And as usual for Spector, here comes a chance art-scene encounter.

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

"You look really familiar." Her eyes narrow for a second in recognition. Then, "Did you model?"

"Yuh-huh," he nods, laughing. "Twenty years ago!"

That's it, she remembers. Back before she was a working wood sculptor who pioneered recognition of smart art that reflected pop culture, she had sat in an art school life-drawing class at Philadelphia College of Art — now University of the Arts — and sketched him.

"Her gallery is the kind of place for happenstance," recalls Teresa Jaynes, a fellow artist and the executive director of local print collective Philagrafika. From the moment the space opened in June 1999, Spector invited in artists and their artist friends, bringing together a galaxy of do-it-yourself art talents. Adam Wallacavage, a photographer of stunts and skate culture, she knew from art school; he recommended Jim Houser, a self-taught artist with a yearning to paint directly on gallery walls; Houser's best friend turned out to be Ben Woodward, poster artist and co-founder of Space 1026.

"Spector was a hub," continues Jaynes. "It was a meeting point that became an entry point into the city's art scene." Show after serendipitous show brought in innovative works, priced with a first-time collector in mind: A hook-woven rug depicting a cheerleader, by Whitney Lee; Andrew Jeffrey Wright's reinterpretation of the Mona Lisa, featuring E.T. But Spector did more than just hang (and hang with) the artists.

"She lit a fire under my ass," says Woodward. "I could always go to her and ask advice about how to do something 'professionally.' She was like a den mother to a lot of us. And during office hours, she'd always be there."

In case she needed a reminder of how rare this accessibility is, Spector found herself talking to Marty Moss-Coane on WHYY one night, alongside fellow gallery owners Sueyun Locks and Richard Rosenfeld. "A caller to the show asked how he could show us his artwork," she remembers. "I said, 'If you come by the gallery, I'm there, or you can call or e-mail.' And Sueyun said, 'If you come by the gallery, you will not see me, just someone who works there.'"

But now Spector (the person) is clearing out Spector (the place) — and she's been thinking about that distinction.

"Two years ago" — around the time she started growing out her short, dark crop past her chin — "I decided it was time to ramp everything up," she remembered, sitting on the blond brocade chair at the back of the gallery space, listening to the nearby bustle of the Italian Market. "I had the opportunity to deal at a much higher level, with museums and acquisitions. And I felt, now I had to do what my artists deserved of me, do more for them in addition to running this space." "Or," she picks up 10 minutes later, "it was time to close. To say, it was a great seven years, and tie it in a little bow."

In her round of goodbyes, from the yard sale of office junk to the closing party tomorrow, Spector stresses one particular point: The gallery did not go under, nor its talent go south. "This is a conscious decision, by me," she stresses. "Everyone asks, 'How will I know where to find you?' But my number will be the same." She pauses, looking at the bare plaster. "It'll be this, without walls."

From now on, Spector Projects, as she's coined it, will be a movable feast. She will no longer be limited in who — and where — she can curate, and releases the artists from space constraints that might cramp their style. Jim Houser, the first artist to ever show at Spector, has become a name synonymous with the gallery, where he has had five solo exhibitions. "But," he said, "before I even heard [of the closing], I said to Shelley, 'The next show I do with you, it can't be in the gallery. I've done everything I can do there.' And she felt the same."

In that two-year expansion, Spector's softly-softly way of working had already tailored itself to freelance curating, teaching, writing about the art world at her online magazine, Art Jaw, and pursuing other accolades for her artists. Robert Cozzolino, a curator at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, says he oversaw the acquisition of drawings by Matthew Fisher from Spector, and she wasn't the pushy sort. "Shelley never tried to sell me on an artist I had doubts about. She knew that if it wasn't this one we went for, it might be another." And her interest in other venues was piqued when Space 1026 asked her to curate a group show of their work in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center. As Woodward remembers the nights spent hanging the show, "We were panicking, we were one big Tazmanian devil with arms and legs sticking out. And Shelley could just walk through the space, talking to each of us, calming everybody down." At the opening party, "in front of all these mucky-muck art people with cocktails, we gave Shelley this Philly cheer. To let her know, really, how much she'd done for us."

Alongside her next efforts — including curating a Houser show at the Painted Bride next April, and co-curating "A Kiss for the Mezuzah" with Matt Singer at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art — Spector has been thinking about human presence in spaces. "This place has been my whole life," she says. "My kids celebrated their birthday parties here. I had my own workshop here. And it was here that we mourned the death of Becky Westcott."

Westcott, 28, a talented painter, one of the youngest to receive the prestigious Pew Fellowship, was killed by a drunk driver while driving back from Nantucket, Mass. , last October, a month after her first solo show at Spector. Her husband, Houser, says the gallery, "just like a home, will always feel like Becky's there." It's also where he retreated to paint in 2001 while his father underwent surgery for kidney cancer. "It's haunted, in a good way," he says.

In her new woodshop, in the basement of her family's home a hop from the gallery, she plans to begin work on her next collection of her own sculpture, "A House Is Not a Home." "It's about what places and spaces are, without human presence," she says — and here, it becomes uncertain whether she is discussing her artwork, her gallery or the community around it. "It's about the importance of essential spirit, and I want the chance to bring that human spirit to other venues."

That crossover happens a lot. "The gallery has really been an ongoing work of art — an interactive sculpture!" She grins. "The gallery is just one of the Spector projects."

(j_fletcher@citypaper.net)