The Grace Gallery

In the Cahaba Heights neighborhood of Vestavia Hills, a small storefront next to Murphrey’s on Dolly Ridge Road holds what artist Shannon Harris calls her happy place. The Grace Gallery is both a working studio and a retail gallery, built around Harris’s own abstract paintings and the classes she teaches out of the same space she paints in.

Harris opened the gallery in April 2018, a date she has noted falls close to the anniversary of the 2011 tornadoes that tore through the Birmingham area. She has spoken openly about the personal difficulties, including foreclosure, divorce, and single motherhood, that led her back to painting in the first place, working in loose color-block abstractions while her young son slept. What began as a private outlet eventually became a public gallery, and then a studio where other people could come learn the techniques she developed on her own.

Original Work on the Walls

The gallery’s inventory centers on Harris’s paintings, which lean toward soft, hazy fields of blue, gold, and cream applied with unconventional tools like plastic scrapers rather than traditional brushes. Several ongoing series run through her body of work, including skyline paintings of Birmingham and other Southern cities, landscapes, and a rotating set of abstract pieces. The gallery also carries textiles and pillows featuring her designs, giving visitors a range of price points beyond an original canvas.

Because the space doubles as her studio, visitors to The Grace Gallery are often seeing work in progress rather than a static showroom. That working-studio feel is part of the draw for people who want to watch a painting take shape or ask questions about technique directly from the artist rather than a gallery representative.

Classes for Kids and Adults

Harris teaches a regular slate of art classes out of the gallery, ranging from children’s birthday parties and lessons to private adult painting sessions. Some of her adult classes are structured around loose, abstract techniques using the same unconventional tools she favors in her own work, and she has described certain group sessions as a kind of informal therapy, a chance for participants to slow down and work with their hands in a low-pressure setting.

That therapeutic angle extends beyond the regular class schedule through Chord and Canvas, an outreach program Harris runs that pairs art and music sessions for people dealing with stress, grief, or recovery. Sessions take place both at the gallery and off-site at rehabilitation centers, hospitals, and other community spaces, and a portion of proceeds from gallery sales helps fund the program.

The gallery keeps a modest, appointment-friendly schedule, open Tuesday through Saturday for regular hours with Monday available by appointment. That structure suits a business built around one artist’s practice rather than a large retail operation, and it gives visitors who want a longer conversation about a piece, or a custom commission, room to schedule time with Harris directly.

For a neighborhood like Cahaba Heights, which has grown steadily busier with restaurants and shops in recent years, The Grace Gallery offers something a little different from the usual retail mix: a working artist’s studio where the paintings on the wall were made a few feet from where they hang, and where a first-time visitor can walk out with either a finished piece or the beginnings of a new skill. It is a small operation by design, shaped around Harris’s own practice and her interest in sharing it, and that scale is part of what gives the gallery its particular character within Vestavia Hills.

Visitors planning a trip should call ahead, particularly for weekday visits, since the gallery’s hours are limited and classes can occupy the space during open hours.