Thank you to
Our Local Sponsors!

If you’ve followed my work, you know I’m fascinated by how communities preserve their heritage, stories, and how they share them with visitors to their town. In Calabash, Sunset River Gallery does all three of those parts and does so by redefining what you expect from your everyday, rural coastal town.

While Calabash is a village best known for its maritime heritage (and it's incredible seafood), this beautifully unassuming local gallery opens up into a massive, 10,000-square-foot creative haven. Samantha, the Gallery Director, has curated an incredible space where they showcase over 125 active artists from across the Carolinas. With its fine art corridors, rotating artist spotlights, local jazz nights, and a fully equipped pottery studio never ceasing to bustle with activity in the back, Sunset River Gallery really stands as a living, breathing part of the town. I find it to be a place that really cares for the people who live in this town. While they have artists from outside of Calabash, they keep the interior filled to the brim with local artists who want to create and capture the uniqueness of this tiny coastal community, and soul of the region.

What makes Sunset River Gallery a vital stop on your next visit isn't just the spectacular artwork (even though there's no way you're leaving without a piece), it's how the space functions as a anchor for connecting the local community. It serves as a warm, welcoming hub where newcomers and retirees can immediately find their people, and it regularly rallies the creative ecosystem in order to host major fundraisers for local and regional charities. So whether you are simply stopping through to grab dinner at the docks or searching for a piece of local history to take home with you, I'm telling you now, you've got to experience it firsthand.
Art is the language we use to build a home and share our collective stories, and you feel that warmth the moment you walk through their doors. And make sure to check out the documentary I did on the gallery where you can dive even deeper into this incredible "Happy Place" for so many!