It’s Friday afternoon and Chris Cooley walks through the back entrance of 9 North King Street in Leesburg, Va. He makes his way past a storage room, housing blocks of clay, pottery, machinery and bags of trash, and steps into his new, renovated art gallery. It’s a big night – “First Friday” – and Cooley is preparing, and christening, his space for visitors, due to arrive in an hour.
He’s swapped his usual baseball cap and paint clothes for a buzz cut, a sweater and a tie, but he gets on the floor anyway and starts sweeping the front room, scraping up drywall dust and the extra debris still visible after his months of work.