Archive for November, 2007
Lime Berry to Close Doors, Durango Herlad, Nov. 23, 2007
In Durango on November 26, 2007 at 10:36 pmJoe and Melissa Carroll, the owners of Lime Berry Gallery, are moving to upstate New York, and they are taking their store with them.
Not literally, but they plan to take some of the friends and family they represent in their Durango gallery and introduce them to buyers on the East Coast.
“We love Durango,” Melissa Carroll said Monday. “But we’ve been envisioning a place where we could live and work more seasonally and have more time off.
A large “going out of business” sign hangs above the marquee at the Carroll’s bright, colorful store at 925 Main Ave. Everything is discounted 20 percent to 50 percent.
The couple will relocate in the early spring to Hammonds Port, N.Y., on Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. Melissa plans to open a new store and has her eye on a circa 1800s building where they can both live and work.
“I couldn’t put my finger on the right location until I found the Finger Lakes,” Melissa joked.
The town is a popular tourist destination for summer visitors to the lake and autumn visitors to the wineries in the area. Their new store will allow the Carrolls to enjoy their winters, and they plan to return to Durango Mountain Resort and Telluride for skiing.
“Right now, we are giving our all for 12 months. We don’t have any down time, and while we work together at the store, we don’t have a lot of time to spend together just enjoying each other,” Melissa said.
The move also will enable Joe to spend more time painting and making furniture.
The couple embraces change. In 1986, Melissa moved to Taos, where she met Joe. They came to Durango in 1995, moved to Telluride in 2000 and returned to Durango in 2002. Melissa took two years off before opening Lime Berry in June 2004, investing $45,000 to refurbish the 1,800-square-foot space. She owned Las Cruces and Exit One Trader’s in Durango, and Las Cruces in Telluride before opening Lime Berry.
“Each time, it’s like a performance,” Melissa said drawing on her dance and theater background. “Each endeavor is absolutely wonderful, from the concept to the remodeling, it is a creative process. But each space dictates something new.”
The new space in Hammonds Port will dictate something different as well, but Melissa envisions the rugs, the folk art, the funky furnishings and the bright paintings all going with them.
“Some of our artists will be taken to New York,” she said. “It will be fun to share a bit of Colorado with New York.”
Her concept has always been to represent friends and family who make handmade items. That won’t change. And Lime Berry has been successful. The Carrolls are looking to sublet the space where their store is located, because they have a three-year lease. Several people already are looking.
Moving across the country will be a challenge for the Carrolls, and they hope to only have about half as many rugs to haul to New York as they’re displaying. Melissa said that last Saturday was a wild day in the store with people taking advantage of the discounts.
“It was like Filene’s Basement in here,” she said, referring to the long-standing and famous bargain-shopping department store.
The gallery is still filled with the prolific, colorful paintings of Navajo artist Leland Holiday, the papier mach`E9 sculptures of Amy Vaklav Felker and the figurative sculptures of Deborah Gorton. Lots of old Native Pawn jewelry fills a front case, and several jewelry cases were sold to other local business owners.
Durango’s loss is Hammonds Port’s gain.
“It’s not a bummer,” Melissa said to customers who came in asking about the going out of business sign. “It’s a good thing.”
artsjournalist@centurytel.netLeanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the visual arts.
Art for Art’s Sake, Durango Herald, Nov. 20, 2007
In Durango, contemporary art, painting on November 26, 2007 at 10:22 pm
“Untitled” is created using complementary color schemes. In this work, a color like orange must touch its complement blue.
“Untitled,” Rod Craig’s oil pastel painting of two pears are not pears; they’re clouds or water in the shape of pears, says Craig.
(Author’s Note: The color matching on these images is not representative of the actual work. The paper had difficulty scanning the transparencies.)
Rod Craig lost interest in painting when he tried to make art his job.
The Durango artist spent five years making a living selling his art. He was a watercolor artist and a hyperrealist back in the 1990s, living the gonzo lifestyle fueled by drugs and alcohol.
“I thought it was part of the creative process,” Craig admits.
When he was engaged in what he calls an “unrealistic lifestyle,” he painted absolute realism. Today, clean and sober for more than 10 years, his lifestyle seems more real while his art has taken a new direction. It is more abstract and more colorful.
“I didn’t understand abstraction. It’s simple, and simplicity is the hardest thing. We are complex. But once your ego is gone, you can bare your soul and reveal yourself,” Craig said in his studio last week. “Before, painting was a self expression. My ego was screaming ‘this is how I am. Orderly and clear.’ I emphasized skill. I used to concentrate on texture.”
His machine series from the late 1990s features a mass of steel and gears and wild, natural color. These large paintings explore the multiple layers of texture found on a rusted piece of metal. They are an interpretation of an exact image. They are real, yet somehow contrived.
However, it was in this series that Craig began to explore the color-opposition painting technique that is prominent in his current work. With this technique, a color has to touch its complement. For example, blue has to touch orange. One can see the foundation in this hyperrealism for what Craig is creating now in his large complementary color field paintings of angles, walls and lush pears some with surrealistically enflamed stems.
“Realism takes the viewer out of the equation,” Craig said. “In real, finite realism, you lose the art. The art disintegrates into technique and skill, and you lose the human expression.”
His current work is all about expression. Craig attempts to avoid making the work real or understandable in the physical world. His pears are clouds or water, not pears. It is an attempt to paint a philosophy. Craig is engaged in an experiment in duality where cold is just as important as hot.
“In America, the ideal resides on one side or the other,” Craig said. “But we do live in a perfect world just the way it is.”
He’s having fun making art, and he’s no longer dependent upon it for his income. A plumber by trade, Craig continues to design plumbing systems for new construction, a very mathematical and left-brain process that seems to free his right brain even more for creativity. And he doesn’t feel as if he is pandering to a marketplace or trying to create a gimmick, something that will sell. Now he gets lost in the color, in creating an anti-shadow where the shadow becomes smoke and disappears, or a loose unidentified edge that throws the light.
“Everything is an experiment. I put little emphasis on selling,” Craig said.
But that doesn’t mean the work isn’t selling. He sold two paintings from the pear collection before they were even framed. And framing is another boon provided by a steady income from his day job. He can afford to frame his art in gorgeous frames. And his day job doesn’t keep him from his creativity. Craig says he paints, draws or takes photographs every day.
“Great art makes money look like trash, life confetti. Great art is far more important than money,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how good you are. It’s very difficult to sell mediocre work that’s generated for the purpose of selling. I’ve never had a hard time selling great art,” Craig said, then humbly added: “Not that mine is great.”
He took the argument even farther and suggested pure art cannot be bought or sold. It’s only temporary.
After our initial interview at his home studio, Craig called me several days later. He’d been philosophizing about art.
“The thing that separates art from everything else is that everything else can be explained mathematically. Art is the exception to the laws of physics and math. It can’t be quantified. It is the exception that proves the rule,” he said.
artsjournalist@centurytel.netLeanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the visual arts.
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Goebel selected as finalist for Arts Writer Grant
In Art Criticism, Durango on November 26, 2007 at 9:57 pmI’m thrilled, honored and excited to have been selected as a finalist for the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.
What is the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program?
The Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant is a three-year pilot program designed to support writers whose work addresses contemporary visual art through project-based grants issued directly to individual authors. The first program of its type, it was founded in recognition of both the financially precarious situation of arts writers and their indispensable contribution to a vital artistic culture.
In its first year, the Arts Writers Grant Program issued awards for books, articles, and experiments in new and alternative media. This round, it introduces a new grant category for short-form writing (texts of 1,000 words or less). In addition, the program seeks an increased engagement in the coming grant round with article-based projects and with art of the current moment. Of particular interest are articles that identify and explore pressing issues in the contemporary visual arts. Also of interest are texts that illuminate the value contemporary art holds for all viewers through its ability to complicate and enrich our understanding of our world and ourselves and to offer a space of freedom from and critical engagement with prevailing norms.
Through all its grants, regardless of topic or category type, the Arts Writers Grant Program aims to honor and encourage:
- Writing about art that is rigorous, passionate, eloquent and precise
- Writing about art in which a keen engagement with the present is infused with an appreciation of the historical
- Writing about art that is neither afraid to take a stand, nor content to deliver authoritative pronouncements, but serves rather to pose questions and to generate new possibilities for thinking, seeing, and making
- Writing about art that is sensitive to both the importance and difficulty of situating aesthetic objects within their broader social and political contexts
- Writing about art that does not dilute or sidestep complex ideas but renders accessible their meaning and value
- Writing about art that challenges creatively the limits of existing conventions, without valorizing novelty as an end in itself
The Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant is spearheaded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as part of its broader Arts Writing Initiative and administered by Creative Capital.
The program will support approximately 15-20 projects. Grant amounts will range from $3,000–$50,000, depending on the scope and complexity of the project.
I applied in the short-form writing category.
Short-Form Writing. This category is designed to support writers working on texts of 1,000 words or less that respond to current exhibitions, events, and issues in the visual arts (magazine and newspaper reviews, blog entries, etc.). Applicants to this category will propose to write an approximate number of texts over a fixed period of time, not to exceed one year. Of particular interest are writers who work outside established art-world centers; writers whose work is geared to non-specialized readers; and younger authors for whom the opportunity to spend an extended period of time devoted to writing would have a transformative impact on their careers.
Eligibility Requirements: Short-form writing grant applicants must have published a minimum of one of the following:
- five published pieces of arts writing of at least 500 words each; or
- eight published pieces of arts writing of at least 250 words each; or
- regular blog postings for at least a six-month period.
All proposals are evaluated based on:
- The strength, clarity, and potential impact of the proposed project
- The capabilities of the applicant to realize the project effectively
- The feasibility of the project
The review has two steps:
Step One: Each application will be reviewed by a distinguished professional in the field of arts writing and read by the program director.
Step Two: Selected applications will advance to a final panel round. In this phase, a national panel of arts writers, editors and other distinguished professionals will consider the proposals. (Panel recommendations receive final approval by the board of Creative Capital.)
I’ve made it through step one and am on to step two. If selected, the grant will allow me to continue writing about contemporary art and bring a broader scope and perspective to readers in Southwest Colorado.
Thanks must go out to my husband Rich and my boys for perhaps not understanding, but respecting my time and allowing me to get lost in my words and spend time writing. Thanks also to my friends for supporting my career and especially to my friend Monica Goldsmith, who has continually encouraged me and believed wholeheartedly that I would make it this far and to Kate Petley for also telling me to keep trying. Additionally, thanks to Michael Coffee, Denise Coffee, Al Olson and Shaun Martin for encouraging my first application last year. Though I didn’t make it through step one, the initial ideas we discussed formed the foundation for this year’s application. To the Durango Herald, Four Corners Business Journal, Farmington Daily Times, Pagosa Springs SUN, Pagosa Daily Post, Coloradan, Arts Perspective, Art in the 4 Corners, and other publications that have provided a venue for my ideas and writing, I also say thank you. And to everyone who reads my words, whether we agree or disagree–thank you.
Fighting the fight, Durango Herald, Nov. 16, 2007
In Durango, photography on November 18, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Images top to bottom: One of 40 photographs in “Question of Power,” at the Fort Lewis College Art Gallery on Thursday. “The marchers are forcibly stopped and blocked out of the inauguration by Navajo Nation Police. President Joe Shirley is not allowing you into the inauguration. You must turn around NOW,” the photo caption read. Lucille Willie and her lambs that that died the week after this picture was taken appear in “Question of Power,” a photography exhibit by Carlan Tapp. Tapp’s caption reads, in part, “The air is polluted, it is hard to breathe. The sheep have a hard time finding fresh plants to eat. The livestock is my work, my life.” Sharissa Bydonie, a senior at Piedra Vista High School, checks out “Question of Power” during a campus tour at the first Native American College Day on Thursday. Students from several schools in the Four Corners visited Fort Lewis College to learn about college preparation, admission and financial aid.
Carlan Tapp is angry and he’s doing something about it.Six months after Sept. 11, Tapp rededicated his photography and his life to environmental and social justice issues. He moved from Seattle to Santa Fe.
In 2005, he began exploring through his camera lens the impact of two coal burning power plants in the Four Corners on the people living in the area. He met Lucy A. Willie and Sarah Jane White, the founders of Dooda Desert Rock protest group. For two years, he has been documenting the impact that coal burning power plants are having on the Dine people.
The photographs are not pretty. Powerful. Poignant. Plaintive. These are other words that come to mind when viewing this exhibit.
It’s one thing to be opposed to Desert Rock on principle, because of global warming, because of health concerns. It’s another to see those principles documented on the faces of the people who are breathing coal dust and drinking toxic water, watching their sheep and cattle die. Documented in the scars on the land caused by strip mining. Documenting the sacred, spiritual places within the Navajo Nation that will be destroyed to provide electricity, not primarily to the Dine people, but to the rest of us.
This is the type of exhibit that is meaningful and worthwhile at Fort Lewis College. (It previously spent one day – July 14, 2007 – at Open Shutter Gallery).
It should be required viewing for every student on campus. It should be required viewing for every person in the Four Corners and beyond. Tapp realizes this, and each photo on display is available for purchase. The cost is $400 and all proceeds benefit “A Question of Power,” a documentary project designed to provide “a clear voice for the Navajo People in their opposition to existing and future coal-burning power plants on their Homelands,” Tapp writes on the documentary Web site questionofpower.org.
The New Mexico Community Foundation provides a 501c3 nonprofit designation.
“The Dine People suffer from respiratory disease and cancer from the pollution laden air, soil, and water. Many Navajos have voted in opposition to a new power plant, Desert Rock, to be built on the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners area. But, no one is listening. From the top of the Federal Government down to the Tribal Council the People’s voices are being ignored,” Tapp writes on the site.
He includes text with each image in the exhibit, providing the back story and details from each photo: the name of the person, the location, the date of the protest.
According to Tapp, a Dine Power Authority Report says: “There are no cultural or historic sites located within the proposed mine or power plant locations.” Tapp’s plaintive photos then show Red Top Mesa, Weapearhat Butte and other sacred eagle nesting areas that will be destroyed. Jim Mason, a Medicine Man photographed by Tapp says: “The ceremonial plants are dying from the pollution, which falls from the sky. Their roots are dead.”
This exhibit is reverent, almost ceremonial. The photos are presented elegantly in simple white matting with black frames.
Each image is printed with a thick black outline. A poignant image is one of Lucy Willie cuddling two lambs in her arms, like puppies. The lambs died the week after Tapp captured this image.
Sarah Jane White is photographed and asks “What will this do for my people? New jobs? Money?”
Nothing is the resounding answer Tapp presents.
Nothing but provide the 20 pounds of coal on average that every person in the U.S. uses to keep electricity flowing. Nothing, if you call releasing high levels of uranium, arsenic and selenium into the ground water at levels at one of the power plants that the National Academy of Sciences concluded does not meet current EPA requirements, nothing.
Nothing but pump 15 million tons of chemical toxins into the air each year as the San Juan Power Plant in New Mexico does.
Carlan Tapp is angry, and he hopes we will all do something about it.
artsjournalist@centurytel.net Leanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the visual arts.
Signs of the times, Durango Herald, Nov. 11, 2007
In Culture, Durango on November 18, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Images, clockwise from top left: Gardenswartz’s hand-carved wooden sign has been hanging in this location since before Richard Ellis purchased the outdoor company. Yaseen Design Studio created the sign for Seasons by using the restaurant logo fabricated out of metals. Seasons also uses a Gobo stage light to project its logo onto the sidewalk. Popoli owner Christine Connor collaborated with Terry Spriggs at Mountain Graphics to create a sign that was organic and recognizable while remaining a bit unclear, like the store itself, which promotes inspired living. Crystal beads fall from Beads & Beyonds’ projecting sign with rainbow lettering. A stained-glass sign created by store owner Ashley Dove’s mother hangs in the store window. Denton Signs helped create the brand for eclectic store No Place Like Home using diamond plate and vivid red lettering that reflects the Asian flare of the store.
It’s not always easy for a business owner to get a sign design approved by the city of Durango. So, many resort to creating copycat signs that have already been approved.
Yet some Durango businesses have taken sign design to the next level. They have created not only a way-finding tool, but a marketing piece that reflects their purpose. Some might even call them works of art.
Two signs that are elegant and creative are the multi-dimensional-formed and forged-metal signs created by Yaseen Design Studio for Oohs & Aahs and Seasons Restaurant. Oohs & Aahs features thick dimensional serif lettering and a simple swirl of bent copper patina. The sign is large and stretches across the building fa`E7ade. The Seasons sign is a projecting one that features copper oak leaves and what looks like brass lettering standing out from the base.
Yaseen Design has created award-winning signs for Durango and beyond. This traditional shop blends state-of-the-art technology with traditional sign-making methods and exquisite craftsmanship. Other signs bearing Yaseen’s signature include: Le Rendezvous, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, The Palace, The Bottom Drawer, Wells Group and Schluter Floral.
Seasons adds another intriguing element to its sign marketing. Not only does its sign reflect its logo, but Karen Barger, owner and manager of the restaurant, has added a Gobo stage light that projects the business name onto the sidewalk. It’s a showstopper.
Some businesses have taken a homemade approach and kept the sign making in the family. At Rocky Mountain Children’s Company, owner Joanna Tucker d esigned and made her stained-glass sign at home at night after her daughter fell asleep. She wanted something three-dimensional, so the sun pops out of her otherwise flat sign.
“The Planning Commission actually said they wanted unique signs to improve the character of the city,” Tucker said. “It was definitely a task to meet all their requirements.”
Tucker admits that the sign takes a beating from the Durango weather and that it’s not the most user-friendly, but it is fun and has character.
“I thought I would save money, but I didn’t,” she said. She hired Nibroc Fabrication to make the frame and post for the projecting sign.
Another stained-glass project is the Beads & Beyond signs that hang in the window of the Main Avenue store and above the door. Owner Ashley Dove’s mother made them. The projecting sign features crystal beads an d rainbow lettering, reflecting the store’s interior.
A more industrial-looking sign can be found at There’s No Place Like Home and was created at Denton Signs. Denton created the logo for the store, and welder Ron Andrews helped fabricate the diamond plate and metal sign with vivid red lettering. The sign stands out and has an Asian feel, much like the eclectic store it represents.
Graphic designer and sign maker Terry Spriggs with Mountain Graphics created the sign at Popoli. Spriggs collaborated with owner Christine Connor to create the company logo based on an organic zebra print and multi-colored dots.
“The dot is the shape that helps retailers sell the most,” Connor said.
The logo is intentionally designed to be recognizable, yet a bit unclear. The store is all about inspired modern living and the pop-out dots on the sign are create with pull knobs found at any hardware store.
Possibly the most recognizable sign is the large, hand-carved, wooden Gardenswartz sign that hangs above the west side of Main. According to store owner Richard Ellis, the sign has been there as long as he has owned the business, but he knew little about its history.
Sign making is a creative endeavor that meshes design, advertising, sales and art. Craft workers created them often by hand-tooling elements or forging metal and carving wood. It’s more than just a nameplate.
Have a favorite sign? Tell us about it and why you think it’s handsome or fun or unique.
artsjournalist@centurytel.net Leanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the visual arts.
Changes imminent for Arts Center’s future, Durango Herald, Nov. 6, 2007
In ART, Durango on November 18, 2007 at 1:37 pm
After 11 years, Executive Director Brian Wagner is leaving Durango for a job in Oregon. A reception for him will be held Nov. 30.
Long before Brian Wagner announced in October that he was leaving after 11 years as executive director of the Durango Arts Center to take a new job at the Oregon Arts Commission, board members of DAC had informally surveyed artists and people in the community.
“Overwhelmingly, people are not aware of all the things that the Arts Center does,” board member and sculptor Preston Parrot said over coffee last week. We also spoke with the center’s board president Karen Thompson, who is a business consultant.
As a catch-up, if you don’t know what the center does either, programs include: music, theatre, visual arts, children’s programming, dance, writing and the Diamond Circle Melodrama coming next year.
Yet their mission statement reads: “The Durango Arts Center advances the visual and cultural arts for the enrichment of the individual, the community of Durango and Southwest Colorado.”
Notice the emphasis on the visual arts.
“We started as a visual-arts center,” Thompson said. “I’m not sure a strategic decision was ever made to become a children’s arts center. We’ve been opportunistic when it came to funding.”
It’s a common challenge among nonprofit arts organizations. Funding is geared toward arts education. And the majority of programming at the DAC reaches children and youth, though what receives the most coverage is the exhibits.
“It’s sort of like the tail wagging dog,” Thompson said. “We don’t always want to follow the funding, but I think that is what we have done.”
Thompson said that the growth of the Arts Center had been more organic than strategic. She said that the melodrama is another change that will require revision of the strategic plan the DAC put together two years ago.
“We have alienated some of the visual artists,” Thompson acknowledged. “We need to fix that. I will know we have succeeded when well-known and respected artists in the community don’t abandon us.”
Parrot would like to see the Arts Center become a resource center for working artists. He envisions technology being a big source of this connection and is working to help the center redesign its Web site to make it more interactive.
“Basically, when someone thinks about art, I want them to go to the DAC Web site to find their answer,” he said.
Thompson said that the center has to find the money to do this. It is absolutely essential.
Funding is a key issue all round. The budget has grown during Wagner’s tenure, from $200,000 to about $640,000. With the addition of the melodrama, the budget will increase to around $900,000. But this means that fundraising must also increase from the current level of around $300,000 to upwards of $450,000.
“This is an incredibly challenging time,” Thompson said. “We have the opportunity to find someone to replace Brian who can bring new energy and enthusiasm.”
Funding is crucial here, too, because Thompson doesn’t know if the board can afford much more than the approximately $50,000 a year Wagner has earned. Go to the front page of the Arts Center’s Web site to read a job description.
The arts center’s board meets this week to form a search committee. They want to have several board members and a past board member on the committee. They hope to have no more than five people.
One element of Wagner’s legacy is the Strong Arts, Strong Community economic impact study that he spearheaded in the spring at a seminar in which Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper spoke. Thompson is looking for someone to complete the study.
The changes at DAC have provided a shot of adrenaline to the board, Thompson said in summary, adding: “It requires us to step back and reassess where we are and where we want to go and how we’re going to get there.”
If you go
A farewell reception for Durango Arts Center’s executive director Brian Wagner will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. Nov. 30, 802 East Second Ave., 259-2606.
artsjournalist@centurytel.net Leanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the visual arts.
Artist, gallery owner shares insights, Durango Herald, Nov. 2, 2007
In Durango, art education, art market on November 2, 2007 at 10:02 am
“I’m old. I don’t care anymore. I just want to see art continue,” gallery owner Karyn Gabaldon said to a crowd of more than 30 artists gathered in her eponymous gallery on Main Avenue across from the Strater Hotel on Oct. 23. It was the first of two lectures.
The audience came to learn how to make a living as an artist, something Gabaldon has been doing for 25 years, first as a potter and now as a painter and gallery owner. Her husband is a jazz musician and artist. They have no trust fund. They don’t live on an inheritance.
“We’ve survived with lots of hard work and trust and by following our intuition,” she said. “You have to be fearless. You have to go for it.”
Gabaldon shared her six rules for living as an artist:
• You have to have passion.
• There is no blame. It’s no one’s fault.
• You must endure.
• Don’t wait for anybody else to discover you.
• Surround yourself with supportive people.
• Be humble.
“The most important thing is actually doing it, doing the work, in the studio,” Gabaldon said.
She realizes that this is sometimes the hardest part, particularly for an artist who owns her own gallery and volunteers her time to share her experience with others. But as a gallery owner, she said that she can tell the difference between someone who paints once a month, once a week or every day. If an artist is only making work periodically, they cannot compete against someone who is making work every day.
Gabaldon shared a story from one of her first studio/gallery locations.
“One dreary February, I made $10 for the entire month. That is when I realized that art is a business,” she said.
She asked the crowd to name the highest-paid living artist. Many names were thrown out, from Jeff Koons to Damien Hirst, but no one mentioned the marketing genius Thomas Kinkade, who Gabaldon said made $40 million last year. According to media reports, Kinkade actually earned $53 million between 1997 and May 2005. Either way, it’s a lot of money compared to the earnings of most of the aspiring artists who sat in Gabaldon’s gallery.
The point Gabaldon made is that artists should be aware of the market, keep up with trends by subscribing to magazines and understand marketing. She then lamented all the changes in the art market locally.
“Ten years ago, there were 18 galleries in Durango. Today there are really only seven,” Gabaldon said. “The rents are more expensive downtown.”
She also said that the Internet has changed the art world. Customers come in and take pictures of the work with their phones and then look up the artists on the Internet. For that reason, Gabaldon will not represent an artist if he or she has his or her own Web site from which he or she sells artwork. She also learned in her first year at her current location that she cannot represent local artists.
“I can’t afford it. I tried to have a local artist in here every month, and I lost money. People would come in and see the work and then go direct to the artist at their studio to buy,” Gabaldon said.
She got down to the nitty gritty this Tuesday, when she continued the workshop. She discussed pricing, the difference between wholesale and retail and how to get into a gallery. She said that one does not approach a gallery by carrying his or her paintings in their arms and saying I just need somewhere to hang my art. Most galleries want to see digital images on a CD.
Gabaldon discussed the consignment agreement, sharing her personal gallery contract with the artists, explaining the standard 50 percent to the artist, 50 percent to the gallery arrangement. She talked about the gallery-artist relationship as a partnership.
“I’ve had artists who bring their work to me, and I never see them again,” she said.
She also shared a wealth of information about grants available to artists locally and regionally. Though by a show of hands, no one in attendance took the plunge to apply for those funds.
“There is an art to selling art,” Gabaldon concluded. “You have to ask. Don’t be afraid.”
artsjournalist@centurytel.net Leanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the visual arts and a member of the International Art Critics Association.
