Life Along the Streetcar with Tom Heath from The Heath Team Nova Home Loans

This week, we speak with Terry Etherton, owner of Etherton Gallery, an urban staple for 40 years in about to make a move.

Today is May 2nd, my name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to “Life Along the Streetcar”.

Each and every Sunday our focus is on Social, Cultural and Economic impacts in Tucson’s Urban Core and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about. From A Mountain to the U of A and all stops in between. You get the inside track- right here on 99.1 FM, streaming on DowntownRadio.org– we’re also available on your iPhone or Android using our very own Downtown Radio app.

Reach us by email [email protected] — interact with us on Facebook @Life Along the Streetcar and follow us on Twitter @StreetcarLife

Our intro music is by Ryanhood and we exit with a song from Jim Croce called “Photographs and Memories”. We’re going to start today’s show with a shot in the arm.

The Past and Future of Etherton Gallery

Our feature today is not in the theater but it is in the gallery realm. It is about Terry Etherton and the Etherton Gallery, which has been a staple of the downtown and urban core for about 40 years. Terry Etherton started his photography gallery at a place on 6, just off of Fourth Avenue. After about seven years, moved into downtown and he’s been in the same location ever since. We found out he was moving and we wanted to catch up with him to find out a little bit about his history and where we can find him once he has relocated.

Tom Heath
Good morning. It’s a beautiful Sunday in the Old Pueblo and you’re listening to KTDT Tucson. Thank you for spending a part of your brunch hour with us, on your downtown Tucson Community sponsored rock and roll radio station.

Tom Heath
This week, we speak with Terry Etherton, owner of Etherton Gallery, an urban staple for 40 years in about to make a move. Today is May 3rd. My name is Tom Heath. You’re listening to Life along the streetcar.

Tom Heath
Each and every Sunday, our focus is on social, cultural and economic impacts in Tucson’s Urban core and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about. From A Mountain to UArizona and all stops in between, you get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM, streaming on Downtown Radio. org. Also available on your iPhone or Android by using our very own Downtown Radio Tucson app.

Tom Heath
If you want to get us on the show, you can reach us by email Contact@Life along the streetcar.org. That’s the same URL we can find all of our past episodes. You can hit us up on Facebook and if you want to listen just to the podcast, you can find that just about anywhere podcast are listed even by asking your smart speaker to play Life along the streetcar podcast.

Tom Heath
And I want to start today’s show with a shot in the arm. If you are interested in getting a covid-19 vaccine, you are in luck. They are becoming more and more available, and there is less hassle to making those appointments. In fact, in partnership with Downtown Tucson Partnership and Fox Theater, there are vaccines available at the Fox Theater. Started last Friday, and will continue on the 7th and the 14th and they are what they call Pop Up clinics. So you can just walk in no appointment necessary. Fill out some paperwork, get a shot and this is the for the first shot only of the Moderna vaccine. The second shot will be administered in about a month at the same Fox Theater location and they will have three dates about a month after you get your first one.

Tom Heath
So this Friday, the 7th, next Friday, the 14th shot number one, Fox Theater, a month later shot Number two, Fox Theater. And it is all walk in no appointment necessary. I happen to go on Friday and the lines were virtually non-existent, service was great and appreciate them bringing that to the down town area. For more information, I recommend you head over to the downtown Tucson.org website, they’ve got a link for the covid-19 resources, one of which is Get Vaccinated. And those are all the locations across the city as well as the pop-up location at the Fox Tucson theater.

Tom Heath
Our feature today is not in the theater but it is in the gallery realm. It is about Terry Etherton and the Etherton Gallery, which has been a staple of the downtown and urban core for about 40 years. Terry Etherton started his photography gallery at a place on 6, just off of Fourth Avenue. After about seven years, moved into downtown and he’s been in the same location ever since. We found out he was moving and we wanted to catch up with him to find out a little bit about his history and where we can find him once he has relocated.

Terry Etherton
My name is Terry Etherton. I am the President and owner of Etherton Gallery in Tucson, Arizona.

Tom Heath
Not just Tucson, Arizona. But in downtown Tucson,

Terry Etherton
yeah, exactly.

Tom Heath
And looking at your history, you’ve been part of our your first location was on it wasn’t on 4th Avenue?

Terry Etherton
It was on 6th Street near 4th Avenue. Right now, there’s a business in there called How Sweet It Was. It’s a vintage shop. Okay. So that was my I was there from 81 to 88, my landlord Sal Segona who owns Caruso’s just past couple weeks ago, I lived to be a hundred years old. It’s a wonderful landlord.

Tom Heath
Yeah, we actually did a brief presentation on Sal and his history in Tucson. It’s quite a…

Terry Etherton
Yeah, he was a good man, their whole families. That’s a good family.

Tom Heath
They’ve been around since I think the 30s. So they another long-standing client here. But then you moved in, he said, 88, so you moved to your current location in downtown, and 88, or was there something in between?

Terry Etherton
Now and I opened, I opened here in the fall of 88. So, you know, we are for seven years at the other location and then moved in here in 88. So, we’ve been here 33 years now,

Tom Heath
Your gallery is primarily photography?

Terry Etherton
It’s primarily photography, but not exclusively. We started off the first I guess for five years as primarily a photo gallery, because that’s my background is film and photography. But you know, we quickly branched into other media because there were so many extremely talented artists in this area that really didn’t have a gallery. So we got approached pretty early about showing painting and prints and so forth. So, you know, within the first two or three years, we were showing a lot of different media, but people think of us mostly is a photo gallery because that’s how we started. And it’s also when we do art fairs around the world, we typically do photography fair, so people That see us out there in the world. See us as a photo gallery.

Tom Heath
And yousaid, this is part of your background. Are you? Are you a photographer or what?

Terry Etherton
Yeah, well, yeah, I went to, I went to school. I ended up getting drafted into the army right out of high school. And in Carbondale, Illinois, where as Southern Illinois, University is. I came back after the Army and went to Southern Illinois University and I got a degree, I was a double major Cinema and photography. So that was that’s what I did there. And then I left after I graduated from SIU, I moved to San Francisco and I got an additional degree there from something called the Center for Experimental and Interdisciplinary art. So that was a really great program at San Francisco State that allowed you to sort of write your own program. And, you know, I dabbled in everything from film and photography to theater and dance, and radio, and television. It was kind of a Whole media thing, it was really a great program.

Tom Heath
So being a practitioner, what drove you in 1981 to decide to open up a gallery to display?

Terry Etherton
Well, I had, I had spent almost a decade in San Francisco working primarily as a cinematographer. I got very, very good at shooting film, 16 millimeter film occasionally 35. Today, you would do everything that we did, then you would do it video. Now, you would never shoot film, but there was no video then. So, it was film. And I did a lot of training and Industrial films, and documentary films, and ended up owning my own equipment.

Terry Etherton
So, I could be hired out on a day basis, on a short notice and come fully equipped with a camera, tripods, magazines and everything. The last project I worked on in San Francisco, was one that we did for San Francisco General Hospital. And it involved interviewing prospective parents about what type of birth they wanted to have for there for the baby.

Terry Etherton
You can have a straight Hospital birth with the white lights and the slap on the butt or you could have a midwife birth at home or you could have the best of both worlds. We could have a midwife but in a hospital setting San Francisco, General Hospital, pioneered that in the late 70s. I mean now it’s everywhere. But they were the first hospital to really do that and they hired us to do a film to show to prospective parents the options that they had. So, I spent almost a year doing nothing but running all over the Bay Area. Filming childbirth, interviews before the birth in filming the live birth and then filming the parents reactions afterwards and that became a film. That’s might even be still used today. I’m not sure.

Terry Etherton
But anyway, got you. So what happened was that project just about killed me because I could not have a normal life. I would work for spare four days in a row with no sleep. And then nothing would happen for three days. And then do another to, you know, was not a way to have a good relationship and it was just kind of a schizophrenic. A frantic lifestyle. So I decided after that, that I just, I didn’t really want to do that anymore. And I’ve been traveling to Tucson between projects and staying with high school, friends of mine here. And one day I was sitting across the street at where was the Egg Garden over there on Fourth Avenue near the Dairy Queen and saw for rent Sign across the street, went over called the number Sal’s Sedona met me over there and I rented the space. For $235 a month.

Terry Etherton
I mean, I I basically opened the gallery on an Impulse in a kind of a whim without, you know, without any real good plan about about how to do what I was going to do. I went back to San Francisco after I signed that lease and I told my girlfriend I said hey we’re moving to Tucson her response was, you’re moving to Tucson, I’m not moving to Tucson. So she didn’t. I open the gallery and you know Of made it up. As I went along, the first few years were really tough because I’m not, I did not really understand what the summer man here because I never really spent a summer here. So, you know, the first summer was kind of a rude awakening about, you know, nobody was coming in the gallery and I didn’t have air conditioning.

Terry Etherton
And so I decided those first few years that I would not, wait for people to come to me, but I would go to them. And so back then in the early 80s, if you want to just see a museum curator, they probably weren’t going to come see me and there was no internet yet. So the only thing to do was to get in the car and drive and see them physically. So for three years in a row, the first three Summers, I loaded up my car and I drove from Tucson to st. Petersburg, Florida. All the way up to Boston across the Midwest and back. And I would stop at every Museum. I could along the way and, and show per, you know, show prints. And I was successful doing that enough to where, you know, I would sell stuff and it would give me just the next place in the Place when I started meeting all these people, some of whom I still deal with today. There are still curators are still around but those are really road trips really kind of set the groundwork for what would become you know my business.

Terry Etherton
And you know that I mean it was kind of I did a kind of out of necessity and I’ve told this story and I’ll just tell us briefly what I here’s what I did. I sat down with a map, I sat down with the Eastman house guide to photographic collections which at the time I’m was a little, a book that had a list of all the public collections that had photographs in the US, with the list of artists, like Ansel Adams, and how many prints and then the curators phone number. I mean, there was no email so you just call them. So, I had the easement house guide to photographic collections, a roadmap, a calendar, and a Major League Baseball schedule. I had two major league baseball schedule because I’m a really big baseball fan, and I always have made it a goal to see every to be in every single ballpark. So the first year for example, Which I went to 17 different ballparks while I was in Houston. You know showing work there I was in Denver Atlanta wherever I was so I would try to make sure that the team and that city was at home when I came through and so for three years that’s what I did. I did these epic road trips and that’s the a lot of baseball stadiums and you know, got my name out there.

Tom Heath
Doing some research, I mean you’ve got a connection with the antique. Roadshow, is that correct? Where you an appraiser?

Terry Etherton
Yeah, I did the Antiques Road Show a couple times, you know, as a photo expert, there’s a lot of fun. I mean, it’s an amazing company. Those guys are so well organized and they’re just such professionals. It was really fun to work with them but the only thing, the only downside to it is the once you do the Roadshow you’re on their website. And so I get still today, I get lots and lots of inquiries that are somewhat crazy like oh I have another great big picture of Billy the Kid and Stuff like that. Just the stuff that’s just the people think they have something really valuable when in fact they don’t and they don’t want to hear that. It’s not valuable. That’s not what they want to hear. So but the Roadshow is interesting, it’s sent me. I’ve made some clients and made some contact that way, you know, and I do probably do it again. They keep asking me but you know the way it goes as they ask you to go wherever they want you to go whenever they want you to go and they don’t nobody gets paid and nobody’s expenses are Covered, it’s purely voluntary. So like they, you know, they’ll tell me like, oh, yeah, we want you to go to Corpus Christi in July. I said, I don’t think so how about San Diego and January instead?

Tom Heath
know, like there’s no baseball in Corpus Christi in July, so I’m not going,

Terry Etherton
no, it’s terrible there. You know, it’s like this, it’s like, I guess I’m, you know, I’m not, I’m kind of one of the low man on the totem pole, as far as photo experts. So, they’ve offered me. Some stuff I’ve turned down, but if the right thing comes along, I’d be happy to do it again.

Tom Heath
Well, from Antique Road Show to downtown Tucson, we will be back to our interview with Terry Etherton in just a few moments. First, I want to remind you that you are listening to Life along the streetcar in downtown radio 98.1 FM and available for streaming on Downtown Radio dot-org.

Tom Heath
All right. Welcome back. We’re going to finish up our interview with Terry Etherton of Etherton Gallery and we heard his backstory. Now we’re going to hear about what the future holds for the gallery, including a move out of their Current location.

Tom Heath
You had mentioned earlier that you know, there’s things that you did that, you know, for technology and video and stuff you would never wouldn’t operate in the same manner. I mean, that’s, I would have to imagine that. I mean, your collections and how you curate has changed dramatically with the technology over the years.

Terry Etherton
Oh completely. I mean now, you know what I do. Now, what I spend most of my time on probably 95 percent of my time is spent in front of my computer, you know, answering emails sending out solicitations building up our Website, you know, all of the stuff that that we can do remotely, it’s become the location of a brick-and-mortar gallery. Now, has become less important that it was 10 or 15 years ago, because of the internet. And because of art fairs. Now, we haven’t done an art fair in almost two years, and I don’t know when we’ll do our next one, but those became really, really important. I was asked to join the association of international photography art dealers in 1985 and did my first, Michelle with them and I’ve done it every every year since until covid. So you know every year we’d be in New York on a stage with some really big time galleries you know on an equal footing so we were able to put ourselves out there in front of a huge audience.

Terry Etherton
We did Paris photo five years in a row in Paris. France, the last five November’s but that’s been put on hold also for those aren’t fears, really, really helped establish us. I mean Paris for example, if that’s adding Really hard show to get into and they get about 75 thousand people come through. So if you’re in that fair you there’s an instant, there’s an instant sort of assumption of credibility or you wouldn’t be there and, you know, those fairs have kept us going. You know, like I said now because the covid we haven’t done a fair and well, I guess probably been about a year and a half since we are last one. And I don’t see anything in this coming year either. So you know that my world’s changed that way we’re having but because we’re not doing these for three or four art fairs a year, we’re able to focus on other things like the website and we have we have a lot of material posted on onto big kind of umbrella websites one’s called Artnet and one called one’s called Artsy and those have really been important keeping us in the game because those are people, largely European, that find us on the internet and Occasionally buy things and you know that. So we put a big effort into this sort of thing while while you know the traffic is a little bit slow here and while we’re not doing our chairs.

Tom Heath
Well after eight years in the Fourth Avenue area, you moved downtown and I have been in that location now for 32 years, that’s kind of an iconic spot. I think, if you’re, if you’re driving up sixth, you’re going to recognize what was Janos, is downtown kitchen, and Cocktails, and the Etherton Gallery, you guys are. Occupied that building for some time together.

Terry Etherton
Yeah. Yeah, Janos was here for about 10 years, you know, and I have to say that was one of the best ten years for us. I could imagine there’s just not a better neighbor than Janos Wilder. I mean, we did a lot of collaborations together and, you know, we had all of our pre-opening dinners for artists down there and we hung our down there. We just had a great relationship together. So, you know, it’s kind of the end of the era of this building. I mean they left and we’re leaving and so You know, it’s been, it’s been a good 33 years here, you know, I a lot of things have happened here, hundreds of shows and, you know, just an incredible amount of things that have gone on here, but you know, it’s time, it’s time to move.

Tom Heath
Well, let’s talk about the new location because that seems in talking with you, it seems like it’s a much, it’s gonna be a fantastic space.

Terry Etherton
Well, I think I think so Tom the you know, the the situation here at the gallery is that you know, we don’t, we’re on the second floor walk-up. As you know, that is, as I get older and my clients, get older and are my artists get older, that’s become more and more of an issue. I mean, we get calls all the time and people say, you know, we’d like to come down as a wheelchair accessible and we have to say no. And then explain that, you know, we’re just tenants here were not the landlords, and we can’t afford a $200,000. So we are getting to the point where that was becoming more and more of an issue and I, you know, for the last four or five years, I’ve been looking to try to find a place close to where we are now. I don’t want to move out of downtown. I mean, I don’t care how great the space is, if it’s more than about a half mile from where I’m sitting right now, I’m just not interested but the problem with finding a space downtown, he’s a you can’t find a space downtown and even if you do the build-out is just Easy expensive on it.

Terry Etherton
So we are never able to find the right thing until this space of 340 South Convent became available about a year ago. I found out about it. The space on Convent was built in 1987 by a big big collector and wonderful human being named Bill small. He built that he built that space to house his collection to house it and put it on display. So it was set up as a gal. For his private collection and to have a lot of his collection on display and he would have openings and invite people. And so if almost a turnkey operation, it’s already tracked. Let you know it’s got a secure. It’s got a loading dock. It’s got a patio. It’s got a beautiful kitchen. There’s we don’t have a whole lot of build out to do in there. And fortunately, for us the rolling family have been unbelievably generous and kind with me. Allowing us to get into that space without spending a lot of money and giving us a chance to get established. So they without their generosity, there’s no way I’m a I would be able to make this move.

Tom Heath
It sounds like it’s going to be more accessible and a great space for the public to come see you.

Terry Etherton
Well yeah, and you see what’s going on down there, you know, the new double trees about to open, you know, and the coronets around the corner and you know, in that block that we’re and they’re renovating all of those buildings just, you know, just on the other side of the street from 340. So I just feel like that’s really the place to be right now, and we have parking for about 30 cars. So there’s no parking issues there.

Tom Heath
fantastic. And what’s what what do you project is the opening date?

Terry Etherton
Well, here’s our plan, Tom, we have to be out of this space, by the end of May. So what we’re going to do is close the gallery, the month of May and we will be moving during the entire month of May. During that time, once we get everything out of here that we can get into the other space whatever’s left, we’re just going to hit. We’re just going to sell off the furniture and have a big book sale and just clear a lot of stuff out in May. So may will be open, but it won’t be. It’ll be a little bit. Of, I don’t know if we’ll be in transition, let me put it that way. What we plan to do, then in the summer is, we’ll have a show up, people can come in, will be doing some build out, but not a lot. We hope to have most of the build-out done by by the end of May. And then we plan to open in the middle of September, which will be our 40th anniversary show. It will announce our new location and we’re doing a solo show by a Mexico artist, Joel Peter Witkin. Somebody we’ve worked with for decades.

Terry Etherton
So that’s the plan is to do a big big splashy thing in the fall. And hopefully by then, you know, I think that, you know, we can have an opening and the probably Mass required, but I’m hoping we can have a somewhat normal, kind of opening.

Tom Heath
Good, well, we caught you at the right time here. So you’ll be closed down for, well, not close, but you’ll be transitioning during may get anything snapping, and then, we’ll, we’ll certainly Touchback as we get closer to the fall. And, and share the details of that opening.

Terry Etherton
Yeah, for sure. I mean, we’re getting ready to produce a press release about a move, just telling everybody what’s going on.

Tom Heath
Great. And I appreciate that. And all of this effort to move, that you were very aware, very conscious of staying downtown and,

Terry Etherton
you know, listen, I know. I’m a downtown person, you know, I like to be able to walk and I like, I really like living in an urban setting. I mean, I know we have a lot of friends, a live up in the Foothills and I get all that, but I don’t want to have to get my car to go to the grocery store. No, something like that. So now, I mean now I feel like, you know, turning 70 with a new house and a new Gallery space. It’s all just like I mean I feel so energized by this I can’t tell you it’s almost I feel like a little kid again, you know, it’s all new and exciting and everything’s going very smoothly. And the nice thing about this is that the, because the Rawlings family have been unbelievably generous, we have time to do the gallery thing. I don’t feel I rushed, you know, like we have to just get everything out of here, all at once, we had plenty of time to do this slowly, so you know, that’s all working out really well.

Tom Heath
What you started in 1981, looks like it’s got some legs. So you should stick with it. I think it’s some point. You might have some success, you never know…

Terry Etherton
Well, you know, Tom, when I, when I started the gallery, I didn’t look further than like a year ahead. Because I, I mean, I, when I opened the gallery, I knew a little bit about a lot of things. I knew, I knew about lighting, I knew about Framing, and you about matting. I knew about graphic design, you know, I didn’t know, I wasn’t an expert in any of those areas, but I knew just enough about that to make me believe that I could do this on my own. It took me a while to figure out that I can’t do it on my own, and I needed help. And, you know, along the way, I’ve had tremendous help.

Tom Heath
It’s been a remarkable 40 years and look forward to the next chapter for Etherton Gallarey

Terry Etherton
We’re not going anywhere.

Tom Heath
Amen. Terry, thank you so much for your time and I wish you the best of luck. I can will certainly touch back as we get closer to your opening in September.

Terry Etherton
Okay, thanks a lot Tommy

Tom Heath
That was Terry Etherton of Etherton Galleries and I certainly appreciate his intentionality of finding a new spot and waiting for the right opportunity so he can keep his Gallery downtown and now that it’s there it sounds like it’s going to be a really good opportunity for the gallery to expand and attract even a new set of patrons.

Tom Heath
My name is Tom – you’re listening to lifelong the streetcar in Downtown Radio 99.1 FM and available for streaming on Downtown Radio.org.

Tom Heath
Well it’s going to do it episode number 149is in the books. Thank you to Terry Etherton given us the backstory in the future of Etherton galleries. Coming up next week, we’re going to have some folks on from the Presidio Museum. Been operating here in Tucson since 1776, just a short while, and they have come back after COVID with some activities for adults at a summer camp for the kids. So tune in next Sunday to learn more about that and as always, if you’ve got a topic for us please reach out to us on our Facebook page or send us an email contact at Life along the streetcar dot org and let us know what we should be sharing. We’re trying to uncover hidden gems. Sometimes they’re so hidden, we can’t even find him. So we are looking for your help. Well, we’re going to leave you today with some music in honor of the Etherton Gallery. This is a song from the 70s with Jim Croce. It’s a photographs and memories seems to fit very well with our Theme today. Well, my name is Tom Heath and you’ve been listening to Life along the streetcar and downtown radio and I hope you tune in next Monday for another exciting episode have a great week.

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