I read somewhere that someone asked Salvatore Dali what he liked most about painting. He said…”the anticipation.” To him the mental process of creating was more satisfying than the actuality of doing it.
This is a lot like Christmas. If you are like me and haven’t really grown up yet, the anticipation of Christmas is far more engaging than the actuality of the day. What’s the relevance of all of this, you say? If you look at the log of my posts to the right you will see that it has been almost a year since my last post. No, I haven’t been reveling in the joy of anticipating my next blog post. I have been busy with my latest adventure in selling my art.
The last post talked about moving beyond only selling from a website and creating a catalog of my work to bring around to some local galleries to generate interest in my paintings. It didn’t work. The best reaction I got was from a friend who is an accomplished artist (beautiful glass sculptures) and owns a gallery along with his wife. He said, “We really like you’re your work, but we don’t know what to do with it.” Since I create digitally and have my work Giclee printed, galleries are not sure how to sell it. The original only exists in cyber space. Not to mention, the price structure (hundreds, not thousands) is probably not viable or profitable for a traditional gallery.What to do? Well the forces of good fortune, or something akin to them, smiled on me and provided an opportunity. I am transitioning into an art career from a career in architecture, which I am still practicing in a somewhat reduced form to pay the bills. Anyway, a wonderful loft space became available in one of the renovation projects I was working on. It was affordable for my architectural practice but much larger than I needed for that. Voila, an art gallery!
For reasons too arcane to list here, the project took much, much longer to bring to completion than I had anticipated. It even necessitated a several month stint working out of my house, prior to moving in, since the lease at my old office had expired and I needed to vacate. Thus, I have spent the better part of the last nine months doing everything but painting. Oh the built up anticipation!
I was able to actually occupy my new space around the beginning of March, but it still needed much work to make it ready to display art and to receive the public. Since I was putting this thing together on a shoe string, it meant that I would have to do a lot of the work myself. I bought some basic construction services and some electrical work, but I still had to do all of the final drywall finishing, painting, trim and fixture installation.
Once I had my head wrapped around the physical space, my thoughts turned to printing, matting and framing almost 40 pieces from my portfolio. As soon as I recovered from the shock of the costs of matting and framing it became obvious that the shoe string needed more stretching. So, many hundreds of feet of 1 by pine and poplar shaped into a gallery frame profile in my basement workshop later, some 40 or so frames took shape. In the meantime, hours of searching on the web yielded the best sources of acid free matte and mounting board and, of course, a fine Logan matte cutter. I used my local architectural connections to secure the necessary glass and Plexiglas needed. Fortunately I was already engaged with fine local printing house to do the Giclee printing. They were “kind” in their price structure for this good sized print order. Add to that hooks and eyes and wire and paint and picture hooks, and…well you get the idea. The shoe string was really stretching now.
After countless hours of cutting mattes and polishing glass and mounting the assemblies with a Logan fitting tool, and securing picture wire, I was ready to hang my work for the world to see. I did so with great joy, while I also worked on the more perfunctory items of opening a retail business. These included securing a “sales tax” number from the State, preparing an opening announcement, joining the local Chamber of Commerce and getting my website linked to their listing for art galleries. There was a host of other chores, such as setting up a merchant account to accept credit cards and arranging for signage, preparing press releases, and taking photographs to upload on my website. I also reasoned that my website needed a wholesale remodeling to reflect the bricks and mortar gallery along with the cyber or virtual galleries.Finally, on July 19th I opened the door. This post is interspersed with some images of the gallery. While I have not set the local art community on fire, nor have I needed the wheelbarrow I have at the ready to haul all of the cash to bank, the results have been very positive and satisfying. I love hearing the oohs and ahs as people look at my work. So far no has actually told me the work is awful, even if they think that. And finally, as I sit in my gallery in the spaces between visitors, I have the time to paint.
In all those weeks and months while I was being pulled in different directions and couldn’t paint, I developed so many ideas that I wanted to try. But now I really understand what Dali was saying. My workroom walls are covered in sketches (actually printouts) of form and color ideas. The ideas are evolving, but it is frustrating when I can’t get the brush strokes the way I want them, or the colors don’t bleed the way I anticipated. I see each piece in my mind’s eye, even if it is a little fuzzy, and I know what I want, but it takes work to get there. However, unlike the let down you get when Christmas is over, the emotional high of creating is sustaining. The joy continues as I sit in my gallery surrounded by my creative offspring, energized by the idea of making even more.
Thanks for listening
Vic Cinquino
