“Living in art: from rugs to rooftops, artists reshape the home,” declared the cover of ARTnews in December 2003. From Andrea Zittel’s self-contained, portable Comfort Rooms to Daniel Buren’s wallpaper inspired textures, the featured artists fuse the functional and philosophical in their individual pieces that bring the home place to the gallery space. Cleveland-based artists Kristin and Lyz Bly take this notion even further. Over three years ago, the husband and wife duo transformed the first floor of their home into a gallery.

Many artists may live in their studios or keep a work area in their homes for their own work, but the Blys deliberately chose to create an area to house others’ works in their house.

“There are so many obvious practical aspects to the venture,” shares Kristin. “But we were also seduced by the conceptual/philosophical implications of merging a home with an event space: social equity and giving to the community, and just the simple testimony of living with art, in art, and ‘being’ art.”