With support from the California Arts Council, LRC Studio will fund the operational costs of our brick and mortar hub, Personal Space, located in Vallejo, CA. Personal Space collaborates with local artists and organizations to present free workshops, exhibitions, performances, readings, and youth programs. Our first 6 exhibitions feature artists from Vallejo, the Bay Area, and abroad, with a focus on centering BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists, and artists with disabilities.
The CAC grant will support LRC Studio’s operational costs at Personal Space: rent, utilities, advertising, and insurance, as well as compensation for our gallery associate, accessibility consultant, outreach specialist, director, and guest curators.
Personal Space is committed to equitably compensating people we work with. We cover shipping costs for non-local artists, and we keep only 30% of gallery sales, relying significantly on donations and grants.
Personal Space Projects Inc has engaged in arts programming in the Bay Area since 2003. As co-founder of Hayes Valley Market, our Director Lisa Rybovich Cralle collaborated with Matt Gonzalez and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in transforming a vacant corner-store into a vibrant hub for free cultural public programming. Between 2003-04 HVM served as a platform for emerging local artists, writers and musicians through readings, concerts, and monthly exhibitions.
Personal Space Projects Inc continues to organize free workshops/events for artists and their communities, previously in San Francisco and Oakland and now in Vallejo. We also produce arts workshops for adults with developmental disabilities in collaboration with Creativity Explored and NIAD. Cralle has provided guest curatorial services to Bay Area galleries and institutions for 18+ years, and curates Berkeley City College’s Visiting Artist Lecture Series.
The ongoing PSP project, Heavy Breathing, is a series of experimental artist workshops exploring the possibilities of “critical somatics” or thinking with and as bodies. Established in 2015, Heavy Breathing is supported by Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure Award and has partnered with SFMOMA, the Berkeley Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Bangkok Biennial in the presentation of workshops by over 40 Bay Area artists, including: Brontez Purnell, Stephanie Syjuco, Xandra Ibarra, Sofía Córdova, Leila Weefur, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr, Claudia LaRocco, and Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork.
Personal Space Gallery, our organization’s hub, is the permanent brick and mortar extension of Cralle’s decades-long involvement in Bay Area arts. Our exhibitions and programs present work by emerging, under-recognized, and mid-career artists. The gallery’s back room offers works on paper, artist books, zines, t-shirts, sculptures, and artist editions. Our opening events serve upwards of 2000 visitors annually. Our artist interview podcast, The Spinning Wheel, debuts in 2025.

