‘I’d rather be depressed around colors’: Open Gallery set to reopen one year after a drunk driver smashed into building

Liz Garibaldi thought her son was dead.

Almost exactly a year ago, Garibaldi, her husband Artos Saucedo and their son Dylan who was 13 at the time awoke to a smoke-filled loft just after midnight. A drunk driver had rear-ended another vehicle, causing both cars to smash into the building, which held their home and art gallery.

One of the cars had actually pushed Dylan’s bed across the floor.

Rubble, glass, twisted metal and dust covered their gallery. The damage to the front of the building, which had been built in 1933, was so bad it was in danger of collapsing, prompting authorities to brace and red tag it.

Since the Feb. 24, 2024 crash, the whole family has been attending bi-weekly therapy sessions. Garibaldi said that not every appointment centers around the accident, but that it does come up often.

“A lot of it just zooms right back to that sound, that night,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I thought we lost our son. I thought he was dead.”

While no one in the family was hurt physically, the emotional and financial strain of the last 12 months has taken a toll on all three of them.

“One of our son’s teachers had a therapist she recommended to us,” Saucedo said. “The funny thing about trauma — not funny, really — is it just keeps unfolding. A random day, a new layer of it unfolds.”

Saucedo said the accident has pushed him to treasure all the moments he now has with his family, which moved into an apartment a mile from the gallery after it was destroyed.

“Life is way too valuable and precious — and it’s quick,” Saucedo said.

On top of the emotional trauma from the incident itself was the loss of their home and their livelihood. With the building red-tagged, the gallery was shuttered and they did not know for how long.

Fortunately, much of the damage was structural and was repaired by the property owner. The damage could have been much worse, Saucedo said, pointing to a support beam that the cars missed by inches.

But costs for the family still racked up quickly. Almost all of their possessions were damaged in the accident, about $20,000 worth of art was destroyed and rent for the new apartment was more than they were previously paying.

Insurance company Hartford Financial Services Group, which Saucedo paid $350 every month for renters and gallery insurance since they moved in in April 2019, announced in early 2024 that it was pulling out of California. Open Gallery was in between insurance companies at the time of the accident.

The insurance company for the driver, meanwhile, is pushing back against any meaningful monetary compensation for the family because no one got physically injured and it’s “hard to prove trauma,” Saucedo said.

The community rallied behind the family, however, and a GoFundMe set up after the crash raised more than $49,000.

But to make ends meet over the next year, the couple had to pivot. They leaned heavily on screen printing, both art prints and apparel, for artists and businesses, they created a pop-up screen-printing shop for events, they hosted several art shows in other venues, including a show for the annual Long Beach Walls festival, and Saucedo even got part-time work at the Port of Long Beach.

“We definitely had to tighten up,” Garibaldi said. “We’ve definitely been on survival mode the whole time.”

Now, almost a year to the day since the accident, Open Gallery will open its doors once again with a new exhibit Saturday, Feb. 22 at 6 p.m. with work from dozens of artists.

“It’s pretty emotional,” Saucedo said while sitting at a small, white table in the middle of the gallery space, colorful art laid carefully on the floor on either side of the room.

“It’s almost like a reset button was pressed,” Garibaldi added.

But unlike the reset button of a video game, the year-long journey from drunk-driving accident site to art gallery has not been easy — or instantaneous.

The theme of the upcoming exhibit is “Somos Semillas: We Are Seeds,” which symbolizes growth, resilience and potential. Seeing art back in the space has been a soul-stirring experience for the family, Garibaldi said: “It just looks like [the artists] got it — it’s about regrowth and being yourself.”

The inspiration for the exhibit came amid the process of repairing the building. To prevent similar accidents in the future, a trench was dug — through concrete and into the dirt — along the storefront and steel beams were “planted” to reinforce the exterior wall, Garibaldi explained.

“It’s just like they’re planting seeds,” she said.

“There’s an old Mexican proverb that says, ‘They try to bury us but they didn’t know we were seeds,'” Saucedo added. “Metaphorically and physically, we could have been buried. But that's the theme of the show, how seeds have this infinite potential within them. They get buried, and with the right environment and the right conditions, they break through that darkness and are able to grow.”

The group exhibit will feature around 65 pieces — all of which will be for sale — curated by Steve Martinez from artists around the world, including locals Dave Van Patten and Never Made. The opening event, which will run until 10 p.m., will also feature local DJs.

After opening night, regular gallery hours will be Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. through March 29.

The space that was previously the family’s loft apartment on the west side of the building has been converted to artist studios, which join studios that were already in use on the east side of the building. In all, there are five studios, which, combined with the gallery and a gift shop that will sell prints, will make the corner of Seventh Street and Rose Avenue a hub for local art.

“We have a space again where art is this comforting thing that people can engage with and it brings a sense of renewal,” Saucedo said.

Though the couple has clawed its way back to reach this milestone, the trauma remains — and likely always will. 

“It’s just been a really weird experience — almost like we’ve been grieving our past selves this whole time,” Garibaldi said. “I’m never gonna be that person again. I miss her.”

“But I’d rather be depressed around colors,” she added with a laugh.

Open Gallery is located at 1738 E. Seventh St. “Somos Semillas: We Are Seeds” opens Saturday, Feb. 22, with an event from 6-10 p.m., with regular gallery hours Saturdays and Sundays from 1-5 p.m. March 1-29.