Across the galley style gallery, the front door is propped open. It’s a sacrifice of temperature for a feeling of welcoming, and an acknowledgement that this time of year Christmas shoppers touring the town’s arts community on foot most likely will be bundled in heavy winter coats.

Such is the case as two local women wander in from Depot Street donning the requisite coats and scarves. It seems hardly the time to be thinking about gardening — Outer Spaces combines the art of gardening with, well, art. Of course Outer Spaces always has embraced the colder months, first opening its doors this time last year.

A source of warmth herself, Smith lures her shoppers toward the back of the store with a smile and a promise of sweet treats.

“Ladies there’s hot chocolate and homemade shortbread back here. I just took it out of the oven two hours ago,” she says.

The women fill small cups from a carafe and pick up stout circles of shortbread, which they nibble while looking over the gallery’s mix of birdhouses, wrought copper garden decorations, conversation pieces and pottery planters.

Pottery is the art form that planted the seed for this unique gallery. Smith and her husband, Gary, had been collecting pottery for years, gathering an assortment representative of the art’s role in Western North Carolina.

The North Carolina natives relocated to the mountains in 1994 — shortly after a trip to Asheville that left them stranded in a hotel following a record blizzard that blanketed Western North Carolina in four feet of snow — and then to Glade Mountain in Haywood County in 1996.

When Polly, a former account manager for Snelling and Snelling personnel agency, and Gary, who was in insurance, began looking for an alternative to their corporate lifestyles, their pottery collection and love for gardening seemed a natural inspiration.

Gary enrolled in a small business course under the direction of Mountain Microenterprises, a locally based economic development and grant funding entity, studying the basics of becoming an entrepreneur and creating a model gallery.

“Essentially, he used that as the business plan,” Smith said.

The couple also drew from their personal knowledge of what they knew they liked from their own favorite galleries, including Waynesville’s nature-based Twigs and Leaves Gallery and eclectic Deja View Gallery, both on Main Street, as well as New Morning Gallery in Asheville. The concept was to provide quality handmade crafts focused on a gardening theme at an affordable price, Smith said.

“It’s not a gift shop,” she said, debunking the idea of all that is cheap and kitschy.

Gallery items are sold to be items that become a part of the home, something that is kept, rather than thrown away after one-time use.

Finding artists to fit in with the gallery’s theme has gotten easier over the course of the year, a year marked by learning through experience.

“There’s just so many details you just don’t know about,” Smith said. “There’s no course that can prepare you for everything.”

The gallery has been a success — items such as Haw Creek Forge’s brilliantly colored, lacquered garden ornaments, David Lesser’s bent and cut steel animal figure, and Lisa Reagan’s whimsical Garden Diva series pieces are selling well — though one of the biggest challenges continues to be drawing customers down from Waynesville’s ultra-popular Main Street onto the somewhat lesser known Depot Street, which runs perpendicular down into the historic Frog Level district.

The street is gaining notoriety for its arts offerings — Outer Spaces, metal works at the Grace Cathey Sculpture Garden and Gallery, and innovative mixed media at space. an art gallery — bringing a sense of funk to the town’s more traditional arts scene.

“We’re not all trying to do the same thing,” Smith said, lauding the town’s artistic mix.

Outer Spaces will celebrate its first anniversary with the final Art After Dark gallery stroll of the year, held from 6 to 9 p.m. Dec. 2. Guitarist and singer Emily Trantham of the locally renowned bluegrass group The Trantham Family and her father Doug Trantham will perform at the gallery throughout the evening. For more information call 828.454.9823.