DIY art gallery Chairstation offers a place for everyone

Options are limited for young or new artists trying to display their work in Lansing. The closure of the Lansing Art Gallery last year winnowed choices even further.

There are a handful of galleries, like the MSU Broad Art Museum, (SCENE) Metrospace and smaller, more curated spaces, but it usually comes down to who you know.

Without connections, young artists are left to apply to few-and-far-between open calls for art. Those open calls might not fit an artist’s medium (murals, sculptures, etc.), they may require an application fee, or they might be too intimidating for someone just starting out.

Abbey Behan knows the feeling. She graduated from Michigan State University a few years ago with a degree in packaging and studio art and committed to being an artist in Lansing. 

When looking for spaces to display her art, she struggled to find accessible galleries. The Broad and (SCENE) Metrospace are both tied to the university, and she wanted something more community-oriented. 

“I was kind of just waiting around, and nothing happened,” she said. “So, I figured I might as well start doing something.”

She worked in galleries as a student and had dreams of running her own, but “that felt like a bit of a pipe dream,” she said.

However, she took a leap of faith and opened Chairstation, a DIY exhibition space in the Cedar Street Art Collective that doubles as her work studio. 

Born out of Behan’s desire to build connections with artists and audiences, the gallery embodies the “do-it-yourself” spirit, offering a space for young artists to display their work without added pressure. 

“I’m more focused on creating community compared to having this hierarchy in artwork,” Behan said. 

The gallery’s name comes from a sculpture that sits in Behan’s living room. 

“I kind of started falling in love with the chair just as an object,” she said. “It showed up a lot more in my work as a repetition.”

Bouncing ideas off a friend (“Cloud Space” was a contender at one point), Behan settled on Chairstation. 

“It just rolled off the tongue really nicely,” she said. 

Since the first open call to artists in May 2025, Behan has hosted a dozen group and solo exhibitions. Some group shows have themes, and others don’t, but Behan curates them all to be as inclusive and welcoming as possible. 

The list of requirements for submissions is short. Artists must be over the age of 18 and can submit up to three pieces that fit through a standard-sized door. Behan said open calls are for both novice and experienced artists.  

“If I think it will fit the show, I’d love to have it,” she said. “I really try not to turn people away.”

Casually walking into an art gallery can be daunting for people unfamiliar with contemporary art. Chairstation is for those people, the ones who don’t know where to start or think art is limited to huge galleries protected by lasers and pressure plates. 

“It’s for the artists to celebrate their work,” Behan said, “but also for people to get exposure to stuff that’s different than what they’ve seen.”

Since Chairstation is a one-person operation, Behan coordinates art drop-offs, prepares the exhibition and sets up the reception. She also covers the costs of running the gallery herself, removing the financial obstacle some artists face. 

“I want people to be able to find each other and the richness of art,” she said.

While open calls are for everyone, Behan typically handpicks artists for solo shows. Whether it’s through networking or on social media, she said she looks for people who will “do something exciting and interesting with the space.”

Exhibitions usually run for five days, and because Behan balances operating the gallery with working her full-time job, there isn’t a set schedule. She said the most recent open call, focused on art about the body, had so many submissions that she decided to add a second show at the end of September. 

“There were kind of two different themes within the works that were showing up in the submissions,” she said.

What once seemed like a pipe dream has developed into a grassroots effort to nurture the contemporary art scene in Lansing. There’s more to art than Van Gogh and da Vinci, something Chairstation is proving with each new exhibition. 

“There’s a lot of really exciting and unknown underground art that’s happening in our own community that would be really cool to have exposure to,” Behan said. “It’s for everyone.”