Raquel Underwood, Art Club Gallery

Art Club Gallery opened March 1 in a hive of outlets on Canyon Road. It’s a shop that focuses on fine arts and crafts exclusively made in New Mexico by locals who typically haven’t been able to break into the traditional Santa Fe gallery scene.

Two weeks later, owner Raquel Underwood faced the worst-case scenario.

“I opened the door officially on March 1, and the lockdown officially started March 15 and I had to close down for two months,” Underwood says. “There was assistance from the federal government, but you had to be in business before Jan. 31. I had to pay two months’ rent.

“How did I do it? Family help,” she says. “I had no choice but to ask for a family loan. It’s going to take years [to pay back.]”

Underwood hasn’t been able to do a grand opening, but some relief arrived in the summer when businesses began reopening. And Santa Fe’s draw — particularly from neighboring states at a time when their caseloads were rising — proved powerful.

“A lot of the traffic was people so sick of being at home they were going on the road,” Underwood says. “They were from Texas, Oklahoma, lots of California, lots of Colorado, tons of Arizona, too. There was nothing for people to do than walk down Canyon Road. None of the museums were open.”

She was able to meet her minimum sales goals from July into October.

“It was OK to great, averaging out to not bad,” Underwood says. “[But] if you average in the two closed months, it’s not great.”

Underwood can last at least a couple of months longer under current conditions.

“There was never any question of actually quitting,” she says. “The way it has evolved, it has been, ‘In a couple months, it will be over.’ It’s keeping that hopeful mentality that it will be over soon. There will be a massive upswing after this massive downswing.”