New Growth (exterior “sign”) by Lena Gustafson, 2023. Personal Space logo designed by Kim West / ALTR Studio.
Visit
1505 Tennessee Street
Vallejo, CA 94590
Sundays 11-3 and by appointment*
*We do not have open hours when we are between shows. Please check exhibition dates.
Email us to visit during off-hours:
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About Personal Space
Personal Space is an artist-run gallery and community arts organization in Vallejo, CA, one of the country's most diverse and under-served cities. Founded in 2023, our exhibitions and public programs present work by emerging, under-recognized, and mid-career artists with an eye toward poetic and experimental practice. Our programs center the work of historically-marginalized artists, including BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists and artists with disabilities. Working within a collaborative and anti-capitalist model, Personal Space is committed to providing an equitably compensated platform for artists to share their work. Through the support of the California Arts Council, the Center for Cultural innovation, the Paradam Foundation, and a CALI Catalyst Award, artists keep 70% of sales. Personal Space became a 501c3 nonprofit in 2024.
Our New Works initiative commissions new projects by local writers and artists, including a custom artist-made work on our outdoor sign space that changes with each exhibition.
Present Company is a series of artist-curated exhibitions that seeks to pull back the curtain on the artistic process. An invitation, a gesture, a portrait of an artist through other artists–these capsule shows offer a unique lens on the personal connections, histories, and myriad ways of working that inform and inspire an artist’s work.
OuterSpace forges connections between Personal Space and offsite locations for performances, film screenings, readings, events and exhibitions.
The gallery’s shop offers works on paper, artist books, zines, t-shirts, and small sculptures at affordable prices in an effort to make art accessible for all.
The Personal Space internship program invites emerging artists and curators to get involved in nearly every aspect of our organization including curating, art handling, exhibition design, installation, gallery management, and more.
Personal Space’s security detail
Who We Are
Founder & Director: Lisa Rybovich Crallé
Development Lead & Strategist: Leah Tumerman
Photography: Bessma Khalaf & Jessalyn Aaland
Design: Crystal Dawana
We couldn’t exist without the help of our friends: Kim Frazar Blantz, Lemia Bodden, Rebeca Bollinger, John Davis, Reniel del Rosario, Lisa Núñez-Hancock, Juno Lumetta, Carolyn Jean Martin, Marilyn McNeal, Athena Miller, Gay Outlaw, Amy Owen, Gavin Piedra, Clarke Selman, Alix Sivollela, Emma Spertus, Nima Thapa, Chris Thorson, Lisza Toggler, Tesar and Claire, Kim West, and Nicholas Zefeldt. Special Thanks to Village for keeping the wine and music flowing, and much love to our Vallejo neighbors Re:Sound, The Arc-Solano, and Winslow House Project.
Board of Directors
Annie Beaman is the Executive Director of Our Children’s Earth Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on environmental litigation, scientific research, and public education through film and art. Annie helps grassroots groups to develop and implement strategic advocacy campaigns around environmental justice. As our legal, political, and cultural contexts continue to shift, Annie has been redoubling her efforts to support wellbeing and resiliency here in Vallejo. She is currently managing a project related to Napa River water quality and native plant landscaping, and helping out with a few other local community health initiatives. Annie lives in central Vallejo with her partner Matt and several unruly but charismatic pets.
Reniel Del Rosario (b. Iba, Philippines) is an artist that primarily uses ceramics, quantity, and satire to discuss themes of commodification and value. He holds a BA in Art Practice from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a 2019 recipient of the Center for Craft’s Windgate-Lamar fellowship, a 2022 SFMOMA Artists Soapbox Derby racer, and a 2025 NCECA Emerging Artist. His work has been featured in writings such as ARTFORUM, Sculpture Magazine, and Bon Appetit. Del Rosario’s work has been exhibited extensively internationally through traditional and alternative venues such as West Coast Craft, Meta Open Arts, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Catharine Clark Gallery, other places Art Fair, Load Na Dito, Praise Shadows Art Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Jane Lombard Gallery, and simply on the public sidewalk. www.renieldelrosario.com
Nate Gellman (he/him) is a fundraising and communications executive with over 10 years of experience in the San Francisco Bay Area's nonprofit arts community. He has led strategic planning, engagement, public relations, and major giving campaigns designed to build the capacity and reach of arts organizations in serving diverse cultural communities and celebrating the rich artistic legacies of the Bay Area. Passionate about storytelling in all its forms, Nate has a deep and abiding personal interest in California's literary, music, cinematic, and visual arts movements. He is currently Director of Development & Communications at the Jewish Film Institute (JFI) and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), where he oversees the organization's fundraising, marketing, and audience development activities, and where he also previously served on the Board of Directors. Prior to JFI, he was the Communications Manager at the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts in San Francisco. A devotee of his Richmond District neighborhood in San Francisco, he is a frequent visitor to Vallejo for the art, community, and nature that the area offers. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Nate graduated in 2014 from Bard College, NY with a degree in Languages & Literature.
Bessma Khalaf (born 1978 in Baghdad, Iraq) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Vallejo, California. She utilizes photography, video, sculpture, and performance to explore the boundaries of landscape, place, and image. While employing processes of degradation such as (burning, smashing, shattering, melting, defacing, eating, regurgitating, etc.)
Khalaf earned her B.A. from San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, and M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA. Her works have been exhibited at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY; Steven Wolf Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA; Gallery Four, Baltimore, MD; 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA and the ISE Cultural Foundation, New York, NY. Khalaf has been the recipient of a Murphy Cadogan Fellowship and the Vision From The New California Award in addition to a residency at the Kala Art Institute. Her work has been featured and reviewed in publications such as Zyzzyva, Artforum, the San Francisco Tribune, and Baltimore City Paper. Khalaf's studio is located in Oakland, CA and is represented by Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco, CA. www.bessmakhalaf.com
Marilyn McNeal is an experimental creator who uses writing, audio narration, music composition, video making and podcasting to explore how the natural world can deepen present moment awareness. A self-described “digital folk artist,” McNeal currently has over 1,500 original videos featuring her own footage, music and narration across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn. She has 10 albums of original music that can be streamed from SoundCloud, Bandcamp and Spotify and is currently working on the fourth season of her podcast, Work Life 24. Marilyn received her Masters in Media Studies from the New School for Social Research and taught web production and visual storytelling in the San Francisco Bay Area for 16 years. In 2024, she graduated from The Independent Film School with an emphasis on screenplay writing. https://chantmagick.com/
Lisa Núñez-Hancock is a natural food chef, culinary arts instructor, and food activist, working in the area of plant-based eating and regenerative food systems. After graduation from UC Berkeley she traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Americas. Her early career found her working in television broadcasting, advertising and as a print journalist. After leaving the corporate world of broadcasting, and a decade of human rights work in Mexico, Lisa began a fresh career as a plant forward cooking teacher in diverse culinary programs from La Plaza de Cultura y Artes museum in downtown Los Angeles, to plant based culinary workshops with Kaiser Permenente health care professionals, to work as a test kitchen chef at Rancho Gordo, the heirloom bean company in Napa, California. She continues to partner with a myriad of organizations including Sustainable Solano, Williams Sonoma, and the local JFK Library.
Food is not Lisa’s only passion. Lisa and her late husband Butler, were collectors and advocates of the arts since the mid-1980’s. Honing in on a specific genre that has been referred to as outsider, art brut, self-taught, and visionary. She now prefers to refer to this amalgamation of diverse genres within genres, as the ‘inclusive movement.’
Winter Nungaray has been helping Personal Space as a bookkeeper, and I was excited to learn that they also studied ceramics with one of my favorite artists, Ron Nagle, while at Mills! Winter is involved with the Monarch Milkweed project in Vallejo, which supports endangered monarch butterflies on their migratory path through Solano County, and they work as a bookkeeper and financial advisor for many Bay Area artists and organizations.
Amy Owen is a Bay Area curator and arts administrator with more than two decades of experience in the non-profit arts ecosystem. She is Senior Program Manager for Public Art at the San Francisco Arts Commission where she is currently leading the public art program for San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 3 West Modernization Project. Amy has held curatorial and leadership positions at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art (Novato), McEvoy Foundation for the Arts (San Francisco), di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art (Napa), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Artists Space (New York City), Independent Curators International (New York City), and the Dallas Museum of Art. Her career-long commitment to supporting artists and art communities has placed an emphasis on experimental practices and overlooked narratives. Recent curatorial projects include The Potential of Objects (2022), Jean Conner: Inner Garden (2022), and SUPER-SILLY-US: Barbara Stauffacher Solomon & Nellie King Solomon (2023). Amy holds a BA in Art History from Southern Methodist University and an MA in Curatorial Studies from Bard College.
Leah Tumerman redirected her painting practice to prioritize art’s accessibility, after completing an MFA with The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. Through public art and mural making she continued telling stories while engaging with diverse communities on site-specific and neighborhood projects. Her first public bid with the 49th Ward of Chicago was the beginning of a now fifteen-year career in public art. Leah has recently expanded her practice to include public art curriculum and program development supported by a Bachelor’s degree in Arts Education. She has served as a guest artist and mural facilitator with The Toledo Arts Commission, La Scuola International School in San Francisco, and with Vallejo Teaching Artists and the Vallejo Unified School District. Leah continues to produce large scale public murals of her own design nationally, while maintaining a painting studio practice in Vallejo, California. www.leahtumerman.com
Accessibility
We aim to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for people of all abilities. Personal Space is wheelchair accessible, located on the ground floor with ramped entry. To request accommodations, ask questions, or provide feedback, please contact us at info@personalspace.space
There is free street parking on Tennessee Street and in the surrounding neighborhood. Vallejo is not the easiest place to get to on transit, but there are some options. If you are coming to an opening, let us know in advance and we can arrange to pick you up at the Vallejo Ferry Building or the Vallejo Transit Center.
From San Francisco:
The ferry is the easiest and most glamorous way to get to Vallejo from SF. The trip across the bay takes approximately 50min, and snacks & drinks are available for purchase on board. Tickets range from $4.50-$11.25 each way. The Vallejo Ferry Building is 1.9mi away from Personal Space, and the easiest way to get from there to PS from the ferry building is by cab or Lyft (~6min). Vallejo City Cab (707) 643-3333
From the East Bay:
The easiest, fastest, and cheapest option from the east bay is to take Greyhound from the West Oakland BART station to the Vallejo Transit Center. Tickets are $8.99 each way and the trip takes about 35min depending on traffic. You can also take the SolTrans “R” bus from the El Cerrito del Norte BART station. Personal Space is 1.7mi from the Vallejo Transit Center. The easiest way to get to PS from the Vallejo Transit Center is by cab or Lyft (~6min). Vallejo City Cab (707) 643-3333