Lyle, in the Garden, with a Glass of Red
A sapphic night during Design Week, at a gallery in Chelsea
Photography by Kristina Shakht
There is a steel building on the corner of 23rd and 10th. It’s in the heart of the Chelsea gallery district. If I showed you a photo, you would recognize it if you’ve spent any time in that area of Manhattan. The High Line overlooks the second floor, and the second floor overlooks an outdoor sculpture garden.
My friend Isabel recently took over that second floor for her art gallery. If I showed you a photo, you would recognize her if you’ve spent any time following our projects this year. We have known each other for over a decade, and when people ask how we met, I usually tell them we met by being gay in the city, which is a completely acceptable answer for the wlw scene of NYC.
This year, Design Week overlapped with Art Week. What would it look like if we created a space for our community, queer, lesbian, nonbinary, trans, to find each other under the umbrella of the arts? A place to connect the people who work within art and culture to the people who love them.
Ren poured the wine. A sommelier on a mission to get more queer people into wine. Love. Sruti was there, an attorney at the ACLU, fighting for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ people across the country.
Sasha, who studied studio art, now builds economic and civic power for families facing rural poverty across East and West Africa. Feruza, a new friend. A professor of Soviet history, and also an actor. Yesim, a real estate broker who uses art and culture to celebrate the city and sell homes.
Lola was there, in from São Paulo. She just opened a new space for her gallery, AALVO. I’ve been dying to get down there to see it. Jona, a furniture designer, in town from Marfa. Tory and Michelle, newly engaged. Michelle just launched a dating app that runs on astrology. Very lesbian of her.
Olivia, who met Magdalena through the biotech world, is also a painter. Carly, a previous interior designer, now launching a fashion marketplace for people recovering from surgery or living with disability. Elena, a private wealth manager for LGBTQ+ clients, knew half the room already. That night, I met Colleen, a doctor and physical therapist who treats performers. We bonded over a love of watching people on a stage.
Interior designers like Emillie, meeting gallery directors like Candace, meeting founders like Trina, meeting photographers like Alexa.
Allison, who just got back from a month-long artist residency in Arizona, told me it was the first party all week where she’d met people who weren’t in design.
If you visited Lyle Gallery’s first space in Chinatown, I’m sure I showed you Secret Room™, the back room hidden by a built-in bookshelf. We had grand plans of throwing big lesbian poker nights in there. I imagined it in the aesthetic of In the Mood for Love, with monogrammed visors and a swanky jazz playlist. We never got to live out that dream before we left Rutgers Street and went nomadic. But, and hear me out, what about Lyle, in the Garden, with a Royal Flush?
Photography by Kristina Shakht