It was a busy weekend of viewing art. First up was Art Fair 14C, taking place in Jersey City, which I visited on Saturday. The show had 80 exhibition booths, with exhibitors including art galleries, arts organizations and individual artists. I saw some really great art, some mediocre art, and some which didn’t interest me at all – a typical art fair experience.
Then on Sunday, I went the Open Studios at Mana Contemporary, also in Jersey City. They have open studio days once or twice a year, and I’ve attended them several times over the years. This year it struck me how much more crowded it was, it was really hard to find a parking spot, and the place was crawling with countless art enthusiasts.
I was riding the elevator to the top floor, in order to visit studios and work my way back down to the ground floor, when I had a sudden awareness of all of the people crammed into the elevator, and having a sense that most of them were also artists. So, we’ve got artists visiting artists, and there’s a lot of art being made, and a lot of art being shown, and it suddenly felt overwhelming. What I mean by that is: as an artist myself, hoping to get my work shown and – ideally sold – here I am being surrounded by artists who want the same, and everyone has lots of art and what really, truly, ever happens to any of it? I saw one artist’s studio (see picture above) and my first thought was – I wish I had space like this and storage racks like this so I would have someplace to store all of my art and have space to make more. But on the flip side, seeing this, one can think of ALL of the artists here in this building on this day with all of these paintings sitting on shelves, never seen by anyone, taking up space and never going anywhere, never being sold, just accumulating and growing and … then what?
I know, this all sounds pretty negative and somewhat pessimistic, but it really is a valid question. I follow a particular artist on Instagram who always seems to have studio shots where he’s simultaneously working on 10 canvases at once, and they’re all big canvases. Then the next week there’s 10 more, and so forth and so on. So I finally posted a comment, with a compliment about how I liked the work and am inspired by how he’s working on so many great things, and asked: “where do you store it all?” His answer was that “the good ones slip away to collectors or consultants sometimes by the handful. I have an inventory but it dwindles down …”
Okay, maybe the phrase “slip away” is a modest response, and maybe I am just jealous, but how many artists can really say they make lots of work and most of it finds its way to new homes out in the world? When I was walking through Art Fair 14C, there weren’t many red dots (for sold works) on the walls, and I think it’s a safe bet that much of the art simply gets packed up at the end of the weekend and goes back to its original source. I mean, this is simply the reality for most artists and most of the art being made.
I’m still going to paint – it’s what I love to do – and I’d like to do more big canvases myself, in addition to all of the small watercolors on paper that are easy to store. I just wish I could get more of my art out into the world, because again, one feels kind of funny making all of these things that may or may not ever see the light of day. I’ve had the idea of a “pay-what-you-wish” showing with the goal of getting work out there into other hands … I mentioned this to an artist at 14C, and he kind of looked at me like I was nuts. But then at Mana Contemporary I asked an artist – whose work I really liked – how much they cost, because I was sincerely interested – and when he said “the big ones are $10,000,” I just said “thanks” and went on my way. Hey, if you can sell your work for $10,000 on a consistent basis, good for you – I’m not sure where you’re finding the people who can drop 10 grand on a Sunday afternoon. I’m at the point where I’d rather sell 100 paintings for $100 each to make the same $10,000. Imagine how awesome that would be?
If you share my thoughts, or have a different perspective, I’d love to see your comments below.