Our Story

Holy Cross Lutheran owned a house, dubbed the Bridge House, at 3617 Texas Ave. The Bridge House began as a family home, and lived many lives since the church bought it. The Bridge House functioned as a daycare, housed the Lutheran Development Group offices, and most recently served as home base for ARJ Food Pantry.

In the midst of all it’s various iterations, the main floor of the Bridge House was Intersect Arts Center’s first gallery space, hosting regular shows until they moved into the building across the street at 3636 Texas in 2018. The first floor of the house still possessed beautiful hardwood floors and lots of open wall space.

In 2023, when ARJ moved to a new location, the church needed to decide what to do with the space. Staff at Holy Cross and Intersect collaborated, and designed a series of solo shows to use the first floor gallery space while plans were made by the church. Provisionally called The Bridge House Gallery, those first two years of exhibitions explored a variety of themes related to place making, vocation, liturgy, and the story of Scripture.

After two years of shows, artist talks, and after-church coffees, the church decided to make the gallery an ongoing part of it’s ministry, committing to showing contemporary religious work in that space, making it cozy for small groups and meetings, and redesigning the upstairs to host Holy Cross’ growing Sunday School program. The Bridge House Gallery officially became Mezzo Gallery in 2025, choosing the name Mezzo as it means middle, to describe our commitment to being an ecumenical space where the church and the visual arts can meet and learn from one another. Our shows generally follow the church calendar year, and build off a yearly theme, sometimes explored in collaboration with partner gallery Intersect Arts Center.

Mezzo’s Gallery continues as an important part of the ministry of Holy Cross Lutheran to its congregation, neighborhood, and the wider St. Louis community. Our gallery seeks to create space for artists of faith to display work and engage audiences through writing, artist talks and lectures, and collaborations with Holy Cross’ Feast Service Program. Our exhibition space sees art-lovers, Sunday school kiddos, men’s bible studies, board meetings, arts and spirituality reading groups, and much more. Check out our exhibtions tab to learn more about upcoming and past shows, and be sure to visit our events page for opportunities to engage!