Griffy's Art Supply to close after leaky roof damages inventory
Griffy’s Art Supply will close the store at 725 W. Kirkwood Ave. on Saturday, Sept. 30, owner A.J. O’Reilly said.
Though there are no plans to reopen a walk-in location, customers can continue to shop at griffysartsupply.com, he said.
The store has stocked a wide variety of painters’ supplies, including Japanese papers, high-end pens, sketchbooks, and custom soaps for painters’ brushes, O’Reilly said.
And a sale at the retail store is in progress for a few more days, as the signboard outside the front door declares.
O’Reilly said the immediate cause of closing is a leaky roof that has damaged some inventory.
O’Reilly and his wife, Lauren, opened Griffy’s in February 2021. And they named it Griffy in honor of Griffy Lake on the north side of Bloomington, O’Reilly said.
From the archive: Griffy's Art Supply fills some of void left after Pygmalion's closure
Griffy’s filled an important niche in the Bloomington art supply market when it opened on West Kirkwood. A Herald-Times report in May 2021 noted that Pygmalion’s Art Supplies had closed the previous year after 49 years in business.
O’Reilly, who has an M.F.A. in graphic design from Indiana University, met Lauren at I.U. when she was working on a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. They expect to remain in Bloomington, he said.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington art supply store on Kirkwood to close Sept. 30
