October 31, 2005 (Monday) - From a collector, about "Sunset Intersection"

Letter from a reader:

Hello -
I recently came across your blog entry from February 11, 2005 about the large-format triptych print by Robert Bechtle, "Sunset Intersection." I happen to own one of the prints in this edition so I was curious to read your comments. You are right that a painting exists of the same image, it is at Hunter Museum in Chattanooga. The painting is also divided into three sections and attached laterally, with metal framing bars intersecting the image at the same places where the white space intersects the etching's images.

Here it is:
www.huntermuseum.org/FrameForCollections.aspx?page=Include/HTML/Artists/robertbechtle.htm

While you questioned Bechtle's dividing the image into three parts, I had the chance to ask him about this a couple of years ago; he said he was interested in that image as a triptych because each part could stand on its own, but also worked together. That's why he painted it as a triptych too. He told me that when he was working on the soft-ground etching of the image at Crown Point his assumption was he would print it on three separate sheets in three separate runs, but the printer (sorry I don't know the name) was really excited by the challenge of printing all three images in one pass on one large sheet. So Bechtle agreed, skeptically, to try it. Lo and behold - a great print!

Cheers,
Peter

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October 31, 2005 (Monday) About Collectors
Lately I've been thinking about art collectors. It probably has something to do with the recent shows I've been participating in, but it seems like I've been talking to a lot of them in the last few months. I'd actually like to interview a few collectors, but it hasn't been easy to arrange. While artists jump at the chance to be interviewed (or at least, no one has ever said "no" to me) collectors seem much shyer (no one has said "no", but they haven't said "yes" either.)

Blogs and web sites by/for art collectors are few and far between. Paige West, in New York, had the best "advice for collectors" blog I'd seen, but it faded away last year. A collector in Seattle, Misti Hickling, started a blog about her searches and purchases, but her site hasn't been updated in 5 months. Howard Tullman, in Chicago, has his collection cataloged on his website but there's not much text - just the images.

I'm curious about the collector's point of view. I'd love to hear more about the drive to acquire and live with art. I wonder how much it differs from the drive to make art. I'm not talking about the billionaire art collectors but regular folks like the Vogels who attend shows not just to buy art but because they're interested in the artist's development.

James Meek had a recent story in the Guardian about young collectors at the Frieze Art Fair. One of them, Hilary Hatch-Rubenstein of Manhattan, told Meek, "Sometimes I come home after a long day, flop down in a chair, look at the wall and become lost in thought staring at a piece I've had for years. One of the books I read about collecting says that it's like collecting friends or people. There's an actual relationship to a work of art ... there's some kind of aliveness, or a dialogue." Dennis Scholl of Miami said, "Nobody really owns a collection. You get to be stewards of the work for a certain period of time." Some of the collectors have been following a particular artist, intending to buy when the "right piece" comes up. Corporate collector Alistair Hicks (buys work for Deutsche Bank) points out that "Collectors are usually a good way to make sure artworks survive for posterity, and make sure artists eat."

Last week a friend handed me a copy of the premiere issue of "American Art Collector." Apparently John Pence sent a copy to all of his gallery patrons. At first I thought it was a copy of "International Artist" - it looked so similar. (turns out, it's the same publisher.) It's a big, thick, glossy magazine with page after page of artist interviews and previews (44 artists, in this issue.) There are also short pieces written for collectors about curating, appraising, and hanging your collection; and about using art dealers, and consultants. In the back of the magazine is a ridiculous fluff piece by Harley Brown called "Confessions of a Starving Artist." This issue only covers representational painting and mostly Contemporary American Realism. I'm wondering if it's going to include drawing, sculpture, and non-representational work in the future.

The web has a few resources for collectors - the best two that I know of are by L.A. gallerist Sylvia White and N.Y. gallerist Katheryn Markel.

Here's Sylvia White:

(at many galleries)... "Most of the time, instead of a greeting, barely a head goes up to acknowledge a presence. It can feel like you are intruding in someone's personal space. At the other extreme are the high pressure sales galleries with "associates" who breathe down your neck trying to elicit your response to each glance, in the hopes of extracting some information that can later be used to sell you the piece. It's no surprise that 80% of the people I polled, living in affluent neighborhoods, have never even set foot in an art gallery. Not because they can't afford or don't want to buy contemporary art. But, because the marketing model in place is not designed to embrace or educate..."

Here's Kathryn Markle:

"You are justified in being confused and cautious. Most of my neighbors think nothing of spending thousands on window treatments, but are terrified of buying a $500 piece of art. Unlike other cultural experiences, such as the theatre or dance, buying art is not a transient event. If you make a mistake, it hangs there on your wall proclaiming to the world your lack of taste. This fact scares the hell out of most people which is why they stick with their posters from college or pictures they pick up on vacation. Thus, you often see exquisitely decorated houses without good art. ".... (then she lists the five basic "Rules" for buying art.)

But what about San Francisco's collectors? I'm going to try to get a few of them to go on record in this coming year. If have any burning questions you'd like me to ask, send them along and I'll do my best.

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October 28, 2005 (Friday) Jerzy Kolacz

I stopped in at the Newmark Gallery to see "Memory Filter," recent paintings by Polish-Canadian artist Jerzy Kolacz (the artist is above, next to one of his paintings.) These are big, vigorous abstracts of encaustic and oil. They're deeply layered and heavily worked with energetic and diverse marks. I talked with the artist briefly and he described these paintings as evidence of a struggle.

Some are intensely colored and emotional; many hold the muted tones of concrete and weather-beaten urban walls. I was reminded of Vince Romaniello's recent "Urban Canvas" series. There was one painting in the first room that was mostly black and white with amber glazing and a lot of vaguely glyphic pencil marks in the middle layers. It seemed to me, to have a story in there somewhere, but then I'm always seeing stories in things.

Earlier in the day I taped an interview with Bay Area painter, Laura Ball. Talk about stories! I'll work on the transcript this weekend, and post it next week.
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				October 27, 2005 (Thursday) Day of the Dead You have a little more than a week to see the Day of the Dead exhibit at the SOMArts Cultural Center (934 Brannan - same building as as ArtSpan's Open Studios show.) You really should see it - it's stunning. I've been there three times so far, and I've got an itch to see it again. It's curated by Rene Yanez and designed by Nick Gomez and they did a fantastic job of creating a giant multi-artist installation piece that combines the traditional Mexican Day of the Dead elements with contemporary local & national concerns. Once entering the exhibit, you are completely sucked in to another world. It reminds me of the carnival "haunted houses" we went through as kids, but this haunted house is for grownups - intelligent grownups. There are altars and installations dedicated to artists' family members, to local members of the arts community, to displaced and dispossessed people all over the world, to the forests, to clean water, to free speech, and to I'm-not-sure-what. but it all hangs together well. It's a dark, catacomb-like space, where you wander off into blind tunnels or loop back around to where you've been before. The only light comes from (electric) candles, neon signs, flickering videos, very low-light spots, and a motorcycle headlamp. I tried taking photos on each occasion I was there, but it's impossible to convey the real sense of this place. you just have to see it for yourself. It's open Monday through Saturday, noon to 6pm. permanent link to this entry
	(Images: Top left is the exhibt program. The rest of the photos were shot by me on different visits - but these only show a fraction of the great work there. And it's actually darker than it looks in the photos.)

October 26, 2005 (Wednesday) Mushbrain
My brain is mush. It was a draining day at the Hall of Justice today. There must have been 200 people in the juror's waiting room. Sun coming in through windows that won't open. 200 people, side by side, in too-small seats, exhaling... the air was hot, thick and dank. The vending machines didn't work and the restrooms were out of paper. Televisions in every direction were blaring a rah-rah video about how great it was to be a juror. It looped three times while I was there. I had just about memorized every freckle on the fuzzy balding head in front of me, when I was finally called and then dismissed in short order. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.
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October 25, 2005 (Tuesday) Depth
The Artspan gallery show at SOMArts just closed. If you missed it, you'll have to wait until Oct. 2006 for the next one. It's an unjuried show, but it's so huge that it represents a broad range of San Francisco visual art talent. Many of the participating artists are represented by galleries, a few are nationally known and some are still in art school. Most are working artists who have been quietly doing their work, year after year, and the annual SF Open Studios event is just one of many venues for getting the work out there. (Image at left is front desk of ArtSpan 2005 Open Studios Exhibition at the cavernous SOMArts gallery.)

If you're new in town, it's a good place to get an idea about which artists you'd like to check out further. If you've been following the local scene for awhile, and you're familiar with many of the artists, it's a good way to get a snapshot of a particular artist's current direction.

Theoretically, the single piece representing each artist (selected and submitted to this show by the artist) is representative of the artist's best (current) work. Exceptions to this rule include artists who work large (space limitations mean that each work has to fit within a 20" x 20" grid), artists who require electric power for display of their work (in the past, they've had power available for multimedia displays, and but this year I noticed a few pieces with dangling power cords that left me wondering what the work *really* looked like), and artists who do installations. This venue definitely favors painters and sculptors who work small. Which might be why about 400 artists were represented here, while 800 artists are participating in Open Studios.

I did my volunteer gallery-sitting stint there last Friday, for the open-to-close shift. Artspan staffer, Jessica Stewart let me in and started taking down the "censored" covers from some of the artwork. These were white pieces of paper held in place with blue artist's tape. She said that the covers went up whenever they had tours of school children. In the past, some parents had complained about exposing their children to nudity. There were no children's tours on the coming weekend, so the covers could come down.

There was a surprising amount of traffic through the gallery in the four hours I was there, including this guy (above right), who had a dandy watch collection. But in the lulls between visitors, I had plenty of time to check out the work. I made a few, slow, look-at-everything-up-close spins around the gallery. Then I sat at the desk and looked from across the room. Then I went back and gave certain pieces some extended inspection.

In the process, I discovered that some of the pieces I had liked in the catalog were disappointing in person. A lot of works that looked good from across the room didn't hold up when I was right in front of them. Not that this is a new phenomenon, but it really hit me that I expect to see, feel, and learn more when I get closer to a work of art. If I experience the same things when I'm inches away from it, that I felt when I looked at a catalog reproduction of the piece, then my interest in the piece evaporates. It's the same thing with people - murky depths are more interesting than, "what you see is what you get." Maybe that's why I like to work in layers, and why I'm so attracted to symbolism.

(Mark Ulriksen's "Evolution", at right - one of the noncensored paintings in the 2005 Open Studios Exhibition, and one of the paintings that did NOT disappoint.)

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October 24, 2005 (Monday) Readers Response
I'll be at the Hall of Justice today, and probably the next few days. That's the building the SFChronicle calls a "death trap." Until I get back to regular posting, here are few reader's responses to last week's posts:
- - - - - -
Printmaker and blogger Marja-Leena has a solo show coming up, but she took time out to weigh in on the giclee issue: "Your post on giclee and reproductions hit a nerve and inspired a post of my own in spite of being too busy these days."
- - - - - -
From British painter David Carr, who shows at galleries in SF and London, and did SF Open Studios in the Richmond district:

"Well it's good to be able to give you some feed-back. Certainly this was the poorest Open Studios for me and my wife [ Marie Wylan ] since we started eight years ago. Lower traffic in the area - was it really the Bridge and the deYoung? Having read the comments of others it seems group sites do quite well on the whole. I managed to talk to one group of three artists [ Ben Bergstein, Sharon Sittloh & Yuriko Takata ] at 647 Lake and they sold nothing. Another popular artist Veerakeat Tongpaiboon did badly. My belief is that there is a general loss of confidence in the air at the moment - the battering of natural disasters, real estate maybe about to go down, huge defificit - it all adds up to people thinking twice about sinking large sums into art.

On a more positive note - I sold one work and my wife sold several - but nothing like her usual amount. My buyer came back 3 times during the day and said she was haunted by the picture and just had to have it but wasn't well off and we struck a good deal for both of us. I had a small number of people over the weekend who really looked hard and long and left their names and took business cards.

To answer your more specific questions- re having a gallery already means in all fairness I have to be careful when it comes to pricing. My prices have to stay relatively high otherwise it is not fair to my dealer relationship or to buyers from the gallery. I jeapordise the whole system if I give huge discounts - and dealers and buyers always find out one way or another. But I don't mind that - I feel my work is worth what I ask for it and my dealer does well for me. Having said that, sales from Open Studios are important to my yearly income.

You ask about London. London is so enormous there is nothing like SF Open Studios. Places like the Hunters Point situation - warehouses, lower cost housing areas , do have their own events.

Any ideas for the future. I can only think that maybe the event has got too big but what do you do about that? I will continue to paint - just 'do the work' is the only answer. I am 61 and live from my work. If I've got this far I expect to get to the 'end'"

- - - - -
From Joan (Rusty) Wahl, a Florida artist:

"I live outside Orlando,Fla. in a sleepy town called Sanford.The whole area including Orlando is not artist (Painters) friendly. It's who you know to get in a gallery or a co-op.As for finding agents or reps, forget it. They are not interested in you and can't make a living here. Your remarks on prints and repros haven't changed in 30 years. The public will always be confused and will always lump them together.People don't want to be educated.If they like a painting and the price is right they'll buy it. Print or whatever..."

- - - - -
From abstract painter Ann Eby, who shows at HANGart gallery and just did SF Open Studios at a solo site in the Sunset district:

"Saturday was slow; about thirteen people came and only sold a few cards. Sunday was much better, about twice as many people came and I sold one of my big pieces to some neighbors up the street.

I will not do this again next year. Clients who buy from the gallery also collect from the gallery and have seldom come to an open studio. Even though I did well this year I don't think it prudent to continue."

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October 21, 2005 (Friday) Rembrandt, Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney
Michael Jackson isn't the only one called for jury duty next week. San Francisco summoned me, and since it IS my home, I may be tied up for several days. Maybe I can practice gestural sketches of the lawyers. I get called every year, but I've never been picked for a jury (I'm hard of hearing, have too much personal experience with medical disasters, and I'm too opinionated about the criminal justice system.) Plus, they get nervous when they hear about the blog. Nevertheless, it always seems to take them at least 3 days to decide that my services aren't needed. Posting may be light. Or not.

Later today I'll be doing my gallery-sitting stint at the ArtSpan (Open Studios) gallery. It's always nice to spend a few hours with the art; to really take my time and check out what everybody around here has been up to in the last year. With 400 pieces of art, I sure won't need to take a book.

(image at left is from the Artspan website - usually I wish for benches in galleries, but this place needs padded floor mats.)

Open Studios isn't over - this coming weekend is #3: the Castro, the Mission and the neighborhoods south of there. Some of my favorite artists are showing this weekend, and it's going to be hard to see them all. Stevan Shapona is still doing his nudes at Avalon @ Moscow - really, you have to see his work in person to appreciate it. There are a quite a few big group sites in the Mission. My favorites are Project Artaud, 1890 Bryant, and Compound 21. There's way more going on at these locations than the Open Studios catalog would lead you to believe. Project Artaud (499 Alabama) is showing work by Charles M. Ware and they have free performances every hour in the Phil Deal Performance space. It'll take the whole day.

And finally, I leave you with this clipping from SFGate:
"In answers she submitted to the City Magazine of Dallas for a series, "Getting to know our leaders," Harriet Miers said her favorite artists were Rembrandt, Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney."
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October 20, 2005 (Thursday) The Giclee Can of Worms

Uh-oh, don't get me started... too late! Tyler Green pointed to the 2Blowhards posting about Giclee, which got me going -

First of all, you have to be cognizant of the difference between prints and reproductions:

"An original print is an image that has been conceived by the artist as a print and executed solely as a print, usually in a numbered edition, and signed by the artist. Each print of the edition is an original, printed from a plate, stone, screen, block or other matrix created for that purpose."

"A reproduction (although often called a print) has no relationship whatsoever to an original print; it is a copy of a work of art conceived by the artist in another medium (painting, watercolour, etc.). The reproduction has usually been made by photo-mechanical means. Numbering and signing a reproduction does not change its essence; it is still a reproduction. It is not an original print."
(Thanks to Marja-Leena for this definition from the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art)

Printmakers get pretty irritated when they hear someone refer to a reproduction as a "print" (a mistake I've made plenty of times.) It's my belief (completely unsupported) that this is the main reason the term "giclee" was put to this use - to avoid the whole "print vs reproduction" issue. You may have noticed that higher-priced items in frames are never referred to as "reproductions."

About 12 years ago I was at an art business seminar when I heard a lecture by a guy from Anaheim who told the classic giclee genesis story about Graham Nash and the lost Japanese photos (Nash's solo show was saved by making Iris reproductions of his old photos.) The guy from Anaheim claimed to have been in a car with Nash when he came up with the term "giclee." He said that it sounded sophisticated and American customers wouldn't know what it meant, so it was perfect. Whether that story was true or not, it is a fact that Graham Nash pioneered digital fine art (archival) printing and runs a respected digital studio in Manhattan Beach, CA. And he never uses the term "giclee."

Nash (and most of the other high end, archival digital output studios around here) refer to their process as "fine art printmaking." And this is where things get complicated. The traditional definitions of prints vs reproductions don't easily apply to the methods and materials many artists are using today.

Works of art which have been made using a computer are not, by their very nature, unique. This applies to work conceived and constructed with digital tools as well as those scanned images or digital photo files which have been manipulated in the computer to major or minor degrees. Any effort to limit the number of copies of a digital work of art is an arbitrary exercise (usually involving marketing concerns) rather than anything inherent in the process (the screen, stone or plate starts to break down after a certain number of prints.)

On the other hand, the tangible products of this digital process can't rightly be called "reproductions" because they aren't copies of anything. Maybe "clones" would be more accurate. We need a new word. In the meantime, products of the digital process will be shoehorned into one camp or the other, depending on the intent of the seller.

For digital artists, the improvements in inkjet printing are a fantastic development. I remember playing around with the first computer drawing programs and thinking, "It looks great on the screen, but what's the point if you can't print it out?"

For many of the photographers I know, the goal is to make great-looking photographs without spending hours in a dark room, inhaling toxic fumes. The issue of how many copies to make of each image and whether to number those copies is the same, whether the photographer is using a sink full of chemicals or an inkjet printer. Personally, I've never understood the concept of "limited edition" prints in either of these cases, except as a marketing tool.

For painters, the giclee, or digital process is obviously intended to make a reproduction of the original (unique, we hope) work of art, with the intent of increasing the artist's ability to make money off the original work of art. The better the process gets, the more the giclee sellers try to mimic traditional artist prints by limited editions, numbered pieces, and hand painted touches in the manner of Thomas Kincade. Blowhards addressed some of the concerns collectors face when considering giclees.

As an artist, and a painter, I have other concerns. I used to sell giclees of my paintings, several years ago, but I stopped for a number of reasons:

First, I was always uncomfortable with the fact that by selling giclees I was encouraging and perpetuating the notion that the "picture" was all there was to a painting. The fact that the average person couldn't tell the difference between ink sprayed on canvas and paint brushed on canvas was deeply disturbing to me. The general public is woefully undereducated about painting and here I was, pandering to that desire for cheap, pretty pictures, instead of taking the time to help educate them.

Secondly, I started getting resistance from galleries. The ones who already carried my paintings, said they wouldn't sell any painting that I intended to make giclees from, because it would "confuse" the customers who couldn't tell the difference. Other galleries, that I was hoping to get into, refused to have anything to do with me as soon as they saw I had ever sold any giclees.

But the most compelling reason is that I started to feel more like a retail business manager and less like a painter every day. Way too much time and energy was spent dealing with marketing, production, inventory, packing, shipping, and so forth... and for what? For a product that I really didn't even care much about. The reproductions, even though they were good reproductions, were just a faint echo of paintings done by my former self. I remembered that I'm a painter because I want to paint, so that's what I went back to doing.

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October 19, 2005 (Wednesday) Let's take a break for Opera

I saw Dr. Atomic a couple of weeks ago, but was too busy to write about it at the time. The music was fantastic, and the visuals were pretty great, too. Naturally, you can't take photos during the performance, and there are very few dress rehearsal images out there, so when I got home, I made some quick sketches of my favorite scenes. Then a few days ago, I read in "Newmark Confidential" that Mark Wladika highlighted the same two scenes.

The end of the first act is a killer solo by the Oppenheimer character. He's alone on the darkened stage, with the bomb in a tent-like structure that leaks light from the entrance, like the inner sanctuary of an ancient god. The scientist staggers toward and retreats from the tent three times, beating his chest and singing John Donne's, Holy Sonnet XIV, before he finally succumbs and enters the tent. It was perfect.

Then, near the end of the second act, the chorus fills the barren desert landscape and the lighting starts to change them into tortured souls in a Thangka painting of the destroyer god. They sink to the ground and wave their arms as they sing a cry to Vishnu and they almost seemed to change into flames themselves. It reminded me of an Alex Grey painting called "Holy Fire."

I thought the colors and compositions of the stage set for each act was masterful and the music was incredible. The libretto seemed a little weird and uneven. I had to stop listening to the words, for the most part, and just go with the music and the visuals. Parts of the dialog were taken from memos sent between the military and science guys, and then out of nowhere, there were periods of transcendent poetry. Joshua Kosman, the SF Chronicle Music Critic, made a good case for the libretto:

"The libretto, which Sellars assembled, is a pastiche of historical documents, letters, poetry and memoirs, and as in a Baroque opera, there is a sharp division between action and emotional reflection.

In "Doctor Atomic," though, the split is along gender lines. In the lab and at the test site, where women are banned, the men chatter and argue in lithe, somewhat bland melodic phrases whose expressive content is scarce.

Edward Teller -- portrayed here not as the Iago figure most would expect but as the voice of unvarnished, amoral scientific reasoning -- tries to predict the size of the blast and pooh-poohs any commingling of science and politics. Gen. Groves, the military head of the project, bullies a hapless meteorologist and frets about his diet.

Kitty Oppenheimer, in contrast, expresses herself through the fragrant effusions of the midcentury American poet Muriel Rukeyser. Half the time there's no telling exactly what she's going on about (and the alcoholic Kitty is largely in the bag in any case). But Adams' exquisitely lyrical settings -- which have all the lush sensitivity of a pop ballad without the simplicity -- conjure up the angst that only Kitty and her maid Pasqualita can fully feel at the approach of the atomic age.

The only one who straddles this divide is Oppenheimer himself, a dazzlingly protean figure who can talk nuclei and warheads with the men, then turn around and intone the intoxicated love poetry of Baudelaire in a scene with Kitty."

Maybe the next time I see it, with that in mind, the libretto will make more sense to me. My only other quibble is the way the dancers kept picking up the lab tables and whisking them off the stage, then back again, or just moving them around seemingly at random - made no sense to me and it was distracting.

Still, I'd jump at the chance to see it again, and I'm curious to see how it evolves.

Charles T. Downey at ionarts with a post about Dr.Atomic and comments by people who saw it
NPR interview with Dr. Atomic composer, John Adams
Wired magazine story about Dr. Atomic stage sets

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October 18, 2005 (Tuesday, again) Open Studios Report, part 5

More viewpoints on this month's SF Open Studios:

Ailene Coffino, group site (Richmond):

"For us, finding a good location was difficult. While this year's (8th and California) was more central than last year's (30th and Balboa), parking proved to be a huge deterrent. We heard from everyone how difficult parking was. My own husband gave up trying on two occasions to come by. The new director from Artspan came by to our site and I filled her with complaints/suggestions. For the most part we (six of us) had a good experience and we all made at least one sale but the crowd to me seemed sparse. There were many slow times. You can quote me on several points. More needs to be done to publicize Open Studios in the neighborhoods. Everyone knows about Hunters Point and they get not only the foot traffic but the art buyers as well. Many people didn't know a thing about Open Studios outside of Hunters Point. We got a lot of other artists checking out pricing and asking questions about technique and students doing research papers. This is all well and good but we need more serious art buyers. Maybe Hunters Point should be the first weekend and not the last. This way it would kick things off. Maybe the serious art buyers would not wait to see what they could get at Hunters Point before they commit to other artists' work. Those of us in PPAA who participate in Open Studios have done our part. We printed 5,000 flyers which we mailed, left in various businesses throughout the neighborhood and even hired teenagers to distribute to people while waiting in line for the deYoung. Our small group alone placed seven real estate type signs along busy streets. I don't know what else we can do. Artspan needs to help us identify some sponsors out here and place banners along California, Fulton and Geary Boulevard as well as strategic Avenues in the Sunset. Maybe they can host some of their young professional nights over in this part of town. Artspan should try and forge a relationship with the Fine Arts Museum. There are many wonderful artists that don't show at Hunters Point. "

Alanna Spence, group site (Bayview):

"I had mixed results with Open Studios this year. Our Open Studios was during the first weekend and we competed with Fleet week. I think people avoided driving into the city because of terrible traffic. So our East Bay, North Bay and South Bay traffic was light. I had reports from friends saying they had tried to cross the Bay Bridge and turned back. We had a fair amount of visitors but few buyers. Our studio was showing the works of nine different artists. We only sold two small paintings both days. This is quite a contrast from last year's relatively high sales. Still, low sales aside, I got some great feedback on my work and we had a pretty large crowd both days. Someone said to me: "People really respond to your work" I said "That's wonderful, I just wish they'd respond with money." Maybe with all of the recent tragic events of the world, people aren't spending money on luxury goods like artwork. Who knows. I feel like I made some valuable connections with people who are drawn to my work, for that, I think all the time and money was worth the effort."

from Laura Williams, group site (Ft. Mason):

"Our foot trafffic was the lowest in all the 15 years I have been doing Open Studios, but I had the best sales I ever had. So I am quite happy. I think the bridge closure and the De Young reopening kept people away."

from Carolyn Hinman, group sites (Ft. Mason & SOMA):

"Well, Open Studios was a mixed bag for me. The first weekend I showed at my new studio (Soma Artists Studio at 689 Bryant Street) and we had a really good turnout for our reception Friday night, as well as decent traffic over the weekend. I had good sales and a really great time meeting and connecting with people. In contrast, this past weekend at Ft. Mason traffic was really slow and a little disheartening in that respect. Sales were low for me, but then, for Laura Williams, with whom I was showing (along with David Booth and Kay Marshall) they were terrific! Sales aside, though, I missed the energy and fun of a bigger crowd. "

from David Steinhardt, group site (Sunset):

"I sold a major piece on Saturday. That made the weekend relaxed and enjoyable. I swapped information with three different couples who each spent a lot of time looking at work even after seeing the price list. About a dozen people came in as a result of Steve's (Sunset district) map & brochure, and about a dozen more as a result of my signage and a giant painting I put out front."

from Diane Presler, solo site (Sunset):

"A lot of my traffic came from your cluster being so close to me and the map. My mailing list seemed weaker than usual (alot going on this weekend, it is a bit far out to get to the Sunset for some), but the public foot traffic was stronger than I expected! Hoorah for the public! Many people came to me just after your studio and I heard many many many people say 'Oh, that was such a nice studio, great work.'

The most important part of Open Studios for me is getting feedback from the public and seeing which pieces draw responses. I find it helpful to offer inexpensive reproductions of my work, in additional to a price list for original work. I sold a lot of the reproductions this year. For me Open Studios is about contact and feedback, more than sales. This was my first year in the Sunset, and the biggest surprise was meeting fellow artists right around the corner from me."

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October 18, 2005 (Tuesday) Open Studios Report, part 4

More viewpoints on this month's SF Open Studios:

From Sunset district artist, Sean Scullion (group site):

"Our weekend was OK. My rough guess is that we had a little over 200 people. Not everyone in our group could afford to participate and that is our main beef with ArtSpan. I realize there are expenses to run Open Studios but...

In the past, I've thought of holding an Alternative Studios on the same weekend. It would be free and maybe have a website as the gallery, map center; kind of like Salon des Refuse."

From Sunset district artist, Pam Heyda (group site):

"I just wanted to add to your blog comments that many of the people who came to our open studios commented on how wonderful it was to see 6 artists in one space. It was definitely a draw. One of my customers found us on the Artspan map on-line. She said it was very difficult to read as a PDF, very tiny and blurry but they were able to figure out where we were. She decided to visit the Mixed Six because there were many of us in one location. It was unfortunate she did not get one of our Sunset Artists maps, but she will next year!"

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October 17, 2005 (Monday, again) Open Studios Report, part 3

More viewpoints on this month's SF Open Studios:

From Tina Lauren Vietmeier, the SOMA district artist (at a group site) I interviewed last week:

"It went pretty well for us at our group site. We had a steady flow both days. We were busier on Sunday than Saturday. As far as sales go, I had the best sales I have ever had at open studios and this was my 5th year. I think as far as the first weekend goes it was better to have it start a week after the opening date of the SomArts exhibition. It gave people time to get ready and look thru the guide and stuff. I do think next year we will try to do a map for our area like you did in the Sunset district. I think that really helps. The one thing I really noticed was that the people that came were engaging in the art and generally very interested in viewing the work and asking questions about process and such."

From Judi Gorski, Sunset district artist at a single-artist site:

I am so glad that you are pleased with the way your open studio show went. Congratulations on your sales and new connections.
 
 I feel the same way you do.  My sales were up on my higher priced paintings and I made some real money this past weekend much to my surprise.
 
 We artists all worked so hard out here in the Sunset District to promote ourselves, with the Art Walk, and the brochures we printed and passed out and posted all over town, along with our sandwich boards, balloons, and whatever other advertising we were able to afford individually and collectively.  I have to believe, as exhausted as I am from my own nonstop attention to the marketing, that it all paid off and was worth it.
 
I was very disappointed to see that ArtSpan had not placed an ad for us in The Sunset Beacon, as they had last year, and as we were promised they would do this year. However, much to my surprise and delight, many of the new faces who came to my door told me that they found me through the Mesart Website and through ArtSpan's Directory of Artists.  Those customers told me they were attracted to the colors in the picture of my painting in the Directory.  For years I have complained about the poor quality of the Directory which up until last year was in black and white.  The one that was published this year is a major improvement.  The map, however, makes all of us in the Sunset look as if we are very far away from each other.  The map that we ourselves published in our brochures makes us look more like one little community. 
 
I did hear more than one person tell me that they found it difficult to be able to find a directory and that there were not enough locations to be able to pick one up conveniently. Apparently ArtSpan did do something with their promotion efforts that was effective because it brought people to my door way, way out at the end of San Francisco where no one else is very close by.
 
I think it would help us if our weekend did not encompass such a large geographical area.  People don't go to Ft. Mason and the outer Sunset and the Richmond and all the other areas in one weekend.  Perhaps Open Studios should be 5 weekends instead of 4.
 
My other comment, which I told you earlier, is that the walls at SomArts should be measured off in a way that no one's paintings are so low to the floor that you have to get yours eyes level with your ankles to take a look.  Higher is better.  AND I think that if 40 people were on the waiting list, as their letter indicated, that there was room for 40 more paintings to go up ... no one should be excluded from appearing in the gallery who has paid for open studios.  I didn't like that.
 
Anyway, I do think that this, my 10th Open Studio with ArtSpan, was my best ever.  I am going to do it again next year, although I had said that this 30th anniversary would be the last time I participate.  Each year I'm a little more organized than the year before and each year many of the same people come back again feeling familiar and commenting on the little adjustments I've made. 

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October 17, 2005 (Monday, again) Open Studios Report, part 2

Here are a couple of viewpoints on this month's SF Open Studios:

From Ramona Soto, artist and art appreciator from Sacramento:

"So great to finally meet you! I enjoyed your paintings so much in person. Your powers of observation are amazing. David's photographs are gorgeous, too, with striking compositions, contrast, and subject matter. Looking at them made me remember endless wonderful hours in the darkroom and how I love photography.

My friend fell in love with Teresa's silverpoints, and I bet she'll be contacting her. Who knew anyone was still practicing with egg tempera and silverpoint? Exquisite!

From your place we went right over to Mark Grim's. What a sweetie. He took lots of time with us, discussing his process and the thinking behind his work. This was especially for my friend, as she's much more drawn to representational pieces. With those colorful paintings covering all the walls and beds and floors, it was a little hard to take it all in. But Kathleen was able to get an insight into some of the formal considerations he deals with, and I could see a light turning on.... Oh, and I was teasing Mark about all the frames down in the entryway, saying how nice it was that he was giving out frames for free as people were leaving. And you know what he did? He let me pick out a frame! As I say, what a sweetie.

Then we went over to Judi Gorski's. What a place! And set up beautifully for art viewing.

We also stopped by to see David and Susan Grote and Steve and Kate, as they were in the immediate area, and then they sent us over to Art Waves (we were on our way over to the Russian bakery on Geary anyway, as my daughter had put in a request for piroshkis). Good to know about the gallery. GREAT piroshkis.

Okay, I'm all inspired now. Time to get back to work. Thanks so much!"

And from Elizabeth Dalgard, an artist whose Open Studio was in the Richmond neighborhood:

"I am sure you will post the results of your Open Studio event on your website in the next day or so, but I thought it might be interesting to have some kind of forum for discussion about the event from the various artists that participated.

This was my first experience with Open Studios and after this weekend I don't think I'll ever do it again. I am so disappointed with this event because I put so much time and effort into preparing for it and I got very dismal results.

A small handful of people came to my studio over the last two days which I couldn't believe. I thought that maybe it was just me because I just moved here and I don't have a lot of connections in this city. Alas, my husband went around to some of the studios in my neighborhood and the other artists said the same thing.

It seems like investing $165 or $125 for an event which draws so little people is a waste of time and money. I am sure there is more foot traffic in group events or in neighborhoods that have a lot of studios right next to each other but I am sure that many other artists had the same experience as me.

I moved from Washington, DC and every year they have the much debated event called Art-O-Matic. Any artist can participate and they all pay a fee of about $60
and have to donate a few hours of their time working at the event. People criticize the event because there is no selectiveness when it comes to the artists who participate and artists complain about the high fee associated with it. Well after paying double the fee for a highly unsuccessful weekend I am realizing what a good event Art-o-Matic is. The beauty of the event is that it is in ONE location- usually a warehouse or building donated by the owner. It is a month-long event with parties and fundraisers associated with it and it gets a ton of foot traffic because it is in one centralized location.

I am curious to know your feelings and success with Open Studios as I know you have participated for several years.

I just think there has to be a better way of doing this in the future."

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October 17, 2005 (Monday) Open Studios Report
Well. That was the best Open Studios experience I've ever had. The setup was relatively easy with six artists working together. We had lots of visitors in an almost constant stream, and everyone sold enough to consider the weekend a success.

It's the first time I've tried sharing my space with other artists and besides the obvious advantage of sharing the work and the expenses, I discovered some unexpected benefits. In the past, the psychological stress of feeling that everybody who came through the door wanted a piece of me was exhausting. But this time, by restricting my exhibit to one room, and knowing that there was plenty of other work for visitors to see, other artists for them to talk to, I felt relaxed enough to just engage with the people who really made it obvious that they'd come to see me.

It was gratifying to see so many of my regular collectors come by, people like Jim Nixon,and Carole & Richard Beckett who've been buying my work since the earliest days when I was just showing in cafes, and Barbara Leep, who has been collecting my paintings from gallery shows. And Amanda Janes, a terrific patron to Open Studios artists. some people who had purchased my work from the gallery (but had never met me) came by to tell me how much they liked their paintings. Other artists came by, some of them sneaking out of their own Open Studios show to take a quick tour. Local painter Bill Bruckner purchased pieces from a couple of the artists here.

Some people came because of the blog. Kris Shanks came down from Sonoma and Ramona Soto drove in from Sacramento. A lot of other people mentioned the blog or said they'd come because of my web site.

I've been getting some emails from Open Studios visitors, and other Open Studios artists - some had great time, others aren't so happy. I'm going to start posting them later today (and in the next few days, if I hear form enough of you) so if you have something you'd like to share about your Open Studios experience, send it to me now. Be sure to let me know if you're a visitor or an exhibiting artist. And if you're an artist, where is/was your studio show?
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October 12, 2005 (Thursday) Come out and see us this weekend
BWell. That was the best Open Studios experience I've ever had. The setup was relatively easy with six artists working together. We had lots of visitors in an almost constant stream, and everyone sold enough to consider the weekend a success.

It's the first time I've tried sharing my space with other artists and besides the obvious advantage of sharing the work and the expenses, I discovered some unexpected benefits. In the past, the psychological stress of feeling that everybody who came through the door wanted a piece of me was exhausting. But this time, by restricting my exhibit to one room, and knowing that there was plenty of other work for visitors to see, other artists for them to talk to, I felt relaxed enough to just engage with the people who really made it obvious that they'd come to see me.

It was gratifying to see so many of my regular collectors come by, people like Jim Nixon,and Carole & Richard Beckett who've been buying my work since the earliest days when I was just showing in cafes, and Barbara Leep, who has been collecting my paintings from gallery shows. And Amanda Janes, a terrific patron to Open Studios artists. some people who had purchased my work from the gallery (but had never met me) came by to tell me how much they liked their paintings. Other artists came by, some of them sneaking out of their own Open Studios show to take a quick tour. Local painter Bill Bruckner purchased pieces from a couple of the artists here.

Some people came because of the blog. Kris Shanks came down from Sonoma and Ramona Soto drove in from Sacramento. A lot of other people mentioned the blog or said they'd come because of my web site.

I've been getting some emails from Open Studios visitors, and other Open Studios artists - some had great time, others aren't so happy. I'm going to start posting them later today (and in the next few days, if I hear form enough of you) so if you have something you'd like to share about your Open Studios experience, send it to me now. Be sure to let me know if you're a visitor or an exhibiting artist. And if you're an artist, where is/was your studio show?ou visit the de Young (or maybe instead of - after all, as Kriston Capps observed, the de Young will still be there in a few weeks) come out to the Sunset and visit some of the artists here by the ocean this weekend.

This week's issue of the Bay Guardian has a map, with the current listing of artists registered with SF Open Studios. Although it's a little misleading - in some spaces it has a single number on the map, where two to five artists are showing. Some of the Sunset artists got together and printed their own map, which I've uploaded HERE.

It was after the maps came out that I noticed there was an artist just a few houses down from me! Her name is Diane Presler and I emailed her to see if we could do studio visits before the weekend. She emailed back: "I'm working in watercolor, oils & pastels. Much of my work draws inspiration from nature and geometry. This summer I have been making portraits of Barbie in oils. I'm attaching a sample of one of the Barbie portraits." (Her Barbie image is at right.) We're going to try to pop over to each other's studios on Friday night.

After our MixedSix site (1426 41st Ave. @ Judah), where you can see 7 artists (counting Diane) the next biggest site is over at David Steinhardt's place (2230 22nd Ave.@ Rivera) where they have 5 artists. In the past year, David has been working on two very different series, one involving personal cartoon icons and another doing highly realistic still lifes with contemporary objects (image at left). He'll also be displaying some of his older abstracts. Marie Ferrebeouf will be showing some of her fascinating books and boxes (image lower right.) Leigh Radtke, Roger Thoms and Virginia Green will also there.

There are 4 artists at the 43rd & Ortega site: Steve Delingher, Kate Dopheide, David Grote & Susan Grote.

Mark Grim is just a few blocks from me - I interviewed him last year. Judi Gorski is down by the beach - I interviewed her earlier this year. And there are 14 other artists out here.

Today I'm picking up some of my paintings from the gallery, then doing some cleaning around here. Tomorrow is the really big work day - everybody will be here, moving furniture, then hanging signs, banners, and art work. Saturday and Sunday we throw open the doors. Monday I will be collapsed on the sofa, moaning that I will never do this again (I've said that all 8 times I've done Open Studios.) So you may not hear from me until Tuesday. Have a good weekend, and hope to see you!.

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October 12, 2005 (Wednesday)
Louise Gilbert
Louise Gilbert, founding member of The Graphic Arts Workshop, passed away on September 21st, 2005 - only a few days after her retrospective at SF City College had closed. More HERE, at Mark Vallen's Art For a Change.
- - - - - -

Museum of the future...
Dede Wilsey says the the de Young Museum is the museum of the future, but if that's true, they really need to get on the stick with their internet services. Every other major museum around here, plus the Opera and Symphony (and many galleries) send email updates to registered users. As a subscriber to many of those lists, I appreciate the timely updates (changes and additions to the schedule) and reminders. I only get snail-mail from the de Young, and if you try to call them you usually get a message saying something like it'll be weeks, if ever, before they return your call.
- - - - - -

I'm not in this show, but I wish I was:
I'll be going to see it, for sure:
George Bush Voodoo Dolls by Bobbie Pires
Wednesday, October 12th - Sunday, October 30th
Reception:  Saturday, October 15th, 5-8 pm
 
At the STUDIO Gallery 1718A Polk St. (between Washington and Clay)
From the press release: Berkeley artist Bobbie Pires has been at work for months on a series of George Bush voodoo dolls, and the time has come for them to come out into the world and be seen.  Each hand-sewn doll is placed in his own little world:  "Church and State," for example, features a white voodoo doll in the White House that seems to be morphing into a church.  Four of her large mixed media pieces will be on display, as well as several smaller boxes, each with their own voodoo doll and sharp objects.  (And we'll also be taking orders for individual voodoo dolls...)  Bobbie combines elements of collage, sewing, claywork, weaving and painting in her pieces.  Bobbie's pieces are humorous comments on the current political situation, and beautiful art objects on their own.
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October 11, 2005 (Tuesday)
Run-up to Open Studios

Open Studios is all this month, and my weekend is the one coming up (in four days!) So posting will be light this week. Actually, I'm not as crazed as I usually get before these things, probably because I'm showing with such a great group of people this year, and we're keeping everything low-key. This is my next-to-last show for this year, and I'm already looking forward to the slower season, and just painting.

Amazingly, there are 32 artists registered for Open Studios in my neighborhood (the Sunset) this year. I'll tell you a little more about them later this week.

Now I have to get back to making wall tags....

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October 9, 2005 (Sunday) Planning to visit the de Young today? Don't.

Planning to visit the de Young today? Forget it. It's a fiasco. It's was supposed to be "Members Previews Day." They told us, "Due to occupancy limits within the de Young, reservations are strongly recommended to avoid waits during these busy Members’ Preview Days. Please bring your current Charter Member card(s) to facilitate easy entry." I made a reservation for two people for 10:30am this morning. When we got there, this is the sight that greeted us:

The line ran down the street to JFK Drive and turned the corner - I didn't follow to see how far it went beyond that. We were told that they'd be letting small groups in every half hour. First come, first served. So much for "reservations." If I'd known it was going to be that kind of set-up, and I was going to have to stand in line for two or three hours, I'd have come earlier and brought drinks, an umbrella, and a folding chair. But, not being prepared for that, I just took some photos and left, having already wasted an hour of a perfectly good Sunday morning.

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October 7, 2005 (Friday) tidbits

How do artists live? N.Y. artist Jennifer Dalton is taking a survey of working artists, to use the results in an upcoming project. Help her out by clicking on the link below to complete a very short *anonymous* survey about your income sources:
How Do Artists Live?

SF Chronicle Art Critic Kenneth Baker has made a podcast! It's a 14 minute audio tour of two galleries (modern American paintings) in the new de Young. With my dial-up, it took me about 30 minutes to download, but I had to try it because it has pictures embedded, like a slo-mo slideshow. It plays in iTunes and you can click on the photos to make them pop into full-creen mode. This is handy when you're looking at the big gallery shot while he talks about several of the paintings. The sound quality is crisp and Mr. Baker's commentary is pretty clear, too. Wow! Now I want to know how to make a podcast with slideshow. As soon as Open Studios is over, I'm gonna try it.

Doggie Diner fans - Harold Bachman has died. He's the original designer of the DD head, which I've painted over 100 times. I met him a few years ago at a fundraiser for the Sloat DD head, and he was a warm, funny guy. He did little ink drawings on his letters and envelopes, and if you were so lucky as to have a correspondence with him you could collect some of his work that way.

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October 6, 2005 (Thursday) Interview with Tina Lauren Vietmeier
OK, so it took me longer than I thought it was going to, to finish putting this interview together. I think it was worth it - I hope you do, too:

These are images of Tina's encaustic paintings. She talked with me about her subject matter:

"I didn't know that at first, when I started working with the toilet roll shapes in my studio in Chico in 1997. One day I sat down at my desk and there was a toilet roll sitting on the window sill, and it just struck me... the light was, it was just this beautiful moment. So I did a sketch of it in pastel, and from then on, I kept working with that cylindrical form. It kept speaking to me. I kept feeling this connection. I also see the humor there, but there's something deeper, a weightedness, a sense of presence, or groundedness and fullness. When I find things that I'm inspired by it always ends up being a bottle form, or a pudding, or... there are similarities in these things. They're not floaty-light. They're all weighted and full, dense. I've just started to get a fuller grasp of this. It's something that I wasn't completely conscious of, until the last three years. Because the toilet rolls were a heavy focus for three or four years. After the toilet rolls, I started to do soap forms, and eggs. I was doing the egg paintings in 1999 to 2000. "

The complete interview is pretty long, with lots of photos, so I put it on its own page, HERE.

October 4, 2005 (Tuesday, yet again) Interview with Tina Lauren Vietmeier
After I left the SOMA Artists Studios (see yesterday's post) I kept walking down Bryant Street, to look for another big art building - this one at 340 Bryant. It's the four-story tan fortress crouching under the Bay Bridge on-ramp (but not for long; the ramp is supposed to be torn down any day now for long-overdue earthquake retrofitting.) There are a lot of artists in this building, but I just came to interview one of them: Tina Lauren Vietmeier. Tina and I have bumped into each other at various art events for many years, and we have some friends in common, but we've never really had a serious art talk, and I had never seen her studio.

She shares an enormous space (most of the second floor) with three other people. Tina's work area is in the southeast corner, with lots of windows, somewhat shaded by the overhead freeway. Her space is mostly filled with tables (lots of tables), one desk and one easel. Hot wax equipment covers some of the tables, and piles of papers and doo-dads were on other surfaces. There's also a big boardroom/diningroom table & chairs arrangement in an adjoining area. That's where we sat down to tape the interview. We were sitting next to a wall of big wood panels primed with a lavender ground.

AC: Are these lavender-colored panels your new work?

Tina: Yes, these are in progress. For the last six months, I've made a transition in developing my surfaces with a traditional rabbit-skin glue size. I was resisting it for a really long time, but I finally realized that I had been struggling with the way I used to develop the surface, with encaustic medium. But I found that I was using up a lot of wax in the under painting, which I didn't really want to do. I wanted to get more light on the surface. I just started these.... they're a wash of rabbitskin glue with pigment.

AC: So, that hint of brown that I see coming through the lavender, that's the canvas, or wood surface?

Tina: Yes, that's the wood. I like a surface of quarter-inch luan. It's really porous, but it's also not real heavy. And I use a cradled back, because it's easier to work with a raised surface. I'm liking the warm tones of the wood (showing through the ground.) These are for my show at the Steele gallery, which will be opening in February 2006.

AC: The subject matter... is it all going to be these "inverted cup" (chocolate truffle) shapes? Or don't you know yet?

Tina: I don't really know yet. I've done some pieces recently (like the one over there, of the bottle and pill) that focus more on the vast horizon... but I also had some truffle pieces in the last show, so it means there's some kind of development... I'm not really sure what's happening. These three are actually going to be a triptych. I like the idea of them being broken up and what happens, spatially, when they're broken up, so I've been playing with the pieces on that wall... putting them together and taking them apart and seeing how it feels.

AC: I've noticed that, from your earliest work to these current pieces, you tend to focus on rounded, solid forms. Not bubbles, not symbolic forms, we're talking about weighted FORM. Is that intentional?

Tina: Yes. I didn't know that at first....

...(the rest of the interview will be posted Wednesday afternoon)....

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October 4, 2005 (Tuesday, again) Wago Kreider at SOMA Artists Studios
After interviewing some of the painters and sculptors at Soma Artists Studios (see previous post) I was going through the halls one last time, when I bumped into film maker Wago Kreider. He just moved back to SF from NYC, where he'd been living for the past 5 years. "It's good to be back," he said, "We prefer living in California." He just moved into a space at SOMA Artists Studios that he's sharing with his wife, Jessica Allee. He said she was an architect, "who does conceptual art that has an architectural/urban studies orientation. I'm an experimental film maker and video artist." I asked him what he was going to be showing at Open Studios and he said, "I'm going to be showing a landscape video that was shot in and around the Salton Sea area - that's the primary installation for this space. We're going to have some secondary pieces out in the hall." I wondered if he and his wife worked together on projects and he said, "Oh yeah, we do collaborate. Actually, there's a possibility that we will show a collaborative piece here in the studio. We're going to stage a short program of experimental video and film at 8:30pm on Friday night, here in Studio 27. It won't be my own work, but the work of friends and acquaintances. Also, we're planning to have that as a regular monthly event here." For more info about the film nights, email Wago.
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October 4, 2005 (Tuesday) Interview at SOMA Artists Studios
I met with six members of the SOMA Artists Studios to talk about working and showing in a cooperative artist's building. Three of them ( Jana Grover, Linda Sanders Colnett, Flora Davis) had been there 10 to 16 years, and the other three (Nancy Ewart, Carolyn Hinman, Lillian B. Rubin) had joined in the last year. The building has recently doubled its studio space and artists are still moving in. Consequently, the ArtSpan Open Studios catalog only lists nine artists but there are actually 30 artists exhibiting there this coming weekend (October 7th - 9th.)

Outside, it looks like a typical South of Market post-industrial building, except for the mosaic by the entrance. Inside, it's a bright, clean, attractive space. The halls and all of the rooms I saw were brightly lit, many with skylights. The studio walls are a combination of red brick and painted drywall. When I was there, a moving van was out front (people were still moving in and out) and everyone was bustling around, setting up their studio spaces and hanging work in the halls. As I wandered around the halls before my interview I was amazed to see work by so many familiar names - local artists I respected - people like Jane Grimm, America Meredith, Anne Subercaseaux, and Renee Eaton.

AC: Tell me about what it means to you, as an artist, to be in this studio space:

Flora: I think the most important aspect of having a studio in a group site is the feedback I get from other artists. I respect their opinion and we critique each other's work. I think the other thing is being in a studio with so many other women - there's less competition, and people are just more friendly..


(Jana Grover at left, in her studio, and one of her paintings below right)

AC: How many male and female artists are here in this building?

Jana: About 32 women and 7 or 8 men.

Lillian: Why do you suppose that is? I wondered about that.

Linda: Well, Jana and I decided that it's because men can't commit. (Laughter) Because we had more men call about studio space, than women. But the women came charging in and signed on the dotted line and the men kept saying, "Well, I need to think about this... I'll get back to you," and then we didn't hear from them. Or they would have to go talk to their partner, or... it was just an interesting sociological observation.

Nancy: I'm not sure it's the committing. I think it's because as women we have much fewer opportunities to be with a group, to be professional, to move out of working in our basements and garages and back rooms, and so if we're committed as an artist and see an opportunity we're on it - but men have more opportunities.

Flora: I have another idea about that. I'm generalizing, but think men tend to work on their own, and they don't really need feedback from other people, necessarily.

Jana: We actually wanted more men here. We thought it would probably be a better mix, but we just couldn't get them.

AC: What's it like as one of the the newest members of this building?

Lillian: It's been both very exciting and very intimidating. I've probably been painting far less than anybody... it's a totally new experience and I've been obsessed with it, as anyone here can tell you. I get here at 8am and don't go home until 4:30pm. I don't know yet what it means to be in a studio with other people. I tend to work alone... all those years I was writing, I always wrote alone, and I liked it. I'm beginning to appreciate having people around. Nancy came in the other day and she said, "you ought to try xyz," and I said, "oh, it's too much work," but then I thought, "what a good idea" and I spent the next two hours doing it. Another artist comes by everyday to see what I'm up to, and he doesn't say too much, but it's just the idea that there's somebody who cares what I'm doing has been very energizing. Being here with others, I see what they're doing and I think, "that's interesting - I could try something like that." If you're in a space alone, you don't have that option. It's not like writing, where you can read somebody else's book.

(Linda Sanders Colnett above left, her studio below right)

Jana: For me there's been an enormous, positive experience in being with a group. There's all of the input and critiquing each other's work... not everyone here experiences that community feeling, but it's been very valuable for me. I spend a lot of time in New Mexico - I've got a little studio there, and I've thought when I run out of money, and I have to move to New Mexico, I'll try to find a group there. I moved to the East Bay recently and everybody assumed I'd find a studio over there, but I said, "No, I can't leave my group."

Nancy: A friend of mine, Deloris Thomas, has had a studio here for years, and during that time I have lusted after a space here. It came available this year, at the right time, for the right price. I'm moving in slowly, since I have a studio space in my apartment. I try to come in a couple of times a week, because I love the feedback and sense of community. I think eventually I will be doing most of my work here, once I become more accustomed to it.

Lillian: I want to say something about the notion of working at home versus working outside of the home... For the first time in my professional life I know what it is to have a separation. I always worked at home and thought I would never be able to give it up. but I love being able to close that (studio) door and go home and have a life at home. I could never sit down in the hour before dinner and read a novel or whatever, because there was always work sitting right there, waiting for me. Now, I even have weekends! For thirty-five years I didn't know Saturdays or Sundays - it made no difference - I was working all the time. Now, I have a sense of, "there's life, and there's work." It's really a compelling difference in life. There's a new kind of freedom in the hours that are not "work hours." I no longer rush through dinner and go back to the office to go to work.

Carolyn: I've been the "phantom" new person here, because I haven't quite gotten used to it. I'm very nervous about going from my private space to a collective, though I yearn for the sense of community I feel here. I've been working in my studio at home for about seven years and I just couldn't imagine getting a separate studio space. For one thing, I couldn't justify the expense. But also, there was the issue of needing the privacy and solitude to create. But, I'm realizing now that I will go out of my gourd if I don't get out to a separate space. At this point I need (even if I still work at home some of the time) to leave the house and be with a group of people, instead of this unpunctuated time in the house with my cat. I can't speak yet to how it will effect the work, but I fully expect that it will change in some way.

(Nancy Ewart in her studio, above left; two of her paintings below right)

AC: How much of your experience here is "group stuff"?

Flora: I've always wanted to have more meetings with the artists, and so this past year we started having monthly meetings to just talk about art-related things, what we've been doing, just to share information. It's been very helpful. At the same time, we've been using those meetings just to talk about things that are happening here. Not only artistic things, but things that need to be done, like getting ready for Open Studios. I was amazed... I thought maybe we would just talk for an hour, but sometimes they last for three hours, and people still want to stay. It's a voluntary, open meeting - if you can make it, fine. If you can't - no big deal.

AC: Has your experience in this building affected your work?

Lillian: I think it's too soon to say for those of us who have just joined. But there's a sense of freedom here. I've been dropping paint... I never dropped paint at home - I think it must be some unconscious sensibility of ... freedom.

Flora: That's one thing that I see a difference in. I've never really worked at home that much, I've always had a separate studio, but I'm very neat at home. If I was working there, I'd have to be cleaning up all the time, so I really like having a studio, because I feel like I can be sloppy here.

AC: Tell me why you work - and does it does it make any difference if you show or sell your work?

Jana: Well, it didn't make much difference to me at first. Art started out for me, as a therapy. That's really how I think I started. Then I got better at it, and somewhere along the line I realized that I can do this. We're probably all terrible at marketing ourselves, but I think I actually sabotage myself. But I want to make sure that I don't end up painting things to sell. It's seductive... it's a very fine line, especially if you deal with galleries and they tell you to paint more of whatever sells. I try to stay true to myself, and thank god, I don't need it to live on. It would certainly be nice to sell work. It's not that I have a lot of money, but I'm glad that I'm not in that position where I have to paint to live, because I think it's easy to sell yourself out. I've come up against that in the last few years, as I've sold more work. I love the acknowledgment that they like my work. the kind of work that I do, people either like it, or it's disturbing to them. I love that people can relate to it. I hate it when they say, "Can you explain this piece to me?" I want to say, no - if I wanted to do that, I'd write poetry - I don't want to talk about it. So, yes, it's important to be acknowledged, and I do like to sell, but I don't want to cross that line where I'm doing art to sell.

(Carolyn Hinman in her studio, above left; her work below right)

Linda: I don't do work to sell. I'm very fortunate because I have a supportive husband, and I've had a lot of freedom to do what I want to do, so in a lot of ways it enabled me to get out of painting to sell. But I'm very experimental. I like to experiment with different materials and now I use the computer in my work. I wouldn't say I intellectualize, but my work has to have some intellectual basis to it. So probably most people will look at it and not have any idea what it means, but it always means something to me. Unlike Jana, when people come into my studio and ask me about my work, I love to talk about it. I like to talk about why I've done these things, so they don't just look at it and say, "Oh, this is pretty," but they don't understand the connections. I do sell work, but it's not my primary focus and that's very freeing.

Nancy: My desire to be an artist goes back so far, that I'm not even sure what triggered it. It's my lifeline, it's my way to be an individual, it's my therapy... when I was working at UC (I just retired a year ago) it was how I survived, as an outspoken woman in a hierarchical environment. I put a lot of anger into my art work. I would come home and work on my art, late into the night. I think it's a mixture of things that make me a painter. I get a sensual pleasure from putting paint on canvas. When I paint, I go to another space, and it's extremely intuitive. I'm more like Jana - since I work intuitively, I want people to experience the work for themselves, and it's not for me to say they should be thinking this, this, and this. Open Studios is a wonderful opportunity for people to come and see artists that they haven't been told about in a art book, so there are no expectations, and no one is telling them what they have to be thinking about it. As far as doing it for money, many years ago I had a commercial art business and I saw how really difficult it was when you were doing art for other people. So I decided when I started painting, to get a day job and I could paint whatever I wanted and if people didn't like it, so be it.

(Flora Davis in her studio, above left; her work below right)

Carolyn: The reason I do art is, it just came and got me. I was practicing law, had just made partner in a firm in San Francisco, and I woke up one morning with the thought in my head that I wanted to make a goddess doll. It just came completely out of the blue, but it was really compelling, so that day I went and got some supplies... I became obsessed with it, took a sabbatical from the firm, worked 15 hours a day at this, and then I quit (the firm.) That was seven years ago. It's curiosity and love-driven. The work came out as these little beings and I wanted to be with them, to have them in the world, and I need them, so I have to make them. Very soon, way too soon for me, people started asking to buy them. So, I've been selling them mostly through word-of-mouth, but going from being a lawyer to doing this has been very difficult in terms of my validation... I think I'm getting more at peace with the idea that I'm not a self-suporting individual. It kind of sucks - I do hate that part, but the work is really about trying to connect with the feminine divinity and I couldn't create something to sell, because they don't help me if I do that, so I don't really have a choice. It's very difficult to try and explain them. They're such heart pieces - there's not a whole lot of cognition going on. I appreciate people who are like, "Oh my god, she's talking to me."

Flora: I do it (make art) because I have to. I've always considered myself an artist. I thought I was going to be a famous American artist, but along the way, at one point, I let that go. It was when I started studying Buddhism that I let it go. That actually changed my work dramatically. What I'm doing as an artist is to be in touch with inner poles of who I am. The essential part of Buddhism that's in my work is being with the here and now. The primary outlet for my work is playing with the surfaces of metal. And I use the titles to express various concepts of Buddhism. So I see them as mediation pieces. In terms of selling work, I don't really think I've ever sold that well. It's not enough to make a living on. so I've realized that I make art because I have to make art. It is nice to have recognition, even if it's just the recognition of someone coming into your studio and saying, "I really like that."

(Lillian B. Rubin in her studio, above left; her paintings below right)

Lillian: I don't know why I make art. Unlike many people who knew from childhood that they had something going as artists, I didn't know. What I know is that, in that my childhood, which was a miserable childhood, for a nickel you could get on the subway and go to the museum. I would wander the halls and look at the paintings and think, "It must be wonderful to do that," never thinking that I could do it. I grew up, and became a college professor, and a clinical psychologist, and wrote books, and then one day I woke up and I said, "Enough! It's time to do something else." Around that time I had been wandering in a bookstore and found Betty Edwards' book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" and it was a revelation for me. I did the exercises and started drawing. I had one more book I had to write, so I did and then I said, "Now what are you going to do with your life?" I felt that I had all these accolades but my whole identity is tied to this work, and "Who am I?" I'm nobody. I knew I had to try painting. What's interesting to me now, is that my written work is very forceful, but I find myself painting all this serene stuff, which is a total shock to me. I have lived all of my life with so much internal chaos that I need to make order around me. All I know is, I look at these paintings and it makes me feel good. Do I want recognition? Of course. I don't believe people who say they don't. It's not true. It's not human. Do I want to sell? Yes, in the sense that, that's what this world calls recognition. I don't need the money, but until you do that, you don't know that you've got any place in the world. Would I paint anything in order to sell it? Never. I can't even imagine how to do that, even if I wanted to.

Visit these artists, and 24 others at the SOMA Artists Studios, October 7-9, 2005
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