Red Sparrow Gallery

Lorraine Shulba has always been a creative person, painting and drawing as a little girl and eventually becoming a graphic designer and artist. Don’t ask her what her day job is — she loves doing it all, and works just as hard on each project equally.

"I like shifting gears. If I only did one thing, it would be too boring,” she says, chatting over a cup of hot tea in a cheerful back room of her latest venture, Red Sparrow Gallery. 

Running an art gallery might seem to be putting a lot on her plate, but Lorraine opened her business for very practical reasons.

“I have a lot of friends who are artists, and I thought, wouldn’t it be great to have kind of a co-op, a place where I can teach, have some stuff at the back? We can have art in the alleys, that kind of thing. There are a lot of opportunities. And, [it’s] a place where I can work and show my work.”

She initially looked for places on 118th Avenue and came out empty-handed, but she found the right spot in Highlands, an area not far from there.

Lorraine found a little house converted into offices and inquired about it, but for a different area of the building. That didn’t pan out, but several months later, Lorraine was offered the current space, which has turned out to be ideal.

“Highlands is really beautiful. I looked at 118th Avenue, but there wasn’t much there,” she says. “This space became available, and it’s beautiful with the trees and the merchant block.”