Carrollwood Artist Creates Spaces for Art Using Shipping Containers

Necessity, the saying goes, is the mother of invention. In Mishou Sanchez' life, it also is the impetus for creating affordable, alternative spaces, as demonstrated by the Modern Bohemian Art Gallery on display at the annual Winthrop Arts Festival March 23-24 in Riverview.

The Carrollwood artist and architect talked about her drive to be at the forefront of a movement that brings affordable, portable, commercial space to complexes ideally suited to provide land on a limited basis while construction is evolving.

"Why not have a portable metal space that can exist on a limited basis that benefits both the existing businesses and the small business owner?" she asked.

At the 2013 Winthrop Arts Festival such a space was on display, created out of metal shipping containers. The so-called "Modern Bohemian Art Gallery" will remain on display at the Winthrop Town Centre temporarily.

For Sanchez, the idea dates back to a thesis she finished in 2008 for a master's degree in architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles.

"My thesis was based on shipping containers, how life was becoming faster and required more portability," she said. "It morphed into rethinking retail space."

Shipping containers, crafted out of corrugated steel to be air- and water-tight, are a green-building source, she said. "They're cheap, and they're piling up," she added.

Inside the makeshift art gallery were works of art by both Sanchez and other artists.

"I use recycled paint from garbage dumps and I make my own paints," she said. "I mix pigments and waxes and you can make your own charcoal, too. You take willow and burn it in a paint can.

"I've been really poor, so you have to make sure your art can survive with any means possible," she said.

That thinking led to reusing and repurposing metal containers and space.

"It started out at my house," she said. "I converted my home into a gallery because I couldn't afford retail space."

That evolved into the use of shipping containers, for which Sanchez was a finalist for a Guggenheim Fellowship grant.