Lisa Bourque and Erika Germain with their work for the first Family Drugs Gallery show Saturday. Photo by Fish Griwkowsky /Postmedia

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There’s plenty an art studio that’s had one last hurrah show after an eviction notice. But less common is getting the boot, then moving back in, then starting up a gallery to celebrate.

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But this is pretty much what happened to form the brand-new Family Drugs Gallery, with its first-ever opening Saturday at 10233 97 St.

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One of its eight studio-space artists, Erika Germain, explains.

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“There was kind of this whole fun mix-up where we got told that the space got leased to someone else, and we had to move out, and everyone moved out,” laughs the artist.

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“And then the day after, they were like, ‘Wait, why’d you move out?’

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“And it was this crazy misunderstanding, and the building owners let us move back in. We kind of renegotiated the rent a little bit, for the better.”

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Emily Carr BFA graduate Germain, coincidentally, occupies the same space me, Dara Humniski and Tandie McLeod rented month to month a decade and change back, over the now-empty Family Drugs spot, just east of the long-under-surgery Winspear Centre.

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Right on the edge of what I would call the actual arts district, with the Art Gallery of Alberta, Citadel Theatre and Stanley Milner Library – not to mention frequent art, music and even pop-up cinema venue Churchill Square literally visible out the windows – the studio gallery theatre producer Joe Shoctor used to own is well positioned at the edge of a lot of Edmonton’s trademark downtown dead space.

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“I think it kind of works in our favor,” says painter Lisa Bourque, another artist in the informal collective. “You know, it’s a landmark to help people find us and kind of remember our space. They’re like, ‘ Oh, I think I saw a sign that said Family Drugs, when I was going to the AGA.’ A reminder of that just down the block, there’s a little thing that’s happening, too.”

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“And I think it’s fun,” adds Germain, “that it’s like this is the breadth of arts organizations in Edmonton. You have the AGA right there, and then down the street you have us, which is very different. Both offer a lot of different kind of value.”

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Notably, ArtsHab housing is just to the south, while Co*Lab arts-centred community space is directly to the east.

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Germain is happy the studio-gallery injects a little more creativity into the neighbourhood.

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“I think a lot about when we were kind of in that conversation of moving back in, the building owner said something along the lines of like, ‘Oh, I like renting to artists because they’re the only people that want to come downtown,'” she laughs.

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“Like, I don’t think that’s true. Yeah, but I do feel like the arts is so important in downtown, and the artists care a lot about the space.

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“And I think that when you invest into it, it gets returned.”

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Kaitlyn Konkin’s work is up at Family Drugs Gallery’s first show Saturday. Photo by Fish Griwkowsky

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Moving from the macro to the micro and immediate, Saturday’s show starting at 6 p.m. is called Meet the Family, so let’s do that, starting with Germain.

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“In this show, I have a small ceramic kind of slab painting, a flat ceramic that goes on the wall, and it’s a translation.