A Walk Through the Gallery’s History

I’ve been doing something lately that isn’t particularly glamorous: cleaning up the SEO on the Angi D Wildt Gallery website.

That has meant going page by page through years of artwork, artists, events, Artwalks, descriptions, photographs, and old announcements—deciding what should remain searchable, what needs updating, and what no longer serves much purpose.

I expected it to be website maintenance.

Instead, it became a walk through history.

Some of the old event pages are simple announcements from another time. Others have become little time capsules, preserving artists, artwork, gallery spaces, and moments I had nearly forgotten.

One stopped me in my tracks.

Reflections, a group show at my original gallery in Seaside, opened for Art Walk on March 7, 2020.

The exhibition brought together artists working in different mediums, all inspired by reflections along the Oregon Coast and other bodies of water. Dave Bartholet, Richard Burke, DC Yorksie, Ty McNeeley, Quata Cody, Christine Kende—and me—were part of the show.

Looking at that page now, the date carries a significance it couldn't possibly have had when I typed it into the website.

March 7, 2020.

Within days, COVID-19 would begin changing daily life in ways none of us could have imagined. Businesses closed. Events stopped. Plans disappeared from calendars. Like so many small businesses, the gallery entered a period for which there was no roadmap.

I had already picked a remarkably difficult time in history to open an art gallery. Angi D Wildt Gallery began in Seaside in 2018. I spent 2019 building it, finding artists, learning, experimenting, holding Art Walks and slowly creating an identity for the gallery.

Then came 2020.

Of course, I didn't know any of that when we held Reflections. The old event page doesn't know it either. It simply announces a group show and lists the artists who were going to be there.

That's what makes it such a time capsule.

As I've continued through the website, I've found more of these markers: the early Seaside gallery, artists I worked with years ago, exhibitions and Art Walks I'd forgotten about, the move to Astoria, new artists arriving, familiar artists returning, and the gallery gradually becoming what it is today.

It has changed my mind about some of these old pages.

From an SEO standpoint, not every old event deserves to remain in search results forever. Some are little more than outdated announcements, and I'm cleaning those up. But others tell a piece of the gallery's story. They document real exhibitions, artists, places and moments that existed here.

Those I'm keeping.

Seven-plus years into this adventure, I don't often stop and look at the whole road behind me. Running a gallery tends to keep your attention on what needs to happen next—the next piece to photograph, the next artist page to update, the next Artwalk, the next person who walks through the door.

Apparently, it took an SEO cleanup to make me turn around.

And I'm glad I did.