People would come in off the street with food and talk about the art. There isn't that austere, pristine feeling you find in many commercial galleries and museums. People are more friendly. The stakes aren't so high. To go into a Newbury Street gallery, you practically have to get a pedicure and have your hair blown-dried.
Many alternative galleries have outreach programs.
Green Street curates a show of high school photography. Out of the Blue helps with art projects at the Martin Luther King School in Cambridge. In addition to displaying the work of 500 artists last year, the Revolving Museum showed that of 1,000 teens - young artists working in the museum's educational programs or with its institutional partners. Going to an artist-run gallery is your chance to buy art cheap, catch a comer on his or her way to the top, and learn a thing or two about where art is going. There's no bad art anywhere.