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Art....and Plenty of It!
Mar. 17th, 2019 06:25 pmThat line has stuck with us for ages, from a New Yorker cartoon of the 80s spoofing the humongous tapestries advertising installations inside major art galleries:
That's been a big part of our lives (by which I mean "Eleanor's, with me literally along for the ride") the past few days.
Some background. Eleanor's college degree was in studio art. She'd been drawn to drawing for decades before we even met. But between a domineering mother, at least one overaggressive college faculty member, and a gallery thief who stole some of her stuff, things took her in different career directions. Fortunately, I was in one of those. She dabbled over the years after we met and married- jewelry, fiber art, landscape lighting installations- but I can't remember her sitting in front of an easel until a few years ago. This came after her "career" journey wound up at Wegmans, and a fellow artist met her and complimented her on the two purchased but mismatched earrings Eleanor was wearing that day. This connected the two of them, and us to the local art community; we've been to several of Wendy's shows in the years since, most recently last week seeing her entries in a "traditional" installation at a small non-profit gallery on the edge of the local arts neighborhood known as Allentown.
Eleanor's been beginning and completing colored-pencil drawings more-or-less ever since, but this is the year when she had the courage, and both of us the funding, to bring them to fruition in terms of seeking an actual gallery display. She first thought about entering some in this gallery's traditional show, which just closed, but wound up going with submitting two of her more recent works to their "modern" exhibit which opens this Friday....
one of which was accepted into the show today:)
----
All of this has been a revelation to me. I've done my own dabbling with fiction, which has a parallel but somewhat different set of rules. There are no agents or editors in the art world in the same ways or roles that I encountered, but there are "jurors" for the more selective of showings. These tend to be collectors, curators, other connected individuals; the traditional show that just ended was judged by the curator of the second most famed gallery in this entire region. For the modern entries, the juror was (well, still is) an artist, curator and author well versed in the arts here and beyond.
There is a protocol. First, you become a member of the gallery, which we both did. Then, on a designated Saturday morning, you deliver either one or two pieces- prior framing not required but everybody does it if their media lend themselves to framing- to the gallery and pay a nominal entry fee for one or both. This was our day yesterday.
Eleanor had picked up the two framed pieces from the art store the week before. Both were wrapped in heavy paper by the time they came home, and I only saw them in their final form when they reached the gallery floor. Getting the new car was a part of this process, since neither of our Smart cars had a back seat to hold them securely, but the new hybrid did. (At least until a sudden stop before the 290 knocked one against the front seats; we're working on remedies for future submissions, and nothing was broken:)
Parking is at a premium in this neighborhood, an increasingly gentrified Medical Campus being a block away, so she drove, I hauled, we switched and I parked while she did the paperwork. I then watched several of the other artists heading in- one of whom was hauling much bigger pieces and I wound up holding a door for her. She is now the subject of one of our taglines from the event:
SHE must be an artist. She's wearing a beret.
She is also a volunteer at the gallery, because she immediately assumed a spot behind one of the entry tables. There were also a few pieces already on the walls for the new show, suggesting that some Friends of the Gallery had lifetime exemptions or somesuch. One, already mounted on the gallery wall, I really liked: it consists of a framed piece of white paper, blank except for the words I've seen many times in my own line of work: THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK. I thought of this later today when I saw a quartered page of a prescription disclosure, which has similar artistic qualities:
Hey. I saw an installation in Rochester with a piece based on belly button lint. Don't judge, unless you're the juror;)
----
And then we waited. Fortunately, not long. Wendy posted earlier today that her two submitted pieces had been accepted and would be on display. The submission Ruulz said that "Artists will be contacted by phone/email regarding the juror's decision" either today or tomorrow. Side notes: (1) today is St. Patrick's Day; and (2) the major Buffalo parade honoring same (mostly by drinking to excess) is also today, passing within about two blocks of the gallery. So my guess was that the juror would either be getting it done early today or waiting until tomorrow.
The former, as it turned out. One of Eleanor's two pieces is in.
----
I promised I would not post photos of either of the drawings, because copyright assholes are out there. (If you're Facebook friends with either or both of us, you can see it on our pages.) Nor would I even attempt to describe them, having about one-two hundred fifty sixth chromosome of barely artistic talent on my entire helix. But I will say this: Piece One, which was accepted, was a study of an actual piece of nature lying outside our front window. Piece Two, which was not, was more of an intensely personal piece from Eleanor's imagination. I'm sure that marketing considerations are part of the jurying process, even if not expressly stated to be: the gallery gets a 40 percent commission on any piece sold. And the one you'll see on their wall is more generally relatable than the one I would be perfectly happy to see on ours for the next 30 years.
The personal piece has to be picked up Tuesday; because it has not been "exhibited," it remains eligible for future submissions to this or most other galleries. The accepted one will debut Friday night and remain there for about another month; unless sold, we reclaim it four Saturdays from now. Maybe we'll even buy some berets by then;)
That's been a big part of our lives (by which I mean "Eleanor's, with me literally along for the ride") the past few days.
Some background. Eleanor's college degree was in studio art. She'd been drawn to drawing for decades before we even met. But between a domineering mother, at least one overaggressive college faculty member, and a gallery thief who stole some of her stuff, things took her in different career directions. Fortunately, I was in one of those. She dabbled over the years after we met and married- jewelry, fiber art, landscape lighting installations- but I can't remember her sitting in front of an easel until a few years ago. This came after her "career" journey wound up at Wegmans, and a fellow artist met her and complimented her on the two purchased but mismatched earrings Eleanor was wearing that day. This connected the two of them, and us to the local art community; we've been to several of Wendy's shows in the years since, most recently last week seeing her entries in a "traditional" installation at a small non-profit gallery on the edge of the local arts neighborhood known as Allentown.
Eleanor's been beginning and completing colored-pencil drawings more-or-less ever since, but this is the year when she had the courage, and both of us the funding, to bring them to fruition in terms of seeking an actual gallery display. She first thought about entering some in this gallery's traditional show, which just closed, but wound up going with submitting two of her more recent works to their "modern" exhibit which opens this Friday....
one of which was accepted into the show today:)
----
All of this has been a revelation to me. I've done my own dabbling with fiction, which has a parallel but somewhat different set of rules. There are no agents or editors in the art world in the same ways or roles that I encountered, but there are "jurors" for the more selective of showings. These tend to be collectors, curators, other connected individuals; the traditional show that just ended was judged by the curator of the second most famed gallery in this entire region. For the modern entries, the juror was (well, still is) an artist, curator and author well versed in the arts here and beyond.
There is a protocol. First, you become a member of the gallery, which we both did. Then, on a designated Saturday morning, you deliver either one or two pieces- prior framing not required but everybody does it if their media lend themselves to framing- to the gallery and pay a nominal entry fee for one or both. This was our day yesterday.
Eleanor had picked up the two framed pieces from the art store the week before. Both were wrapped in heavy paper by the time they came home, and I only saw them in their final form when they reached the gallery floor. Getting the new car was a part of this process, since neither of our Smart cars had a back seat to hold them securely, but the new hybrid did. (At least until a sudden stop before the 290 knocked one against the front seats; we're working on remedies for future submissions, and nothing was broken:)
Parking is at a premium in this neighborhood, an increasingly gentrified Medical Campus being a block away, so she drove, I hauled, we switched and I parked while she did the paperwork. I then watched several of the other artists heading in- one of whom was hauling much bigger pieces and I wound up holding a door for her. She is now the subject of one of our taglines from the event:
SHE must be an artist. She's wearing a beret.
She is also a volunteer at the gallery, because she immediately assumed a spot behind one of the entry tables. There were also a few pieces already on the walls for the new show, suggesting that some Friends of the Gallery had lifetime exemptions or somesuch. One, already mounted on the gallery wall, I really liked: it consists of a framed piece of white paper, blank except for the words I've seen many times in my own line of work: THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK. I thought of this later today when I saw a quartered page of a prescription disclosure, which has similar artistic qualities:
Hey. I saw an installation in Rochester with a piece based on belly button lint. Don't judge, unless you're the juror;)
----
And then we waited. Fortunately, not long. Wendy posted earlier today that her two submitted pieces had been accepted and would be on display. The submission Ruulz said that "Artists will be contacted by phone/email regarding the juror's decision" either today or tomorrow. Side notes: (1) today is St. Patrick's Day; and (2) the major Buffalo parade honoring same (mostly by drinking to excess) is also today, passing within about two blocks of the gallery. So my guess was that the juror would either be getting it done early today or waiting until tomorrow.
The former, as it turned out. One of Eleanor's two pieces is in.
----
I promised I would not post photos of either of the drawings, because copyright assholes are out there. (If you're Facebook friends with either or both of us, you can see it on our pages.) Nor would I even attempt to describe them, having about one-two hundred fifty sixth chromosome of barely artistic talent on my entire helix. But I will say this: Piece One, which was accepted, was a study of an actual piece of nature lying outside our front window. Piece Two, which was not, was more of an intensely personal piece from Eleanor's imagination. I'm sure that marketing considerations are part of the jurying process, even if not expressly stated to be: the gallery gets a 40 percent commission on any piece sold. And the one you'll see on their wall is more generally relatable than the one I would be perfectly happy to see on ours for the next 30 years.
The personal piece has to be picked up Tuesday; because it has not been "exhibited," it remains eligible for future submissions to this or most other galleries. The accepted one will debut Friday night and remain there for about another month; unless sold, we reclaim it four Saturdays from now. Maybe we'll even buy some berets by then;)