By Lee Mergner

Venezuelan-born painter Jonathan Brender’s bright pointillism pieces have made him popular with collectors in the United States and Europe. The South Florida resident, who first received his artistic education in ceramics and sculpture, spoke with ABN contributor Lee Mergner at Spectrum Miami, where he contemplated light, inspiration, and the changing nature of art as a career.

Art Business News: Do you remember your first piece of work that others recognized?

Jonathan Brender: I do remember. The beginnings of my art were from a trip I took to Australia in the back country where the Aborigines live. I stayed there for two months learning their art of pointillism. They used to do big faces with a million dots—aborigine faces, maybe kangaroos. I was so amazed at their patience and how many points [it took]. I started modifying that art into [portraits of] modern icons. My first [pointillism piece] was a face of Bob Marley, which had immediate success in my exposition in London. Then I knew I had something going on, something different from other artists. I started pursuing that, and, in two years’ time, I started attending Spectrum and other shows, and it just skyrocketed.

I can only make 10 to 12 paintings a year because it takes that much time, and physically it takes a toll on my shoulders and on my fingers. Once I started selling out all my yearly productions or collections, I knew that I really had something special and different.

ABN: What drew you to that form?

JB: I think it’s the time-consuming aspect of each painting. I need that time consumption to maintain my mind in the same way. For me, working eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours a day for a month and a half doing only points … keeps me from going insane.

ABN: For most people it would be the opposite! Do you listen to music while working?

JB: Yes, only classical and jazz. And, [contrary to] what people might think, I can’t drink a drop of alcohol when I’m painting because I cannot have my hands shake even just an itty bit. When I’m painting, I’m at my most sober time.

ABN: How has your work evolved over the years?

JB: I’ve been doing this for 15 years. It has evolved, first of all, in the number of dots I do. When I started out, I did 20,000 or 25,000 dots. Now, I’m up to 180,000 dots. Also, I’m incorporating a few UV tints and inks that work only in darkness or with a UV light. I’m also doing some geometrical forms that you can see only from far away, and, from near you can see only the dots. I think I’ve come a long way.

ABN: What is your relationship with the people who buy your art?

JB: Usually, nowadays, I don’t even meet my clients. When I started out, I sold them personally to each of my clients. Now, it has become somewhat of a real business, where my PR manager takes care of all the sales. It’s really strange when I meet the real buyer. And they’re mostly from Europe. I really don’t get to meet them personally, which is something I really would like to do.

ABN: Why has Europe been a better market for you?

JB: I was born in Venezuela, but I’m an American. The place to be historically for art, besides Europe, is America. I collect pop art from American artists, which is hugely collectible. But Europeans, I think, buy more art. I think Americans buy more expensive art but fewer pieces. But Europeans like the emerging artists. They’ll buy an entire collection of one emerging artist. It’s a different market. It’s really interesting—the chemistry between the European buyers and the American buyers. It’s totally different.

ABN: How has technology changed the business side for you?

JB: That’s something I’m still trying to adapt to. A hand-painting artist [like myself] doesn’t have the time for this new media—Facebook, Instagram, and whatever. You get to the point where you have to hire somebody to manage that. But if you don’t have sales, then you can’t manage that. So you’re without an arm or a leg. Thank God I do sell out my collections each year, so I have two people to take care of that. It’s a really important part of being an artist in this day.

ABN: Technology has changed things for the galleries, as well.

JB: Nobody walks into a gallery now unless they have bought from there before. Now you go online and you have 100 pages—Saatchi, Amazon, whatever—that specialize in handmade art. Now you don’t have to walk through three or five or eight galleries. Now you just go online and find whatever you’re looking for. People who buy art … have something on their mind that they really want to buy. They have to research. The technology now goes like the left hand with the right hand for the artists and their paintings.

ABN: But it’s hard to really experience the 3D and tactile aspects of art online. A JPEG is very different from a piece of art.

JB: On my website, you can see my paintings, but you can’t really appreciate each of the dots I do because it’s a digital image. You have to look at it closely. For me as an artist, it’s hard that people like to look first at the work on a computer. Art is supposed to be seen in real life and in the real light. But you either modify, or you die. You either keep up with the times, or you wither. It’s a fight between the old-school art that we love and cherish and the new age.

ABN: Light is a big issue for all art, but how does light affect your work?

JB: I only work with yellow light, and, interestingly enough, I can’t work with light hitting directly on the canvas. I need light to be from any of the sides, so I paint on a light shadow. It’s really different from other painters, who need natural light or white light. I need yellow light and [to be in the] shadows.

ABN: Why is that?

JB: It makes me measure the dots and the position of the dots better.

ABN: Like the filmmakers’ magic hour?

JB: Yes, I actually start at 7 a.m., and when the light gets heavy, I can’t paint anymore.

ABN: What was the last piece of art you saw from another artist that inspired you or struck you?

JB: I can’t think of any emerging artists that really wowed me recently, but I would say that my favorite artist in history is Jackson Pollock. At that date he started doing his style, it was a revolution. No one dared to do that. And the colors he used. It was so simple but yet so shocking. I think the first painting I saw of his was No. 203 or something. I remember my first paintings. I didn’t put names; I put numbers. He was my biggest influence, although my technique has nothing to with that. He was so bold and so risky. And I also identify with his personal life [laughs].

ABN: What do you get from coming to a show like Spectrum Miami or Artexpo New York?

JB: I have a great connection with Spectrum and with Artexpo. First of all, the organization is incredible. The friendliness, for it being an art event, is unbelievable. The networking I see here is really difficult to find in other places, mainly because the ambiance here is not that of old-school galleries. Everybody here is young. There are new galleries. Everybody is on the same page. Nobody thinks they are bigger or better than anybody. Everybody here is the same. This attracts me the most [to] the Redwood shows.

The post Point Man appeared first on Art Business News.

By Isabel Thottam

A team of award-winning professionals, Michael and Elaine Joseph focus on current trends and technology to assist artists worldwide through their company, Artblend Inc. They use Artblend as a way to examine and redefine the traditional criteria for artists to run a successful art business. Artblend operates as a full-service, art-related business offering gallery and art fair exhibitions, marketing and promotion, book publishing, and magazine profiles to emerging, midcareer, and established artists from around the world.

With Elaine as the president and editor-in-chief and Michael as the vice president and publisher, this duo has established a new paradigm in the art industry. Elaine and Michael met more than 27 years ago and have been together ever since. They were both highly successful during the 1980s with individual careers in the music industry. Elaine established herself with one of the top-ranking national record store companies, doing store management, promotions, marketing, and buying. Michael owned his own stage lighting and concert production company and an artist and tour management company that worked with local, regional, and national talent.

As the digital age came to fruition in the late 1990s, the music industry began to change, and Michael left his company to move to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to pursue his passion for fine art photography. Elaine then joined as his business manager, and in 2005 they opened Artists Haven Gallery to exhibit and market fine art photography. Over the next eight years, they expanded the business, opening Ocean Wave Media and Ocean Wave Photography Gallery and launching Artblend magazine. In 2012, they merged their companies, creating Artblend Inc., and moved into a brand-new, 6,200-square-foot facility. Since entering the business more than a decade ago, they’ve welcomed the occasion to share with their community, build lasting relationships, benefit charities, and support the arts on a global scale.

Michael and Elaine recently shared their story and advice for successfully managing an art business using technology and media.

Art Business News: Can you explain a bit about how the idea for Artblend came into being and what aspect of the business you each focus on?

Elaine Joseph: The idea of establishing our art business happened because I was managing Michael’s photography career and artists were constantly asking me if I’d be interested in managing them. We enjoyed a lot of success with his career using our tactics and methods to get him in front of serious art buyers. The real strength came from exhibiting at the major art fairs and online marketing.

Michael Joseph: In our company, Elaine operates what I consider to be the front of house. She is truly the COO and CFO [chief operating officer and chief financial officer]. Every successful company needs that rock. Since I am an artist at heart, it is natural that my position is primarily working one on one with the artists to do consulting and career coaching. I would be remiss if I did not mention our invaluable gallery manager, Sarah Emmets, who so wonderfully and faithfully handles all the day-to-day coordinating and logistics.

ABN: What inspired you to want to help more artists in the areas of marketing, branding, web design, and the like?

EJ: It was obvious to us both that many artists did not know where to turn to get professional help, especially from people they would find trustworthy, reliable, and sincere. Our experience in the music industry was not much different from that of the art industry. We are still dealing with talent, and talent needs to be managed. With management comes responsibility. It is really essential to understand that business is about building a lasting relationship. In our line of work, if done correctly, the line of where being a client ends and friendship begins is blurred.

ABN: How exactly does Artblend help artists? What do you look for in the artists you work with?

MJ: When I speak with artists, it is easy for them to relate to me. They will succeed if they develop a long-term strategy and plan for success. We never judge art. Art is subjective. For us, it is more about the individual and the building of a lasting relationship. We look for ambition, good communication skills, and candor. With that said, what we look for in an artist in one word is passion.

EJ: We can best serve artists by listening to their needs, desires, and goals. As a full-service art company, we are involved in many aspects of the art industry. We have formulated a plan for success devised from the history of Michael’s career as an artist. We have a system called the “six spheres of success.” This is a strategy for attracting art buyers through marketing and exhibiting. It encompasses all the techniques and tools that I used to launch Michael’s career.

ABN: How many artists do you work with?

EJ: Over the last 10 years we have worked with hundreds of artists from around the world. Artblend is a multifaceted art company with much to offer. In our art gallery, we represent between 35 and 45 artists exhibiting with us full time. Our biannual publication, Artblend magazine, regularly has 20 to 26 artists featured per issue. Our involvement at multiple art fairs each year involves us working with 20 to 40 artists per show. On top of that, you can add on dozens more artists that we do book publishing and marketing for.

ABN: Can you share a success story from one of your clients?

MJ: Some years ago, an emerging photographer approached us. He had a clear vision of what he wanted to accomplish, and he had a budget and was willing to invest. One of the first things we did was introduce him to one of our top corporate art consultants. In less than two months, he landed a huge commission job with her for five times the amount of what he had invested with us. Today, he is a writer, an art consultant, and the owner of a popular online art gallery. And, yes, his photography career is flourishing.

ABN: What social media platforms should artists be using, and how?

EJ: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are the crucial ones. They should be posting announcements of any events, exhibits, and happenings they are involved in. Keep your audience interested and following you by posting new work. By sharing something of interest that is beneficial to others, this will create more reciprocity.

ABN: What are most artists doing wrong with their marketing and branding?

EJ: I am not one to pick out things that are wrong. That’s being negative. I like to rather focus on the positive. What they can do is to be consistent and keep it simple and clean. The goal is to develop a synonymous name and art recognition. You have only one opportunity to make a first and lasting impression. You have to stand out and remain above your competition because, in the art world, everyone within three feet of you is your competition.

ABN: How do you help an artist who is starting from scratch, truly working from the ground up?

MJ: That is an area I know very well. When I was starting out as a black-and-white architectural fine art photographer, it was very difficult. I had far more rejections than acceptances. I know a lot about perseverance, commitment, and how to take constructive criticism. For those artists who are more advanced, of course, there is still plenty that we can do to help them as well.

ABN: What are some successful things you’ve seen artists do on social media?

EJ: I like the interesting way in which some artists have created contests, with voting and such. This is wonderful because it can provide the artist with useful data to evaluate and adjust to. As an example, they can track what images, color trends, sizes, and subjects are the most popular. It is much like how a corporate business might use a focus group.

ABN: Do you build the websites for each artist? Do you manage them, or does the artist?

MJ: We develop and build websites for artists as part of our services. It is essential today that an artist has a very good website. Their website should be “responsive,” which means it can be viewed on all devices, such as a phone, a tablet, a TV, and a PC. We can manage or they can self-manage their website. We use current WordPress technology that is fairly simple and easy to use.

ABN: What are some effective ways for artists to use their websites?

MJ: A website is an instant showcase of who you are and what you are all about. It is open 24/7, 365 days a year. Anyone can go online at any time and check you out, from anywhere in the world. It is so cost-effective and one of the best investments an artist can ever make. We discover over 90 percent of our artists from viewing websites. Conversely, nothing is more of a turnoff to us than a bad website, meaning one that is not functioning properly or has technical glitches. If you have those problems, forget about it; you lost us in the first 15 seconds.

ABN: How have you found video to be effective for artists’ brands? Why types of content do you use video to promote?

MJ: Video is the hottest medium today. Especially when it is on your website, video can increase your search engine optimization (SEO) radically into a top ranking position on Google and Yahoo. YouTube is also a phenomenon!

ABN: What are three tips you’d give to artists who are just starting out and who want to build their brand or promote themselves?

EJ: You must invest in your career for others to invest in you or even notice you. Successful people want to do business with other successful people. Building an art career is a marathon, not a sprint.

The post Full Service appeared first on Art Business News.

By Nicki Porter

It’s one thing to create art with good intentions: to raise awareness for a cause, grant a voice to the oppressed, or just bring a little light into the world. But acting on those good intentions is another thing entirely.

For Kansas City natives Christina Eldridge and Dawn Taylor, it wasn’t enough to merely talk about bringing change to the world. Both women had journeyed to Africa and seen firsthand a basic human need that wasn’t being met: access to clean, safe drinking water.

So they co-founded Red Dirt Shop, an online marketplace that offers “goods for good.” All products for sale on the site—cellphone cases, water bottles, T-shirts—feature designs by working artists, and every sale provides an entire year of access to safe water for an individual in need, thanks to the store’s partnership with the nonprofit Water.org.

Red Dirt Shop built its business model on trust in a growing group of consumers who appreciate quality products and want to make a difference in the world. Eldridge and Taylor bet that these consumers would be willing to pay a higher price for premium products that support a worthy cause.

It was a smart bet. Red Dirt Shop has been a remarkable—and profitable—success. In 2014, the shop began selling products made by artisans in Guatemala and Kenya, offering job creation and fair wages in addition to clean-water access.

Eldridge recently discussed how the two entrepreneurs successfully combined art and social change.

Art Business News: How did you come up with the idea for Red Dirt Shop?

Christina Eldridge: While working as a fundraiser for a major hospital system, I started volunteering as a director for medical mission trips to Mali, West Africa. While I’ve been lucky to travel internationally quite a bit, this was my first time to go into a country with a purpose, work alongside the local people, and step into their shoes. What I saw were people who were impoverished, uneducated, and unhealthy. I also saw [that] they were joyous, ingenious, clever, and resourceful, and had an enviable sense of family and community.

While poverty is incredibly complex and the reasons for it vary from region to region and person to person, I saw problems I felt I could partner with local people on and make a difference. And it wasn’t about handouts or giving things away; it was [about] finding ways to help these people raise themselves out of poverty. The two areas I thought I could make a difference in were water access and job creation. Water is a basic human right, but nearly 750 million people don’t have access [to it]. If people aren’t healthy, they can’t take care of themselves. Second, it was made crystal clear to me that people want jobs and the dignity of taking care of their families themselves. No one wants to live off of handouts.

I wanted to start something that could scale and grow quickly, and that wasn’t charity; it’s commerce. So Red Dirt Shop is a lifestyle fashion-and-accessories company that donates a year of clean-water access for someone in need with each product sold. Additionally, half our products are now made by artisans in developing communities that are paid a fair wage and are working in safe, healthy conditions.

ABN: Why did you choose providing access to clean drinking water as your cause?

CE: On my first trip to Mali, we traveled to a very small, remote village to have a day clinic. The first person brave enough to step outside the village wall was a little boy around [age] 5 or 6. We walked slowly toward each other, and I could see he was just wearing a ratty T-shirt. As I got closer, I saw [that] his face was drawn, his eyes were lifeless, and he had diarrhea running down his legs. It didn’t take us long to figure out he had a water-borne illness. The village was using an open-top well, in which … the water was a milky brown. Their hand-pump well had broken some time ago.

Can you imagine being this boy’s mother, and your options are to give him water that will almost surely make him ill or let him thirst? As a mother myself, it broke my heart. We found out it would take about $800 to fix their pump, and I was able to raise the money within a day back home. The next year, I went back to the same village, and the boy, Famoussa, ran out to hug me. He was healthy, with full cheeks and bright eyes. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life.

When I knew I wanted to support water access with Red Dirt Shop, I decided to support Water.org. It’s one of the most forward-thinking and respected nonprofits focused on water and sanitation in the world. And amazingly, it is located right here in Kansas City, and I knew a number of people working there. I love their solutions to the water crisis and am happy to financially support them.

ABN: What made you decide to sell custom, artist-created designs? Why was artist involvement important to you?

CE: Well, it’s one thing to create a business idea, and it’s another to make one that is different

and attractive to people. We decided on cellphone covers as our first product: something that almost everyone buys for their smartphone, has a low price point, and is very visible to others. To make it distinctive, we decided to involve artists. Kansas City has an incredibly fertile arts community, and the artists are extremely collaborative with one another. When we started approaching artists—some we knew, some we didn’t—almost all of them said yes; they loved the idea of using their talents in a commercial product that could also help others. Additionally, we didn’t ask them to do it for free. We licensed their artwork for a period of time. Our artist partners have been incredible. They help share the product with their fan base, which is marketing for us, and vice versa. Some have just been fun to work with; others have become good friends.

ABN: How do you balance making a profit with philanthropy? Can you have both?

CE: You have to have profit, or you can’t survive. We are an investor-backed business, so we had to sell the idea that doing good also does good for a business. Nielsen has released three reports in the last five years surveying tens of thousands of people around the world. They show increasing demand for “do-good” companies and show that people are willing to pay more for such products.

With our products, we had to build the cost of doing good into the retail price. That [goal] may take some consumer education because most of the supply chains in the fashion industry are “dirty,” with people along the way being paid too little or the environment taking the cost. Consumers need to know the true cost of their fashion.

ABN: Talk about your decision to sell artisan-created products.

CE: It was always a goal to eventually add artisan-made products once the company got on its feet. It was adding another genre of art to our goods. I sought groups that had the skills and resources that I could work with on designs. That took a lot of time and [led us down] a lot of dead-end trails. But the artisans I’ve found thus far have been incredible to work with. It’s incredibly gratifying to know who is making your products, see what having a job does for them and their families, and then be able to share that story with your customer.

ABN: How do these products get selected for inclusion in the shop?

CE: The artisan products have the same standards as [goods from] any other supplier: quality products, timely delivery, good communication. Right now, we’re carrying beautiful leather bags and other accessories from Kenya. The quality is above reproach. We also just started working with a small village there that makes gorgeous blankets from organic cotton they grow, spin, and weave. And there’s a women’s co-op in Guatemala that uses their skills in backstrap weaving and fabric sewing.

I work with the groups on creating contemporary designs with the skills and resources they have. I don’t want to be like Ten Thousand Villages, which sells the indigenous products you might find in a local market. The products we have are loved for their beauty and design, and the fact that they are made by artisans in developing communities is a delightful surprise.

ABN: What has reception been like for the shop, in terms of both artists and consumers?

CE: Incredible! The visual artists [enjoy it for] different reasons: they like the interesting vehicles their art is placed on, such as phone cases, water bottles, and apparel; what their art is supporting; and that they are fairly paid for the licensing. I think the artisan groups like seeing what they make sold in America and [having it] be so well-received.

Consumers are ready to spend their money on quality products that aren’t harming people or the planet and support companies that use their power for good. They also love the story they can tell when someone compliments them.

ABN: Have you found marrying social impact and art to be a good match?

CE: I think that people who like our products love art, and when they choose artful products, they’re choosing to represent who they are. That [idea] ties in with the social impact as well; they buy products they can stand behind. Our customers buy our products—and share them passionately—because they love the individual statements and the good they represent.

ABN: How do you market to the art-appreciative philanthropist community?

CE: This has been a great partnership with our artists. It is part of our contract that we will market each other—cross-pollinate, if you will—to our respective fan bases via social media and email. They share the project they’ve worked on and what it means to them. We share their art and artist statements both through marketing and our website. It’s been an effective way to grow.

ABN: How do you work with artists to incorporate their designs into your products?

CE: For our visual artists who will have their work placed on products like phone cases, water bottles, and apparel, we have a pretty specific set of guidelines set up. We have learned many of the guidelines through trial and error. Our main goal is to make sure the art is represented as closely to the original work as possible. Mockups are made and shown to the artists before full production.

ABN: How can artists become involved with Red Dirt Shop?

CE: Right now, we find most of our artists through recommendations from other artists. We’re lucky to have such a great list of alumni. We also reach out to people we come across on the web. However, anyone can email us at info@reddirtshop.com.

ABN: Any advice for other social-minded art entrepreneurs out there?

CE: To be successful and accomplish your goals, remember to keep the discipline of your business first. When you do this, the intentions of your heart will come to fruition and grow.

Nicki Porter is a Boston-based writer, editor, and former preschool teacher. She believes in good art and good biscuits. 

The post Goods for Good appeared first on Art Business News.

By Meredith Quinn

Art is often one of the first programs on the chopping block for many public school districts. But four-year high school art teacher Melanie Blood reveals that the skills students acquire while talking about their own art and critiquing the work of their peers are among the most helpful and fundamental elements students learn in any classroom.

While a student at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt), Blood found her niche in ceramics and mixed media, incorporating materials that others may view as less than beautiful, such as assorted fibers, pieces of cast-off wood, and broken fences. Though she loved showcasing her work, Blood felt unfulfilled and, on a whim, applied to Tufts University, which offers an intensive social justice and art education graduate program in partnership with the School of The Museum of Fine Arts. After the program opened her eyes to different cultures that she had no exposure to at her all-white high school in a small town, Blood decided to pay it forward and devote her career to art education while continuing her own artistic endeavors.

As an art educator at Brockton High School, 30 minutes south of Boston, Blood has found that, as much as her students look up to her for inspiration and mentorship, their stories and spirit inspire her art as well.

Blood recently talked to Art Business News about the role of art in childhood development, the balance she strikes between personal and professional creativity, and how learning art can turn out to be just as practical as learning math.

ART BUSINESS NEWS: Tell me a little about your personal art and inspiration.

MELANIE BLOOD: I started out in college doing primarily ceramics, and, as it developed, I started messing around with firing other materials in a kiln and seeing what would happen. Once I left school, I didn’t have access to kilns, so now I’m doing more unfired clay and working with materials that you wouldn’t necessarily put together.
ABN: Why did you decide to pursue teaching?

MB: In high school, I was going through tough times, and I had an art teacher who inspired me and worked with me nonstop. I wanted to be that person for someone else. In college, opportunities came up to [exhibit my art] here and there, and I loved it, and I loved making work, but I felt like something was missing. I felt like it was almost selfish. I don’t mean that artists are selfish. I mean that, for me, it wasn’t fulfilling enough to just put my work out there. I wanted to be able to inspire kids to do the same thing. When I started learning about education—who it targets and who is being repressed and not considered when talking about curriculum, I knew I wanted to teach in a city. I wanted the challenge of working with kids that don’t have everything super easy and that need someone to motivate them.

ABN: What’s the best thing about being an art teacher?

MB: Knowing that you’re making a huge difference in kids’ lives. It’s not always easy, but then you realize: Even if it’s one kid who wants to come to school just to do art, that’s the most rewarding thing.

ABN: Do your students inspire your art?

MB: Yeah, for sure. I feel like I’m a guidance counselor, a teacher, a parent, a friend. I have a lot of different roles, because the kids don’t have a lot of resources. Some of them have strong family bonds, and some are going through the worst things you could possibly think of. You build relationships and work with them one-on-one, and you realize [these things are] coming out in their art. Those relationships I build with them, the struggles that I face in talking to them, the challenges of trying to be that mentor and trying to help them put that into their art is what my work is about now. It has shifted from being about family connections to connections between me and my students and connections that I see between them and in their community. You can have very, very strong kids, but you don’t really understand what’s going on in their lives and see that they’re really these fragile kids that have to maintain this structure but are also on the verge of falling apart. It’s interesting [to see] how resilient they are in trying to overcome different boundaries and hardships.

So my work has become strong, geometric shapes but also things that are very fragile, showing that dichotomy of strength and weakness and allowing the viewer to make that decision and that connection. My last piece was in the MassArt show, and, on the way home, it completely fell apart. That’s part of the process. It just exists for a little while. Now I have these fragments. How can I put them back together to make the next piece? That’s where I want to go with my work—taking fragments and creating something beautiful with them. I’ve [also] saved some fragments of some kids’ work, and I’ll try to use some of those within my work.

ABN: What do you say to those people who think that art is not essential in school?

MB: In this day and age, when people are being taught in a way that teaches to take a test, you [only] need to be able to regurgitate information, whereas in art and in music and especially in visual arts, you’re being critical of other students’ work. You’re talking about your work. You need to defend why you’re making things. My kids ask, “Why are we in ceramics? Why does this even matter?” I tell them, “What do we do every day? We look at things; we solve problems. How is this any different from math?” I give my kids prompts [and ask], “How are you going to tackle it?” Don’t you have to think about it in a critical and creative way? That’s what I have my kids do. They explain why they are making this [piece], why it is important, what inspired it. They have to look at other kids’ art and say what they think. Art helps kids think. Kids who don’t connect to math and science have art, and that’s what keeps them going. Maybe that inspires them to do better in other classes or come to school in general.

ABN: Can art change a child’s life?

MB: We have a lot of kids that would be lost if they didn’t have art in their lives. Kids that are struggling with family issues, are gay or transgender, or are dealing with culture shock are able to express that in their art. It’s so important because, in math or science, you don’t have that outlet. There’s a lot of violence in the city, and if they have something they connect to—whether it’s sports or drama or art—then it actually is saving their lives. Sometimes I feel like they would stay in my room until 7 at night if they could.

ABN: Tell me more about your students’ involvement in the Attleboro Arts Museum’s High Art show.

MB: Last year was the first year that we did it, [and] the theme was tape art. The kids had trouble coming up with something in common, and [then] they started talking about the Brockton Fair, which is something important in their city that they all remember. So they did this interactive installation—tickets flowing, popcorn, an elephant trunk, balloons hanging from the ceiling—all out of colored duct tape. They wanted people to have this feeling of childhood. We went into it thinking we’d just do it for fun, but we ended up placing third.

This year’s theme was text as imagery. We were talking about all of these big topics, but they said, “We don’t want to do something that’s so serious. We’re a community and we get along.” They started talking about fairy tales, and how the imagery tells a story on its own. They [created] a dragon crawling up a mountain and made a book out of wood and other papers. They wanted people to look at it and make up their own stories.

ABN: Is being an art teacher what you thought it would be?

MB: I can’t think of a better job than being in a school, inspiring kids, making work that is so meaningful to them and powerful in so many ways. I remember being in high school, going through tough times and wanting to do nothing but art all day long. A lot of these kids have so much on their plates, and that’s what they want to do. They want to come in, and they want to make art. We have kids who don’t necessarily do well in other classes and have told me, “If it weren’t for your class, I wouldn’t come to school.” So, I’m doing the right thing.

The post Educator & Creator appeared first on Art Business News.

By Meredith Quinn

The stories of Cuba, a land so close yet so far away, are teaching the world about life and people’s struggles in an isolated country. Perhaps no one has been more inspired than Conde Contemporary owner Stacy Conde, who, in her hometown of Miami, runs a gallery specializing in Cuban art.

Though she started out in the fashion world as a protégé of British design icon Barbara Hulanicki, Conde says that making the transition to art “was almost a no-brainer.” After redesigning gutted Art Deco hotels and working on the clothing Hulanicki sold in her London store, Biba, Conde found that “Art was fashion. Art was everything.”

Married to contemporary Cuban-born artist Andres Conde, Stacy Conde first entered the art world in 1998 with the Goodman-Conde Gallery. She has now set up shop in Little Havana to share the work and stories of a culture with which she so strongly identifies.

We asked Conde about her journey, her Miami gallery and the effect of the newest Cuba-U.S. diplomatic announcement on the art world.

Art Business News: What is it about Cuban artists that has made you devote so much of your career to spotlighting their work?

Stacy Conde: I was born and raised in Miami, so proximity is something. There were several waves of Cuban immigration into the United States, and one of them was [the Mariel Boatlift, a mass emigration of Cubans who departed from Cuba’s Mariel Harbor for the United States between April 15 and Oct. 31, 1980]. I was 10 years old, and it just affected me so deeply. We received more than 100,000 Cubans in … a year to Miami, and [it] was almost painful to watch. You had these people who had left everything—lost everything, except their dignity and their quest for freedom—and, as they began to assimilate into society, you grew up with them. And I just found the culture so very close to, believe it or not, a Southern culture, where my grandmother is from. It’s very food-centered, family-centered. You laugh, you fight, you dance, you kiss, you hug and you eat. It’s really a beautiful, warm culture that is very rich in so many ways. The different influences in the culture are expressed in the art—European influences, African influences and native influences. It’s this gorgeous amalgamation.

ABN: Why did you feel compelled to share this artwork with the world?

SC: It speaks to me. If you relate so much to a culture and you genuinely like the people, you like their way of being and you like their chutzpah, you’re going to like their expression on many levels. It’s a love for the culture. And then you look at a group of people who have suffered and struggled for such a long time and, in so many cases, maintained this sense of buoyancy, this sense of humor, this amazing outlook. And if you get an artist who is like that, you watch what they channel onto a canvas or into a sculpture, and it’s pretty remarkable.

ABN: What do Cuban artists offer that is unique to their culture?

SC: Their point of view is very specific because they have been almost locked down. Even the Cubans that are out in the diaspora are coming from that perspective. They’re seeing the outside world from a different perspective.

ABN: What makes you want to work with an artist?

SC: I have to see the work and really be moved by the work because … there’s so much art out there. There are so many people out there doing pretty good work, so, when I see something, I have to go, “Wow. That has moved me.” After that, I have to relate to the artists in some way because … I’m looking for a long-term partnership with the artist. We very much rely on each other. As much as I’m helping [the artists], they’re helping me. We’re building our careers together. So if I don’t have someone that I feel like I can have a partner in, that I can work with, then I don’t want to work with [that person]. Life is too short to be miserable. I’m not interested in fighting. We’ve worked out our lives so that I spend the vast majority of my time with my husband. His studio is at the back of the gallery. I’m running everything from the front. But we have coffee together. We talk. And this is how I want my life to be. I want it to be happy. And what could be better than being surrounded by beautiful work and beautiful people inside—the beautiful souls that created this work?

At the same time, it’s tremendously hard work. I don’t know that I’ve ever worked this hard in my life. It’s constant. You do what you have to do to make it happen. It’s not just my career. It’s not just my gallery. It’s all of these really talented and wonderful people that I work with who I want to keep working. [I do] not want to see some of these people have to do other jobs just to make ends meet.

ABN: What makes people so enthusiastic about the work you represent?

SC: Number 1: the quality of the work … the backstory of the work itself, as well as the artists. The artists have very compelling stories, and [they express] these stories in their work. You look at a painting—for example, Andres’ Social series [a re-creation of covers from the famous Cuban magazine, Social, which closed down in 1938]—and you see very graphic, commercial, pretty work, and you can just take that at face value, or you can kind of dig into it and try to see exactly what it is. … Andres’ idea was to reopen this magazine in 1939 in his own head and do 240 new covers and reclose the magazine again symbolically on the date of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. On some of these canvases, he’s using precious metals, like 23-carat gold, to further drive home the point: “This is what it was,” as opposed to, “Look at the misery; look at what you’ve created. Let’s go backward and take a hard look back at how wonderful this place was.” Andres has become kind of tired of seeing the same symbolism in Cuban protest art over and over again—the inner tubes and the paddles. That’s a legitimate expression, but you become desensitized to seeing these things, especially here in Miami, where everybody knows some really painful and tragic stories.

ABN: Is your clientele also largely Latin American, or do your artists and their themes cross cultural lines?

SC: They absolutely cross cultural lines, which I find so interesting. I initially thought it would probably appeal more to Cuban-Americans, but the fact of the matter is that we’re probably about half and half—maybe even more so American at this point, which is really wonderful. It means that the larger population is really looking very seriously at Cuban art.

ABN: Sometimes you look at a piece of art, and it just speaks to you. It doesn’t matter what the culture is.

SC: Right, and that’s the point. I’m not trying to have some kind of super-political Cuban protest gallery; that’s not what it is about at all. I have one kinetic sculpture in the window that has six dolls that salute whenever you walk by them, and they’re dressed as Cuban schoolchildren. That is the only political piece I have in the gallery right now [of] about 60 works. It’s meant to transcend the political situation in Cuba. It’s honestly about the art.

ABN: What effects do you think the recent accord reached between the United States and Cuba will have on the Cuban art scene?

SC: Initially, I think there is going to be a mad rush. I think it’s going to further stabilize the art market. When you have a greater exchange between the United States and Cuba, it’s going to create very stable prices—both in the U.S. and on the island—because now you’re not going to try to undercut another market or oversell it. It’s going to stabilize everything.

Everyone that I’ve talked to—regardless of their political affiliation—is at least hopeful [that] it will affect not just Cuban artists, but the Cuban people, in a positive way. Whether it will I have no idea, but it is certainly my most sincere hope that the Cuban people have more freedom to live their lives in the way that they would like to live them.

The post Sharing Cuban Stories appeared first on Art Business News.

When she began her undergraduate studies at the Columbus College of Art and Design, Soo Sunny Park planned to pursue product design. Luckily for museum visitors, however, she found her calling in sculpture and installation art. Her work is now featured at the Rice Gallery in Houston; the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts; the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, Connecticut; and other venues across the States.

Vancouver, Canada will soon have its own Park original, as the rising star completes an artist residency in conjunction with the Vancouver Biennale before returning to her home in New Hampshire. Park, who has taught at Washington University and Dartmouth College, holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her most recent work explores the qualities of light and the spaces in between.

We asked Park about her career path as an artist and how teaching affects her work. She offers some priceless advice for aspiring artists.

Art Business News: How did you originally become interested in art?

Soo Sunny Park: My sister and I always took art classes. I lived in Seoul, Korea until I was 9, and that’s just what you do there. You take piano lessons; you take art classes. Then I had to be apart from my parents for almost three years before I came to the States. My parents came here before my sister and I did; we had to wait until we had our green cards. Those three years of my life were just upside down. I went through crisis early. Then I moved to the U.S. to Marietta, Georgia, where I was one of the few minority kids. I think that and the language barrier and all that stuff made me the person I am, and I think it really influenced me to work with the visual because my verbal language wasn’t the strongest at that time of my life. But I didn’t really realize that until I was ready to go to college. My sister knew she was going to be an artist, so she took a portfolio class, a private lesson, and I did that, as well, and I got a really good response. I ended up going to art school with a scholarship. I did not get into the school that I wanted to go to for [math or physics], so that threw me into the art environment. I don’t regret it a bit.

ABN: Why did you decide to get an MFA degree after finishing your undergrad program?

SSP: I went to a very studious undergraduate program, the Columbus College of Art and Design, but despite that I knew that it takes a lot of discipline to be an artist. You can’t really make a living right after graduating from art school. For most artists, you have to have two jobs for a long, long time. I felt like I didn’t have the discipline to make work on my own. So I went straight to Cranbrook Academy of Art and Design for grad school.

ABN: What kind of jobs did you have when you finished grad school?

SSP: I waited tables starting when I was 14 all the way through my first year in grad school. After I finished, I told myself I can’t wait tables anymore because it’s too easy. I didn’t want waitressing to be my career, so I held off on it. I worked at a museum as a part-time preparator. Then I moved to St. Louis, and the people who I met were architects in their 40s. They were doing their office jobs, but they were also buying properties and renovating, so I was involved in that. When I had been in St. Louis for about six months, somebody called me up at the last minute, two days before school started, and asked me to teach Western art history at a community college. I jumped on it. My background is not art history; it’s studio art. So my first year was a lot of work and a lot of butterflies in my stomach, but I got over it. Then I got an offer to teach a sculpture elective at Washington University in St. Louis, which began my transition to focus more on studio art. I moved to Dartmouth, New Hampshire in 2005 [to teach studio art at Dartmouth College].

ABN: How did you learn to teach art?

SSP: I had some friends who said they wanted to teach when they were done with school, and I was like, “Are you kidding?” You have to have experience to be a mentor, so I was not for that. But when you’re out there trying to survive as an artist, a teaching opportunity is really, really great, and you can’t pass on it. When I taught the lecture course, I had to get over public-speaking fright. Then teaching studio art, I went back and thought about what I learned at Columbus College of Art and Design and structured my lessons according to the ones I thought were significant. You also learn from the students—are inspired by students. If they’re doing well, you can just see the light bulb go on, and that’s really inspiring as an artist. Another thing I love about teaching is being a part of the learning institution. It makes me do research. Say I have to talk about kinetic art with my students; I go back and do some reading, and I’m learning more about kinetic art.

ABN: What’s the most challenging thing about teaching for you?

SSP: As much as we encourage students to think outside the box and be confident about what they want to do, students do sometimes push the envelopes a little too much, and that’s hard to deal with. Also, you never know what each individual has gone through in life, so dealing with students who have emotional troubles at times is hard. Being an art teacher, you can’t separate those things as you could if you were teaching in a different discipline. Doing art, that whole creative process comes through: the visual, emotional and conceptual. You get involved more than you want to get involved. But I’m learning how to keep that divide.

ABN: How would you describe your art?

SSP: It’s really changed over the years. Now I’m making work that is not ephemeral. The object exists; it can exist for a long, long time. There is that concept of the in-between space. For the past seven years, I’ve been thinking about using light as a medium, involving natural light—daylight—so there are elements of transience and time change. Within that time change, there is a subtlety; you have the sunny day, you have the gray day, and you have the humid day, and all those things affect the mood and the projection, the reflections.

ABN: What’s your top advice for aspiring artists?

SSP: My professor from Cranbrook, Heather McGill, said to think of yourself as part of a group, not an individual doing independent things. See yourself in a larger context, how you are similar and how you are different in your approach to your work. I think that’s really great advice because, when you start making work, you want to always be making new, new, new. But in fact, a lot of things have been [created] over thousands of years of our existence. So don’t be discouraged when you find out that you’re being compared to someone else. That’s how we communicate and interact: We make references. We can’t describe something brand new without referencing something else. I also think the hard thing is to keep making work. I always say it’s a survival game. How do you survive as an artist? What is it you have to do so you don’t lose the “making” part? I give this advice to students: Think five years in advance. How do you see yourself in five years? It’s a goal, not some sort of far-fetched thing that you’re wishing for from a distance. Thinking in that way has really helped me.

For more about Soo Sunny Park, visit soosunnypark.com. 

Megan Kaplon, editorial assistant at Madavor Media, has been contributing content and editorial expertise to an array of magazines since graduating from Emerson College with a degree in writing, literature and publishing. 

The post Soo Sunny Park: Sculpting Art and Mind appeared first on Art Business News.

by Megan Kaplon

Evan Garza grew up in a house filled with Latin American artwork and spent many weekends traipsing through the halls of Houston’s many acclaimed art museums, including the Menil Collection, the Rothko Chapel and the Contemporary Arts Museum. Back then, however, he never noticed or acknowledged the effect art had on him. He figured that every kid went to museums and lived in art-filled homes. When Garza was almost out of college, a friend opened a gallery, and he casually volunteered his help, not realizing that it would be the start of a successful career in art.

Today, Garza has settled in as the exhibition and programs coordinator for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston after stints at a few other commercial galleries, as editor-at-large of New American Paintings and as a curator for the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts in Boston’s South End. Four years ago, he co-founded the first artist residency exclusively for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and questioning (LGBTQ) artists on New York’s Fire Island. He lives in Boston with his husband, Michael Brodeur, an assistant arts editor at the Boston Globe.

Art Business News: What do you do in your job as an exhibition and programs coordinator at the Museum School?

Evan Garza: Essentially, it’s a creative-support role. We have a gallery program, and the coordinator is responsible for supporting the curator, for supporting any guest curators, for supporting the vision of the exhibition and any sort of related programming that may go alongside it. Occasionally, I curate exhibitions, and I curate [exhibitions at] the museum school, as well, which is always very exciting. I also am in charge of running our visiting artist lecture series here at the school and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

ABN: How do you choose visiting artists to bring to the school?

EG: That’s a conversation that I have with faculty, and they essentially make suggestions for artists that they would like to include in their curriculum. Many of the artists that we bring to the museum school to give lectures and perform studio visits with students are artists who are really engaged in interdisciplinary practices or artists who have experience as educators and working directly with young artists. But primarily the visiting artists who are selected are artists whose practices reveal pioneering qualities and really engaging disciplines.

ABN: How does working for a nonprofit such as the museum school differ from working in a commercial gallery?

EG: It’s inherently different. I realized as I was working for commercial galleries that what I was really interested in was not making a sale but rather engaging someone or an audience in ideas. [I had an interest] in all the concepts regarding practice, materials, conceptual engagements and all the issues that relate to the actual work itself and then the issues related to how works create a contextual environment for the viewer when they’re installed in an exhibition space. Those ideas were much more important to me than any sort of commercial aspect.

ABN: Are you an artist yourself?

EG: No. I’m a curator and a writer, and I run a queer-artist residency in New York.

ABN: What inspired the creation of that residency program?

EG: Fire Island Artist Residency was inspired by the need to preserve the existing queer-art-making history on Fire Island. It’s a decades-old history. Cherry Grove is the oldest gay/queer community in the United States; it was founded in the late 1800s. There is a very long history there, and we felt it would be extraordinary to bring artists to that location to foster connections with the island and its history and really see how that context alters the work in some way. We’re just about to embark on our fourth summer out there.

ABN: Are the Fire Island artists usually young people or artists across all spectrums?

EG: The Fire Island Artist Residency is exclusively for emerging LGBTQ artists. Age really doesn’t factor into it; the emerging part really just has to do with where they are in their careers.

ABN: You have mentioned in the past that you are turned off by artists who can’t talk or write about their work. Why do you think that’s so important for artists to be able to do?

EG: I think it’s really important from a professional standpoint. Art is experiential. It’s one thing to be able to experience the work as a viewer, but that’s the relationship between the viewer and the object or the viewer and the work. The other side of that coin is what the artist is capable of doing as an artist and as a professional. So you need to be able to effectively communicate your vision as an artist and speak about your practice in an intelligent way, both verbally and in writing. It’s an invaluable skill.

ABN: What are the challenges in writing about art?

EG: The challenges are really to be able to say in words what it is you wish to communicate visually. I think the artists that do struggle to make that connection are those who are usually stronger one way or another. It’s really an internal dialogue; it’s really about artists’ ability to have a conversation with themselves about what it is that they’re interested in exploring. [Consider] the minimalists or conceptual artists of the 20th century. That work was formally very simple. Formally, it was very redactive and simple and lots of lines and color and how those things sort of interact for the viewer. But then all the description of that work was all so incredibly intense. The source where all of that work really began and the nature of those concepts was really very deep and intense. I think it’s all in describing the visual and in describing the conflation of ideas and concepts and interests that are really paramount for the artist to be able to do.

ABN: Your husband is a writer. What role do you think art, both visual and written, plays in your relationship with him?

EG: It’s just one of the things that we enjoy. We also really, really love watching “House of Cards.” It’s one of the myriad things that we enjoy together. There are times that we have conversations about work. Sometimes, we have debates about work, but what’s great is [that] I have a partner that I can have that conversation with. That’s really what it boils down to. I have a husband that I’m able to share that with. It’s really just one of the many things that we get to share, which is awesome.

ABN: What are your favorite places for discovering new artists?

EG: Studios. I really make it a point to get in as many studios as possible, which is why it’s been so exciting working at the museum school because I’m surrounded by artists at all hours of the day. And then when I leave the school, it’s also really important for me to be in studios here in Boston, and I’m constantly doing studio visits in New York. Even when I go home to Texas to visit my family, I make time to do studio visits with artists because that’s really where those moments happen. It’s very much about being active and searching for new ideas, new engagements, new disciplines and that sort of thing.

ABN: What trends have you seen emerging from the students in the MFA School or the artists you work with at the Fire Island Residency?

EG: That’s a more difficult question because I really sort of reject the notion of trends, just as a concept. It’s also just a little bit more difficult to answer because there are two things at play, right? There are two different communities there. One is this community, the museum school, which is by nature an interdisciplinary art school where degrees are not granted in a specific discipline. So you won’t get your masters’ in painting; you’re going to get it in a studio program. You’re welcome to focus on drawing or performance or ceramics or sculpture or painting or all of the above, so it’s a highly mixed environment where disciplines are really butting up against one another and blurring between one another. And then on Fire Island, those decisions are made by our jurors; who choose the five artists to come out every year. Every year; the jurors change; we invite different professionals to make those decisions, so the dynamic of the program, by virtue of its constructs, changes on an annual basis. While interests sometimes might be the same, the approaches will always be very different. That’s more of a difficult question that I would prefer to avoid because I just don’t think that trends amount to very much at all.

ABN: Is there an exhibit that you’ve curated that you’re most proud of?

EG: That’s another really tough one because I’m so proud of all the artists that I’ve been able to work with and projects I’ve been able to work on. The one that people tend to bring up the most often when I speak to colleagues and professionals is “Paint Things: Beyond the Stretcher,” which I co-curated with Dina Deitsch for deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. That was a really dynamic show. It was a really groundbreaking exhibition that Dina and I worked on for almost two years. It was really critically acclaimed when it opened, and it’s one that faculty and students and artists and colleagues and curators come to me all the time to make comments on or engage in a discussion about, and it’s one that I’m particularly proud of.

As of press time, Evan Garza was transitioning out of his role with the SMFA in order to focus full-time on the Fire Island Artist Residency.

The post Curating a Life appeared first on Art Business News.

by Megan Kaplon

Stephanie Rossi, the owner of Boston’s Spazio Rosso design company and one of Boston Common magazine’s Top 10 Interior Designers to Know, once tried to convince herself that her passion, art, could never be her job. After completing business school and helping her husband, a chef, design a restaurant, however, she realized her reluctance was futile. She enrolled in an interior-design program at Suffolk University in Boston and shortly thereafter burst onto the city’s design scene and onto the pages of Boston Globe Magazine, Boston magazine, Design New England and New England Home.

We tracked her down to find out how an interior designer determines what art pieces will fit her clients’ taste and lifestyle, which Boston galleries are her favorites, and what artists made the cut to hang on her own walls at home.

Art Business News: How did you first become interested in design?

Stephanie Rossi: I’ve always had a fine-arts background and been involved in classes and extracurricular activities surrounding art, but I didn’t want something that I really enjoyed as a hobby to become a pressure-filled career decision. After business school, I met my husband, who is a chef, and he was about to open a restaurant at a winery and needed help with the decor and the layout for the restaurant. It sort of hit me then that interior design was a good way for me to involve all the things that I like about art and learning about it and spatial relationships and color and fabrics and shape and size into one thing that I could tangibly call a profession.

ABN: How has business school helped in your interior design career?

SR: I think that probably it’s helped more than my fine-arts background in dealing with people and the psychology of working with individuals on such a familiar, sensitive subject. You’re in people’s homes talking to them about the way they live, but you’re also running a business. There’s a fine line of how to marry those things together.

ABN: Do you do a lot of art buying for people?

SR: It’s sort of a split. Some of my clients have their own collection that we have to incorporate, but a lot of them, because they’re younger, are interested in being educated on it, so we go through the process of learning about different galleries and different artists to find what they like and what fits their budget.

ABN: Do you think it’s more challenging to design with nothing or with a full collection of artwork?

SR: I love designing from scratch. I mean, who wouldn’t? I think every designer’s dream is to have a blank slate. But I do like the challenge of when a client comes to me and says, “I have a few pieces that we obviously need to incorporate.” That’s a really fantastic challenge for any designer to have.

ABN: What’s the process of figuring out what art will fit a client’s style?

SR: You can get a sense of someone’s level of experience [with art] the minute you go into their home or see the Pinterest pictures of things they like. Once you get a sense of where they’re at, you don’t want to overwhelm or intimidate them by showing them certain artists. So, in the beginning, I’ll direct them to local galleries that showcase multiple artists and sculptors, and we’ll go visit them if they have openings and develop an idea of what the client’s comfort level is. You can get a visceral sense immediately when someone looks at something. They might not verbally tell you, but you can tell their reaction physically to [an artist]. It’s a sensitive topic because nobody wants to immediately say, “Oh no, I don’t like that.” It’s like wine. Everybody gets very intimidated about wine tasting. It’s the psychology of it. You want to direct the client to a particular gallery or group of artists where you can push the limits a little bit, but not too far.

ABN: Are there certain questions you ask your clients to try to figure out what their style is?

SR: I submit to them an icebreaking exercise, a series of questions that are completely unrelated to their creative tastes, just about how they live and think. For example, I think it’s very important to find out what they’re reading: what sort of books you like to read or magazines do you subscribe to, or how do you get your mail? Those are things on a psychological level that show how their brains work. Are they left-brained or right-brained? Are they more literal? Are they analytical? Another thing that I ask is: Do you gravitate toward the floor? Some clients don’t know what I mean by that. It’s like, if you’re sitting or you’re having a meeting with someone or you’re watching television, do you sit on the floor when you do that, or are you always sitting at a table or a desk or a chair? Those are little things that they don’t realize are important, but it gives me a sense [of whether] they’re more casual or more structured.

ABN: What’s your relationship to artists and galleries? Are there a few you work with frequently?

SR: I really like Jules Place; she’s in SoWa [South of Washington (Street), a nonprofit association of professional studio artists in Boston]. She has a few open houses that you can bring clients to. I’ve brought a couple of my clients to First Fridays [where artists open their studios to showcase their work], and that’s a great way of showing them the galleries, including Adelson Galleries, along Harrison Avenue. There’s no commitment to it. Everybody can look and ask questions, and it’s not like you’re going to see a specific artist and risk your client’s not liking them. There’s also a gallery in Lincoln, Mass., the Clark Gallery, that I really like. They represent Lynette Shaw, who is a very well-known local artist. There are just so many amazing artists in the area.

ABN: What makes a gallery attractive to an interior designer?

SR: It depends on what I’m looking for. Jules Place is very approachable, and she has a lot that you can see there. Clark Gallery is more of a museum setting, which I really like. To some people, that’s a little more intimidating, but I like viewing fewer artists on the big white walls and seeing installations.

ABN: What kind of art do you have in your home?

SR: I actually have a Lynette Shaw, which I am happy to say that I own. I also have photography from a [Polish] photographer that I worked with on a project for the Junior League, and her name is Paulina Otylie Surys. She currently lives in London, and she shoots for Vogue and a bunch of other designers and clients, but she also does her own photography, and she uses these amazing techniques and printing qualities in her work. She was kind enough to grant me the right to two of her photographs, and I got them printed up enormously for the Junior League project, [and now they’re] hanging in my house, along with art by Michael Anastassiades and Helen Meyerowitz.

ABN: How do you think art and design trends relate to each other?

SR: I see there’s a shift in interior-design trends, almost like everything is OK; there’s not a set style anymore. There’s not just the traditional or the conservative or the modern. There’s this big eclectic mix that’s running through interior design right now because people are more aware of what’s out there and what’s accessible to them.

ABN: Does that trend open up the market to more nontraditional artists?

SR: I think so, yes, and I also think it gives people reflection. For example, portraits, which are obviously considered very classical, traditional art, are popping up in incredibly modern and contemporary interiors.

For more about Stephanie Rossi’s work, check out spaziorosso.com.

The post Art by Design appeared first on Art Business News.

by Megan Kaplon

Lisa and D. Arthur Wilson, owners of the original Art Gone Wild Gallery in Key West, Fla., and the new sister gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., find themselves living a charmed life in the art world; however, their success did not always comes easily.

The husband-and-wife team is making some brave and risky moves, such as opening a new gallery during the tough economic recovery of 2010. Those risks paid off: The Wilsons are doing well enough to expand, and Lisa and Arthur’s work continues to attract more collectors. The couple is even speaking with some Hollywood producers about creating a feature-length animated film based on Arthur’s signature character, Rhupert the ostrich, although the pair cannot yet share any further details.

ABN spoke with the couple to find out what drew them to art and to each other and to discover the secrets of their success as artists and gallery owners.

Art Business News: How did you first get involved in art?

Arthur: My first art show was in 1976 in Dayton, Ohio, when I was 17. In the ’70s and early ’80s, mall art shows were [among] the major ways to make a living. When I tell people today that weren’t around in that era, they go, “What? In malls?” But you must understand that malls were the new marketplace. Downtowns were dying across America at the time, people had not yet started renovating downtown historic districts, … the shopping mall was brand new and promoters were doing art shows there. They were typically traveling shows, and I ran into one, and these people were making a living at art and traveling the country. I said, “Hey, it doesn’t get any better than that,” so I bought myself a van, and I started doing art shows coast to coast for the next four or five years.

ABN: What about you, Lisa?

Lisa: My mother was an amazing vocal-music educator, and she gave me that beautiful balance of always having a creative space. I was always surrounded by art and performances and museums, and I was a vocal-music major and dance minor in college.

But when Arthur and I met, I really hadn’t thought too much about being a professional two-dimensional artist. We got married, and I thought, “Well, I’ll just work for him.” But, as an artistic soul, he recognized that I was getting incredibly restless not having my own expression, so he encouraged me to start playing with different mediums. I started with—this is hilarious—large acrylic fruits and vegetables in my own style, and God only knows why they sold. I swear I don’t know why anyone gave me money, but they did. I think it was because they were big and cheap.

ABN: How did you meet?

A: At an art show in Boulder, Colo. I had my son with me, and I was recently divorced, and I was like, “Well, I’m not going to hit on any girls, not with my son around.” And [Lisa] was done with men. She was going through a divorce herself. So neither of us was looking. In fact, we were both intentionally not looking. But she walked by me, and I thought, “This gal is really pretty.” I complimented her, and she discounted my compliment, like women typically do. The next day, I walked into her booth, and I said, “Hi, my name is Arthur,” and I put out my hand, and that was it. We married a year to the date later, and it’s been 13 magical years.

L: When I met him, it was true, we both were not looking. And I’ll tell you what: He swept me completely off my feet. … It’s been a rollicking, hilarious journey ever since, and we really adore each other.

ABN: Arthur, how did you get into painting wildlife?

A: Wildlife was actually an early love of mine. I grew up always on an adventure as a kid, exploring the woods.

ABN: Tell me a little bit about the character, Rhupert, who appears in a lot of your work.

A: Rhupert the ostrich was born out of my wildlife work. At first, Rhupert started off a little bit slow, but he is now 90 percent of what I sell and 75 percent of what the Key West gallery sells. He’s very, very popular. My most expensive pieces I’ve ever sold have been Rhupert, and he’s also the most fun thing I’ve ever done.

Rhupert can be easily dismissed as just whimsical art or cute art, but there’s actually a great deal of depth to him. He’s balanced with a sense of humor. I’ve found that, almost no matter how serious something may seem, if I balance it with a sense of humor, it makes things digestible. Rhupert [represents] being yourself. That’s the boiled-down version: Be yourself. My favorite quote from Rhupert— Rhupert gets attributed with all these quotes—is about the three hardest things to do in life. First of all, to find out who you are. That’s not easy, and that’s the beginning of the journey. The next hardest thing above that is to actually be who you are, and that takes a certain amount of commitment and courage. And the hardest thing in life is to share who you are, and that is downright terrifying for most of us. Rhupert is kind of a Forrest Gump meets Obi-Wan Kenobi; he’s a wise Jedi master, but he doesn’t have a clue at the same time.

ABN: Lisa, what kind of work are you creating these days?

L: My current style is one that I literally developed just by playing, which is the guidance that my husband gave me. When I go to canvas, that’s what I do. I say a little prayer over it, and then I just give myself permission to play and not take myself so seriously and just see what we have here. I started out on board with acrylic mixed media, and … now I’m working on acrylic as my canvas, so I’m getting this crazy dimension to the work that is really a combination of two separate paintings.

ABN: If you had to give a thesis for your gallery, what would it be?

A: I like to say it’s “where art goes on adventure.” And I believe that life’s an adventure. My wife’s and my work are so radically different, but, still, going on that abstract-expressionist trail is quite an adventure. And that’s an adventure of the heart; she truly paints what she feels, and I marvel at how she can translate those emotions by the colors of paint she uses and the movement that’s created. For me, personally, “adventure” is one of the greatest words there is when it comes to describing life. It incorporates it all: the challenges, the difficulties, the highs, the lows. Art is an expression of that and can take people on that adventure if they allow themselves to open themselves up to it.

L: The thesis statement of our gallery would be: “It’s a safe place to find yourself and connect with yourself.” We think it’s quite beautiful, but the art on the wall is so unique. It’s not art that creates a shock; it’s art that creates an eyebrow raise. Especially with the Rhupert work: … “Why the heck is there an ostrich in everything?” That makes people laugh at first, but then, once they get to know what Rhupert’s message is, they begin to connect with the poignancy of D. Arthur’s message. It’s just a safe place to discover yourself—a safe place to learn something you might not have known.

For more, visit Art Gone Wild Gallery at agwg.net.

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