The gallery hallway is lined with tiny canvases, some splotches of paint and some with animals, little figures and one with a cigarette sticking out of it.
“This is our community wall,” said Annie Anglim, Cause and Affect Gallery owner. “Everyone that comes in is able to do a painting to add to the wall.”
Cause and Affect Gallery, located in downtown Fenton, the gallery’s purpose is to “take various causes” and have an “affect in the greater community.” The gallery which has been opened for over four years and combines art and purpose within the community.
The gallery was originally created to open to accommodate a friend who wanted to learn silversmithing from Anglim but was in a motorized wheelchair with multiple sclerosis. Anglim sought out a gallery in which she could “accommodate people with different needs.”
“It took me a while to be able to find space that would work,” said Anglim. “ Once I did, I stumbled on this location. I wasn’t prepared to do anything else…but I walked in here and I saw the possibilities.”
Anglim’s gallery was created to have an effect on the community.
“Our purpose here is we want people to think we want that ripple effect,” Anglim said “We take on hard topics that nobody else wants to necessarily think about or talk about, but we do through art because art is a common denominator. “
Forms of art used vary from silversmithing, watercolors, paint, fused glass and more displayed within.
The gallery has held exhibitions that spanned across from school shootings, violence against women and most recently “Fallen Heroes,” which honors soldiers who died in combat, artists took on portraits of the soldiers to display and to give back to the families.
“I had a 22-year-old,” said Marcia Boven Perez, an artist for Cause and Affect Gallery. “I kept thinking he died so darn young, he didn’t get to experience life.”
The exhibit was used to honor the soldiers who died in combat and the members of the families while also symbolizing what Memorial Day means.
“This exhibit here was to make people actually aware of Memorial Day,” said Anglim. “And the Gold Star families that are left behind and honoring and respecting.”
Cause and Affect Gallery features artists from the local area, Michigan, national and international. Using a diverse panel of artists is what the gallery strives for.
“I’ve got nationally and internationally known people here as well,” said Anglim. “I make sure that I have a diversity of artists here so I have artists of color that I seek out as well as LGBTQ.”
The gallery offers a lot to customers and attendees who visit young and old but artists who walk into the gallery experience a lot.
“Being here in a gallery with such openness and creativeness,” said Boven Perez, who is an artist and works for the gallery. “You get to learn, you get to meet a lot of different people. Every time I come in, I see something different.”
Cause and Affect Gallery started off as a gallery to accommodate those of all different needs and spectrum but now the Fenton gallery offers much to their community and opens its doors everyday.
“One of the things that I’m always proud about is that wall that sits out there,” said Boven Perez. “I love coming in and seeing what the kids have done and how it’s grown from one point to where it is now … .”