In 2012, Marianne Chapel and her husband Bill sold nearly everything they owned, placed their most important belongings in storage, and spent three years traveling the world in search of a new place to call home. Living in a different country every three months, the experience was transformative—but nothing compared to their community in Sarasota, Florida. When they returned in 2015, Marianne felt a renewed sense of purpose and a deep desire to plant roots.

That desire led to the founding of M. Chapel Projects LLC, an experimental commercial art gallery that opened in March 2017 in a 1,000-square-foot industrial warehouse on Princeton Street. Inspired by artist-run spaces she encountered abroad, Chapel envisioned a cutting-edge, artist-centered environment that supported working artists rather than focusing solely on sales. For the first three years, the gallery doubled as her personal studio—she repeatedly cleared out her own work to install exhibitions.

The momentum grew quickly. After launching the first exhibition in 2017, Chapel developed a full exhibition season by 2018 and realized her true passion was supporting artists and building infrastructure for them.

In late 2018, the organization became fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, and in 2019 it was renamed SPAACES LLC (Sarasota Project Aligning Artists, Communities, Exhibits, Studios), signaling a broader philanthropic mission.

That same year, SPAACES moved to a larger warehouse unit and expanded to include both a gallery and four affordable artist studios, immediately filling a critical need in Sarasota. The community grew rapidly, attracting additional artists to the Princeton Street complex.

In 2021, The SPAACES Foundation Inc. became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and expanded further, solidifying SPAACES as a mission-driven organization dedicated to advancing contemporary art and supporting professional artists in Sarasota.