Alison Mackie has heard from the naysayers. “Everyone tells me it’s a tough business,” Mackie, owner of Chelsea Underground Art Gallery, says about her new venture. One Chicago gallery owner told her she might as well open a hot dog stand instead of an art gallery unless she decides to “really go for it.” So when Mackie learned that the space above her basement gallery on Main St.–which she opened in May–had been vacated by longtime tenant the Golden Apple, she jumped at the chance to move into the more visible street-level spot.

“She is brave and courageous,” says Jennifer Kundak, a docent at the gallery and a self-described arts supporter. With the 2009 closing of Chelsea Gallery, and River Gallery closing its public showroom last year (the business continues to represent artists and manage off-site exhibits), as well as the shuttering of the Chelsea Center for the Arts, Chelsea’s art scene had taken a big hit.

“The art world is changing–especially in Chelsea,” says Patti Schwarz of River Gallery. “All of our collectors have acquired what they want, and people just aren’t buying art.” She notes that younger people seem more interested in “music, events, traveling, and video games.” Although she says she wouldn’t trade the experience of running a gallery for anything, “We never made money doing it–we paid our bills.” Schwarz says that “a new art venture for Chelsea is awesome” and she wishes Mackie “great success. [But] it will be hard to make a living at it.”

Mackie seems undaunted. “This makes sense to me at this time in my life,” she says. The warm and personable fifty-three-year-old’s eyes occasionally tear up when she describes the gallery’s artwork. Her first artist was New York City-based Richard Meyer, whom she got to know through Facebook. He is “important and underrepresented,” she says. Meyer’s large oil-on-canvas paintings deal with people with disabilities. Since opening her gallery she says, she’s sold many of his pieces.

Mackie originally rented the basement space as an art studio for herself (she is an oil painter). Her husband, John, who sells engineered plastics, convinced her to expand it to a gallery (although her own works aren’t displayed, they are for sale by request). The couple, who have two adult children, sold their home in Ypsilanti last year to move to Chelsea. “We came to Chelsea one summer day, and we were under its spell,” Mackie explains. “After hours, people were still out and about, and everyone was smiling.”

Mackie is used to being the new kid on the block. She grew up in an Air Force family and as an adult has lived in places as far-flung as Florida, England, Scotland, and Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, because of her husband’s jobs. Being “an outsider” to Chelsea comes in handy, she says, because much of her art deals with subjects outside the mainstream: that’s why she chose to keep “underground” in the gallery name despite its move above ground.

Her affiliation with Richard Meyer sparked a partnership with Judith Peck, a nationally known artist who paints on broken plaster. Peck’s oil paintings–mostly of women–are about what she terms “the preciousness of life healing a broken world.” Mackie will represent Peck’s works beginning November 21. Prior to Peck’s exhibition, Mackie is featuring Colorado photographer Andres Orlowski (through November 20), whose works focus on the theme of self-discovery.

In the next few years Mackie plans to open a second gallery in Aspen, Colorado, where their daughter lives. Meantime, she wants to engage the Chelsea-area community. After Tom Osbeck and his students from Adult Learners Institute stopped in one day to see Meyer’s paintings, she invited the group of adults with disabilities back for free oil painting classes.

Social justice and humanitarian issues are at the forefront for Mackie when she chooses the artists she will represent. But she still has to pay the rent. In addition to her featured artists, she sells metal art by local artist Rick DeTroyer, and she plans to bring in scarves and other handcrafted items before the holidays. Meyer’s works will continue to be a mainstay of her inventory, but she has more artists she’d like to exhibit. “The idea is to sell them so there’s more room!”

Chelsea Underground Art Gallery, 105 S. Main, 277-8747, Tues.-Thurs. 1-6 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 1-8:30 p.m., Sun. 1-6 p.m. Closed Mon. chelseaunderground.com

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The Chelsea Collection, a high-end consignment store for art and antiques on Sibley Rd., closed in August after more than fifteen years in business. Co-owners Gary Kuehnle and Eric D. Lund, who got their start as personal property appraisers, plan to keep an online presence and also will continue their work as appraisers and brokers for high-end consignors via their other business, the G.B. Kuehnle Company.

“We are reinventing ourselves,” says Kuehnle, seventy-six, who explains today’s trends are all about contemporary furniture (he notes a recent large shipment he made to Chicago of Danish modern designer furniture). “Our market has aged out,” he says, noting that the generation of people interested in antiques of the nineteenth century and earlier has passed away.

It’s also a geographical issue. “The East Coast and South have always been a strong market for antiques,” he says, but the Midwest and West Coast aren’t as strong. He says many of their nearly 2,000 consignors shared how disappointed they were with the closing. “We were the only outlet of our kind outside of the Detroit area.”