When Donna Guardino passed away at age 81 this past April, artists and fans alike mourned the extraordinary woman who created not only an artistic community, but also brought together a troubled Northeast Portland neighborhood. They also wondered what would become of her eponymous gallery, a landmark destination at the corner of NE Alberta Street and NE 30^th Avenue since 1997. 

“It’s been a real roller coaster without her,” says Gail Owen, Guardino’s longtime assistant and an artist herself. The future of Guardino Gallery and even the building it resides in, known as the Guardino Complex – home to Claudio Starzak Jewelry (silver & gemstones), Redbird Studio (card shop, stationary, hand silkscreened clothing), DarSalam Restaurant (Middle Eastern/Iraqi food) and Side Door Ceramic Gallery (functional ceramics) – remained unknown for months. 

Rumors started to swirl. 

Owen points out that, sadly, they had two years to plan for this eventuality. “I started working with her family to have a plan in place when Donna would no longer be able to run the gallery herself,” says Owen. By 2020, she had taken over most of the administrative work behind the scenes. 

The Guardino family wanted to close the gallery, but Owen had also invested a lot into the artists, the business, and the website. She made the case that she’d like to keep the website alive, preserve Donna Guardino’s exhibition history online, and continue to support Portland area artists virtually, as the gallery’s online sales have grown since they first rolled out the online catalog of Guardino Gallery in 2020. 

That discussion continued through Donna’s passing on April 9, 2025 and into this past summer. Eventually an arrangement emerged in which the gallery will live on with a new identity and a new format. While Gail Owen will inherit Donna’s business, her agreement with the Guardino family is that they will retire the name Guardino Gallery at the end of the year. The final opening reception will be on Saturday, December 6 for a show of new felted wool “paintings,” bronze, and mixed-media sculpture by Susan Opie, alongside a retrospective selection of paintings by James Dowlen.

On January 1, 2026, the space will relaunch as GO Gallery, a melding of the names Guardino and Owen. Owen will continue to use the “Guardino green,” Donna’s signature color, to offer continuity, but some well-loved traditions from the past will not continue, including “The Toy Show,” “Little Things,” and “The Day of the Dead Show.” Even with the help of volunteers, a one-person gallery cannot sustain the volume of those special shows. “The Little Things” is a holiday show with over 1,000 pieces of artwork, all of which have to be catalogued, then it would take hours to do the books every morning, just to catch up with the artwork sold online. While she knows those popular shows will be missed, Owen hopes other changes at the gallery will gratify fans of the specialty shows.

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GO Gallery moves online

Owen has an extension to rent the physical space at least through March 2026. “I’ll still be rotating the two main gallery rooms, just like we always have, but we won’t be using the pedestals in the back room.” She plans to sell them to Daria Loi at Imperfecta, a gallery focused on elevating women artists and underrepresented creatives. 

GO Gallery will be primarily focused on online sales, a direction Owen took Guardino Gallery during the COVID pandemic. Donna Guardino was used to running a gallery based on foot traffic, but Owen, who had left a career in aerospace, convinced her that a bigger step was needed. “I was finally able to convince her we needed to start publishing the shows online. I have worked on parts catalogue teams in my corporate past, so building a catalog for the gallery was easy for me,” says Owen. 

By 2021 they went fully digital with the Shopify app that was made to handle a catalogue and online sales for small businesses. “We also found that we could barcode everything, which made handling sales and bookkeeping paperless and almost effortless,” adds Owen. “We were shocked that 2021 was the best sales year in Donna’s gallerist career, even though tourism had not returned.”

On January 1, when GO Gallery subsumes the Guardino Gallery legacy, the online sales will continue without interruption. Using the Shopify app opened up a new online sales world for the gallery, one which continues to grow, with people buying art both locally and across the nation and beyond. An online customer can add one or more works of art to their cart, then pay immediately with a variety of payment options. They then have the option to pick up the artwork at the gallery or have it shipped directly to them. Online purchases are not limited to the current shows; shoppers can browse through all of the artists that Guardino Gallery exhibits and carries online. 

As if to prove the point, a man approached Owens. He had driven down from Whidbey Island, Washington, where he lives, to pick up an artwork he had bought online. Although Owen said she would have sent it to him, he points out that he is originally from Portland and was visiting family. Shopping online let him look at various works on the website and be able to purchase a piece as a gift before he came back home. 

Workshops, video podcasts, and more

In addition to focusing on online sales, Owen has plans to expand what the physical spaces can offer. She’s already presented art workshops and, when the back gallery is cleared of pedestals and artwork, she plans to offer more workshops led by some of the gallery’s most familiar artists, such as by needle felter Denise Slattery and painter Wayne Jiang. “Donna and I had the same zest about spreading the understanding about method, material and craftsmanship,” notes Owen.

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The gallery also plans to continue offering online YouTube interviews with artists such as David Nez and artist talks with Brian Borello.

She is also considering an online resale gallery, which will offer customers an opportunity to resell artwork which they had purchased in the past, but which no longer fit their spaces or their lifestyles. 

“If, in the future, I don’t have walls, I can do things like go to Nanette Wallace and say, ‘Hey, let’s catalog everything in your shop. We’ll broadcast it nationwide. We’ll do a live broadcast of your artist talk. We’ll invite people and give them champagne and orange juice and have an afternoon of it, and then I’ll broadcast you for the month,’” says Owen. 

A continuing legacy in an uncertain future

During these past months, when the future of the gallery was up in the air, Owen wasn’t ready to give up on this place or on the other business in the Guardino Complex, some of which have been there for 18 years. 

The gallery has been a staple of the artistic community and of the neighborhood for years. It’s part of the Alberta Arts District, Last Thursdays, and an integral part of the neighborhood identity. 

“Donna talked about the sacrifice you make as an artist to be a gallerist. You can’t be both,” notes Owen. “So Donna really did quit making her own art because of the gallery. Now I have had to stop my own process, producing my own work, in order to keep the gallery going. I had to quit about two years ago when Donna needed more of my help, so my whole printmaking artwork life is on hold until further notice, because of how big this job is.

“I almost feel like I’m taking one for the team, that we are holding strong, because we don’t know what the future is,” adds Owen. And, after March, the future once again, is up in the air. 

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“The Guardino family is putting the building on the market in the spring,” she notes. “The next buyer [of the building] could be altruistic and just want to keep us here.” A new buyer would also be buying a 100-year old building with 100-year old problems. “So why run? I don’t want to lose this opportunity. This has been here for so long. This has so much effort and love put into it.” 

Preserving a legacy and beyond

“You know why Donna and I got along?” mused Owens. “Because I agreed with her absolutely. We had no quarrels and it was just a real pleasure.”

She points out the irony that Guardino Gallery was featured in The New York Times Travel Section in a 36-hour visit to Portland story that featured her four months too late. “I thought, ‘Way to go, Donna.’ Ironic, yeah.”

“I’m just a layman, but there’s something here that I really like. Everything’s going on, thank you,” Owen adds. “Yeah, I’ve got three extra months, and I might be able to still keep going. I’m trying to be creative about it. Who knows where it might grow?”

Upcoming exhibits and workshops

Saturday, December 6 – Opening Reception for James Dowlen (Paintings) & Susan Opie (Felted Wool & Bronze Sculpture) | 3:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Guardino Gallery presents new felted wool “paintings,” bronze and mixed-media sculpture by Susan Opie, alongside a retrospective selection of paintings by James Dowlen. Join the gallery for an evening celebrating two distinctive Northwest artists and their richly crafted works.

• December 12 – Needle Felting for Beginners with Denise Slattery | 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
• December 13 – Artist Talk | James Dowlen (Paintings) & Susan Opie (Felted Wool & Bronze Sculpture) | 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
• December 14 – Needle Felting for Beginners with Denise Slattery | 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
• December 20 – Letterpress Event by Printer Olivia Nogueira-Wheaton: Print Your Own Holiday Cards | 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
• December 30 – Last Day to see James Dowlen (Paintings) & Susan Opie (Felted Wool & Bronze Sculpture) | 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
• Feb 28-March 1, 2026 – Wayne Jiang Workshop: Spring Floral Acrylic Painting in Classical Realism Style | 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
• March 28-29, 2026 – Wayne Jiang Workshop: Explore Color Recipes in Still-Life Paintings | 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM