I have returned from a trip up north. Every year I visit my parents and other relatives in Pennsylvania. This year there were 3 special reasons to take the long trip. My parents were celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary. I needed to complete 9 pen and ink drawings for my upcoming show. And, one of my artist colleagues who was part of the ArtBiz Breakthrough Program invited me to visit her studio and discuss art techniques and marketing ideas.
Fortunately for me, my wife Jewel decided to take the trip with me. It's a long drive and a flight would have
been even longer as the layover in New Jersey is almost a day long. It gave us a chance to discuss plans for the future of my art business. It has been over a year since we had made a decision to leave commercial art and concentrate on my fine art career. The economy decided to take this opportunity to drop into the toilet. Art sales are down. I have been the gallery director at the Pantheon Fine Art Gallery in Madison since last October. We had developed several interesting and diverse art shows over the last 10 months with shows centering around my egg tempera works, gallery artists' work, Black History Month celebration show, a spring visual arts festival, "Georgia in Bloom", and, to top all this off, a fabulous equine art show this May through early July. Sales were dismal even though we had finely targeted audiences, excellent variety of price ranges on the works, great opening receptions, and very good advertising and press release articles. Art is an especially hard sell during an economic downturn. Now the gallery owners have decided to close the gallery and I must make some hard decisions. Find a new gallery for my work, get another commercial art job, or become a hermit. In the meantime I am the second party in a two person show at the Lyndon House in Athens Georgia, a great art venue.I completed the 9 pen and ink drawings in record time (for me) under the watchful eyes of my parents who have never really seen me at work with my art. I think they got a new perspective on my passion for drawing. I've attached 2 of the pieces that I had completed while up north.
Then I had the distinct pleasure of meeting, in person, Lynne Oaks, the artist who has been a member of our ArtBiz Breakthrough group. She was not only very charming, she also displayed a vast resource of knowledge on the arts and excellent talent in her own paintings. She teaches students in her vast studio and it's plain to see that the knowledge that she imparts is well received and progresses her students into professional art levels. I find it very comforting to know that there are professional artists out there who are willing to share their knowledge and to share it with talented beginners. Maybe the computer won't kill the tactile art world after all.
Well, now I must get ready for my show opening this afternoon and at my next post I will share photos of the art venue.
No comments:
Post a Comment