artists. We added solo shows in 2025 which did very well and we would like to continue to mix things up with different show formats.
We want a web presence.
And our list goes on. We are victims of our own success. The gallery is outgrowing us. We try to make it look easy, but it's a lot of work. If we want to continue to maintain and grow the Trillium Gallery we need help.
We would like to avoid a formal structure, but rather build a committee of helper volunteers to take it to the next level. We’ve put some thought into this and believe we need two to five volunteers, some with specific skills and some more general. Here’s what we need:
“If we want to continue to maintain and grow the Trillium Gallery we need help.”
Marketing support: Our artist “meet and greets” do well but we need to drive more foot traffic at other times. We have a good group of artists, but we need to continue to expand to backfill for attrition. We need someone who can help with marketing messages and partnerships with other organization to help spread the word.
Technical support: We need a web presence. We are outgrowing our Gmail mailing list and will soon need a mailer app. We need support for operations. We need someone who can help build and maintain our technical infrastructure creatively and within our very small budget.
Guest Curators: Occasionally we need someone with a good artistic eye to help curate and hang shows, especially when Carolyn or Cindy has a schedule conflict that prevents their participation.
General Support: We need people to help staff art drop off and pick up. If we can get the right person we might even be able to have locations off the mountain which will help some of our artists who can’t always find time to drive up the mountain. We need support for planning and holding meet and greet receptions.
Please contact us at trilliumgallerytnfw@gmail.com and let us know how you can help. We are looking forward to building a team that can make Trillium Gallery better, stronger, and sustainable.
