Visual artists in St. Joseph and surrounding areas soon will have one more place to display their work.

A new cooperative art gallery is scheduled to open this summer in downtown St. Joseph.

Back in February, the Allied Arts Council held an open meeting to see if there would be interest in opening a co-op gallery. The answer was clear.

"We felt like something definitely would happen because the response was so positive," says Teresa Fankhauser, executive director for the Allied Arts Council. "There was a definite desire by artists in the community to make this happen."

Local artists came together to form Friends of the Visual Arts, which grew from the AAC's Visual Art Committee. They soon found a location in one of Winston Bennett's downtown properties at 118 N. Seventh St.

"We feel like it's just perfect," says Rhonda Rund, board chairwoman of Friends of the Visual Arts. "The gallery will be open and airy. It will have a very nice feel."

For a little outside help, they called people from the Northland Exposure Artists' Gallery in Parkville, Mo., for inspiration and guidance on how to set up and run the gallery effectively.

"We feel we can do the same borrowing a lot of their success," Ms. Rund said.

The new cooperative gallery will host art from a variety of visual mediums. Friends of the Visual Arts still has to fill certain committee positions and get more artists to volunteer to work in the soon-to-be-named gallery before its projected June 20 opening. Interested artists will be asked to submit samples of work to be juried for membership in the near future. For more information, contact Rhonda Rund at 383-3332.

Blake Hannon can be reached at blakehannon@npgco.com