After seven years at its current location in the McCrae subdivision, Yukon Artists @ Work is looking for a new home.

"There's a little bit of shock vibrating through the community,” founding member Harrison Tanner said today of reaction to news of the move. " ... But everyone's really excited about it. It's a new challenge.”

The artists' collective received notice that it would have to move at the end of March.

The word came from property owner Nerissa Rosati, who told the group she needed to find a tenant who could pay market value for the 2,500-square-foot space.

"It was really a business decision on her part,” Tanner said. "She has rented this to us more as a patron ... and she's done it for more than six years. In this economic climate, she needs to make an income on the property .... It's certainly fair on her part.”

Even though the Yukon Artists' @ Work studio is several kilometres out of downtown off the Alaska Highway, Tanner said the location has become a destination for art lovers and buyers.

"It's worked beautifully,” he said of the space. "We've created a destination here. It's taken a lot of work from the community and a lot of advertising, but we've certainly created a wonderful following here.

"... We've been hugely supported by the Whitehorse and Yukon community,” he added. "When people have family and friends coming up here, we're right at the top of the list of places to come.”

Tanner said he sees the move as an opportunity to increase the number of people who come in to the gallery if the group can find a more central location.

"We definitely would prefer to be downtown so we can be exposed to walk-in traffic,” he said, but noted that when people make the effort to come to McCrae, it usually ends in a sale.

"Right now, people who come here come with purpose and most people end up buying.”

A downtown gallery is far out of financial reach for the group's individual members, Tanner said, most of whom make between $12,000 and $15,000 a year from their artistic endeavours.

But with their combined resources, and perhaps the generosity of a property owner, the group is hoping to come into the city's core.

Yukon Artists' @ Work is run as a collective, the only one of its kind in the territory, and is not eligible for government funding.

The result is a society which pays its own bills through sales commissions and membership fees. All the work of running the organization and the gallery is done by volunteer members.

"At times like this, we do wish we were eligible for funding,” Tanner said. "We sort of fall in a crack there (because we are a collective).”

There are currently 26 full members of the co-operative, all of whom are visual artists, with three associate members "and two people who have put in applications this week,” according to Tanner.

Apart from the energy created by the need to find a new home, the news of the move has also inspired some patrons of the arts.

"The nicest story of whole thing is a couple of days after (we received our notice), we got a call from an anonymous donor who gave us $1,000 to help with the move,” Tanner said.

"We've also gotten lots of calls from people offering vehicles and strong 18-year-old sons to help.”

It's business as usual for the gallery through April.

This Friday, the gallery will be hosting the opening of Rosemary Piper's show, a collection of new acrylic and water colour works by the popular Yukon artist.