Nearly everyone who sees the Sandra Ainsley Gallery says how clever its owner was not to revamp the antiquated edifice that houses it before opening two years ago next month.

Ainsley was the first commercial tenant in the evocatively resurrected 19th- century Gooderham & Worts whisky-making complex now known as The Distillery Historic District. The sprawling, cobblestoned assortment of 45 shops, restaurants, ateliers and condos now ranks among the liveliest spots in Toronto.

Ever since Ainsley's gallery opened its rustic doors, artists, critics, collectors and most of the ordinary folk who happily queue to get in on the busiest days have debated the merits of this or that piece of art.

But they vociferously agree on one thing: Preserving the 168-year-old brick cooperage, or barrel-making operation, exactly as it used to be was the perfect way to showcase the gallery's sparkling glass and mixed-media exhibits.

Ken Kerr, Business Edge
Sandra Ainsley has the perfect setting for the $40,000 'Magenta Macchia with orange lip-wrap' in her acclaimed gallery in The Distillery Historic District.

Actually, Ainsley says, that's only half right. Yes, the yin-yang interplay of rough, exposed brick walls and jagged passways does ideally complement the fragile, vividly coloured art - with pricetags soaring beyond the $500,000 mark.

But, no, the original dramatic backdrop was not what was here when Ainsley first set foot in the space. "The entire building had been drywalled and broken up into an office complex," she recalls with a shudder that makes her silver earrings dance. "It was big, but it was boring and not at all as you see it today."

Something akin to Superman's X-ray vision was needed to visualize how an art gallery could be created out of the cooperage's ravaged remains. Luckily for its future fans, a handful of people managed to achieve that feat.

Among the first was John Berman, one of the principals of Toronto's Cityscape Property Management, which masterminded the transformation of The Distillery. "We thought the historic building and setting here would be perfect for Sandra's gallery," he says, "so we approached her even before we had purchased the property."

Ainsley and her arts consultant friend Parks Anderson took another look, trying to perceive what might be lurking behind all the drywall. Concluding that in this case less would definitely be more, Ainsley said OK to Berman. Then she told a contractor to rip out every single thing that had been added to the original building.

It was the gutsiest gamble of a widely admired career that spans two decades and encompasses more than one risky venture seemingly based on nothing but seat-of-her-designer-pants decisions that somehow always pan out.

A Toronto native, Ainsley has the glamourous looks and striking fashion sense that Andy Warhol would doubtless insist on capturing if he were still around. But even though she may look like a work of art, she has survived and thrived by thinking like a business mogul.

She started out as a painter, but decided instead to become an artists' rep when, she says, she "became more interested in 3-D arts and crafts.”

After several years of mounting exhibitions in other people's venues, including tony Holt Renfrew, Ainsley opened her own small gallery in Hazelton Lanes in 1984.

Five years later, after deciding to specialize in mostly glass art, she opened the Exchange Gallery, a larger space in the King and Bay business district. The move consolidated Ainsley's stature as the premiere Canadian supplier of gifts and awards for top Canadian corporations, and turned out to be a great success in other ways as well. So much so that she was hunting for a still larger space when she got the phone call from Berman.

"My goal was always to one day have a gallery that was big enough to present the artists whose work I love," Ainsley says. "And I finally found it at The Distillery."

But her choice demanded a pricey financial investment she declines to reveal, plus months of dust-and-grime teardowns and cleanups.

Only then was the space ready for the installation of such quotidian necessities as office space and equipment, washrooms, a kitchen and a state-of-the-art security system.

After that what Ainsley calls "the real fun" began, which was concocting imaginative ways to display the art. What's widely considered to be her stroke of genius hit when she decided to flout the elementary rule that art is best showcased against white or neutral-coloured walls and washed in revealing light.

Instead, Ainsley decided to deliberately under-light everything. "In my other location, everything was very bright. But, here, I didn't want everything to be revealed right away. I wanted to add a bit of mystery, so people have to discover the work and think about it."

For the exhibition that would launch the Sandra Ainsley Gallery in May 2003, its owner concentrated exclusively on Washington state-based Dale Chihuly, arguably the top artist in the glass art medium.

The show and the gallery were an immediate hit, prompting international acclaim and instantly becoming what Berman calls "a huge draw" among the 1.5 million annual visits to The Distillery.

"People were calling this the most exciting gallery in the world and connoisseurs from Japan, Europe, everywhere came to The Distillery to see the show and the space," he says.

Even so, Ainsley's business savvy prompted her to hedge her big bet during the first two years by not just showing and selling art, but also renting her gallery as a venue for upscale events.

The efforts garnered even more publicity and introduced many potential new buyers to her wares.

But she's now in a position where it's practical to discontinue the practice "except for the odd event for clients if it's something compatible, or possibly for one of the charities we've chosen to support."

Other shifts in her business strategy are also in the works, Ainsley says while standing beneath Crystal Rain, a stunning piece by Jon Kuhn that casts myriad prisms throughout the dark gallery.

Behind her, an installation team applies temporary reinforcement to a wall that will soon hold a heavy piece by Steve Linn.

Seeing the unique space for the first time, the American artist, who lives and works in France, declares it "fantastic" and predicts that his art will look "just great here because of all the texture."

Now that she's achieved a virtual lock on the output of artists of Linn's calibre and monetary niche, Ainsley is focusing more attention on how best to market art with fewer zeroes on its pricetags. She's currently negotiating to add about 110 sq. m to the gallery by expanding into a connecting building.

If she succeeds in getting that extra space, Ainsley says, she'll have room to set up two new facets for her business. One will be an area where corporate clients can be properly seen to when they're in the market for gifts and awards similar to those she supplies annually for Re/Max Realty.

Another part of the new space will be devoted to a bridal registry to present "wonderful gifts that many people aren't aware of because they think of my gallery as having only very high-end pieces. But we have jewelry and other wonderful things ranging from between, say, $100 and $1,000, many by Canadian artists, that are ideal as one-of-a-kind wedding gifts."

Asked whether her gallery is turning out to be everything she dreamed of, Ainsley's expressive countenance takes on a faraway look.

Then she chokes up remembering how she felt two years ago, when the time finally arrived to install the very first piece of art that would introduce the Sandra Ainsley Gallery.

"I knew that when I took that step, I had an opportunity to do something that could be great or not. It turned out to be great."

(Terry Poulton can be reached at poulton@businessedge.ca)