Bainbridge Arts and Crafts is scaling back, and Eagle Harbor Book Company is expanding.

The non-profit art space on Winslow Way, comprised of a retail storefront and two fine-art galleries, has relinquished 500 square feet next to the bookstore in a deal brokered by the building owner.

In exchange for the square footage, the financially troubled BAC will get reduced rent, according to director of information Susan Jackson.

“We were originally going to give away the third gallery, too,” Jackson said, “but the landlord lowered the rent.”

The 54-year-old art space has been feeling the pinch of hard economic times with slow sales, said Susan Levy, BAC board member.

“We noticed it around the first of the year,” Levy said. “Gallery sales are down 30 percent from last year at this time, and people are buying lower-priced items.

“We’re trying to find ways to sell artists’ work.”

With the bookstore slated to move in by Aug. 23, BAC board members – who endorsed the move in a meeting early last week – have already moved out furniture and files.

“We had really hoped July would finally turn the tide in terms of sales,” board vice-president Gail Temple said. “When it did not, we had to make quick decisions.”

As volunteers worked, photographer Jim Laser’s one-man exhibit, slated to be up through September in the back gallery, became a de facto storage area.

“I was disappointed that they couldn’t wait,” Laser said. “If you have to do this and it has to happen, you don’t go into the middle of the show. Artists invest time and money in a space.”

Levy said that major shows slated for the still-intact middle gallery space will go on as scheduled.

Artists who signed contracts for upcoming shows in the far gallery now have less space, and will share that with retail items.

“Certainly there are some artists who will object,” Levy said. “We will work with those artists.”

To reduce costs, BAC will cut programs for the upcoming year.

The art apprenticeship program, annual $500 grants to public school art teachers and special art projects are temporarily suspended.

Business manager Marian Holt McLain has taken a cut in salary and is also volunteering some hours.

It’s the second blow to for the arts organization in as many weeks.

The upcoming Auction for the Arts fund-raiser, from which BAC earned some operating revenues, was cancelled because of projected skimpy proceeds.

New fund raising and membership drives will be initiated in the fall, however, and sponsors sought for exhibits. Other policy changes and space alterations are intended to increase revenues, according to Levy.

BAC will now show retail with fine art exhibits in one of the exhibition galleries.

But individual artists will have to give the gallery a bigger cut. The split – 60 percent of proceeds of sales to the artist, 40 percent to the gallery – will now be 50-50.

Some long-time gallery supporters say the policy changes indicates a shift in philosophy that predates the current economic crisis.

Kathleen Thorne, who left her post as BAC education coordinator in June 2001, points to the increasingly business-like tone of the organzation.

Thorne’s successor, Mary Louise Ott, who left BAC in late July after 11 months to pursue her own artwork, agrees.

“A huge area of conflict is the difference between a nonprofit and a business,” Ott said. “There is a huge gray area here. While even a nonprofit has to make enough to keep the doors open, it is guided by a mission that is fundamentally different than a business.”

Ott points to the shift away from having retail sales support the exhibit space – enabling fine art to be shown, in support of the nonprofit’s mission to “educate” – toward a policy that all aspects of BAC be self-supporting.

Artistic director Janice Shaw, who is on a leave of absence from the gallery through January, agees with Ott that there has been a board shift in focus and direction and adds:

“Bainbridge Arts and Crafts has the advantage of an arts-loving community and many talented artists.

“If the board can work through its current financial problems and allow staff to return to the core mission of arts education and artists’ support, we can expect a positive outcome.”