I was totally blown away by your responses to my shelter mags post yesterday youre quite the informed bunch! The first title I cover is going to be Interior Design - Im poring over back issues and gathering information look for my post on this trade-oriented magazine tomorrow.
Today, Im going to get the other ball rolling and talk about living with art. My decision to open my gallery in 2003 was fueled by three different factors, all of which seemed wrong, wrong, wrong to me:
#1- I had a lot of artist friends and saw how hard it was for them to get their work exhibited in a professional environment, combined with the fact that it was almost impossible for them to market themselves to potential clients directly without seeming totally arrogant and egotistical.
#2- There had been a time where, while not rolling in money, I definitely had disposable income. In 2003 I did not, and as my fortunes dwindled (coinciding with the deflation of the dotcom bubble) I went through the odd process of discovering what things purchased with that disposable income had lasting value. Clothes, shoes and nice meals were lovely, but did not fall into that category. My penchant for mid-century furniture, Heywood Wakefield specifically, led me to make some purchases that were more durable and meaningful. One thing I did not buy, which I really really really wished I had, was art.
#3- I was paging through a Pottery Barn catalog and it featured several different framed photographs for about $200. PB was taking the lions share of the profit, and what people were purchasing, by virtue of the fact that it was being done through a national chain, was neither original nor of any particular benefit to the artist who made the photo in the first place.
I was convinced there had to be a better way, and so I up and opened the gallery. It was pretty much an impulse decision, but it was one of the best impulses I ever had. The idea behind the gallery from the start was that while its not exactly cheap, you dont have to be a millionaire to buy art, and that buying art is a great way to spend money. You get something of lasting value, youre supporting the career of an emerging artist AND you get to live with something unique that enriches your life in ways that mass-produced stuff simply cannot.
While Im here posting on AT, Ill be talking about how to get started with buying art, how to present it once youve bought it (framing, etc), how to hang it in your home and Ill provide lots of resources for achieving every step of the process.
To kick things off today Ive included images from the three photographers who participated in the inaugural exhibition at the gallery in March of 2003: Mara Bodis-Wollner, Dana Miller and Tema Stauffer. All of them have work available thats under $1000 (a lot cheaper than that Marc Jacobs bag you might be jonesing after, and all their pieces are limited editions. This is just a taste, and its an easy point of departure for me because its MY taste. Obviously, there are many many resources for acquiring work by emerging artists and Ill mention plenty of them in the weeks to come.
And now, a question for you: Do you live with art? What kind of stuff is it? If you dont, what are your biggest obstacles to making it happen?
Jen Bekman of Personism
I wanted to live with original art, but didn't have much money. I started snapping up flea maret art. Some pepople call it student work or folk art. Whatever it is, I have a collection of about 20 portraits, very different in style, color. Some men, but mostly women. Mostly all unframed.
They are a little hard to live with. Right now I have them hung up all together, edge to edge in a narrow hallway.
I'd like to come up with a fresher way to display them. I also have some folk pictures of boats, bridges, etc. Too many of them are stuck in the back of my closet.
At the moment, I have one original painting that a friend of mine painted in graduate school.
And of course, that photograph of Loretta Young in the bathroom, as you know, which is probably one of a million.
The biggest art I have is the 20-foot-long mural that I painted in my living room of Paris at night with wet streets based on a pair of vintage paint-by-number paintings from the very early 1960's, which sort of reminds you of those enormous silk screen posters, in a way, because of the blocks of color.
I also have several other actual paint-by-number paintings that I bought on eBay, and which look fantastic; they're not original art, but I kind of think of them as hand-colored prints, in a way.
I have a huge collection of others of those for the sole purpose of showing to potential paint-by-number mural victims; most of them are pretty obviously mural-friendly subject matter, such as landscapes, seascapes, etc., but I do have a few still lifes which I think would make very interesting Alice-in-Wonderland-ish dining room murals.
If anyone finds themselves on Broadway and 102nd Street between 7am and 7pm during the week, they can bop into Kay French Cleaners, and have a look at the sort of panorama one I did there of actually Paris in the day time. Time Out New York did a little Out There thing about it a couple of months ago.
Ok, I've gone from being a never-poster to posting all the time on this thread..but these are such GREAT topics.
I'm a not-terribly-well-off journalist, but I've managed to buy some relatively cool art over the years. How? On installment plans, or because I go to gallery openings, make contacts with artists, and work out payment plans, etc. with them in person. It's much cooler to have something on your wall that you can say, "Yeah, this guy Peter did this, and he's inspired by yadda, yadda, yadda, and his boyfriend's name is whatever."
Another way to get art..well, art of a different sort...is to buy vintage posters. While some of them are really expensive, you can still buy some stuff in 50-70-year-old range for a couple hundred bucks.
I've had friends paying a couple hundred bucks for those faux paintings from Ballard Designs, etc...and I think it's just nonsense when there are artists out there to support!
I'm a part-time artist so I trade a lot of work with other artists and my art school homies. I've got a small space so I have to limit myself to small sculptures and wall art. Most of it is figurative, both people and animals. I don't display a lot of my own work at home because it seems... I don't know, kind arrogant or something. I display the sculptures in a secondhand glass and lacquer doll case (they get rotated every couple of months). My advice is if you really love a piece and really can't afford it talk to the artist or the gallery. Some of them have payment plans that let you pay in installments.
Whoops. That should be "kind OF arrogant."
Just $0.02 more--some artists will trade work for non-art things as well. I got a photoshoot and dinner for me and my boyfriend at a nice restaurant for a couple of sculptures.
(What's up with the code thing on the comment form? It seems to have early Alzheimer's or something.)
I went to graduate school with a very talented phootographer (Mery Palarea Lobos, sadly no longer making art) who did an extensive documentation of drag queens in Savannah. I got a whole portfolio in exchange for helping her with her resume, and they hang in a row of five simple matching frames across our living room wall. They are beautiful, haunting images of glamour, dissolution, and banality. We couldn't afford the nicest frames with the UV glass and whatnot, but my mom works for a company that makes archival storage material, so within the frames, each photo is protected by a pvc-free polypropylene sleeve.
We have another beautiful piece in the living room, a linoleum print on newspaper by my friend Anders Bergstrom. It was a gift, because he knew he'd have a hard time selling anything on newsprint, and because I share with him a passion for the subject of the piece--Tecate in cans!
Finally, in the bedroom, we executed a fake Sol Lewitt line drawing. Ordinarily I would be ashamed of this, but in this case I'm proud. My boyfriend is a biochemist, who knew nothing of art before we met. I also had a hard time getting him interested. Until last fall, we went up to Dia:Beacon, and he fell in love with the large-scale modern works of Rauschenberg, Judd, Flavin, and of course LeWitt. So we bought the big SFMOMA LeWitt retrospective catalog, and picked out an easy one to copy. I'm really proud that he's now a lover of minimalism and conceptual art, and it complements my dedication to photography. Our big counterfeit LeWitt over the bed, with its dreamy cloud-like swirls, is a nightly reminder how much we've grown together.
currently all the art in my apt are black and white photographs by my husband, who is an architectural photographer, and i have managed to get one collage of my own up on the wall. i change the photos around whenever the desire strikes me. we would love to have some non-photo art on the walls, but we've had no idea how to get started, and no funds to begin a collection. and i would dearly love to purchase sculptural pieces. i think part of the problem is that i don't feel we have the space to fit sculpture or other art (as a photographer who's future clients are frequently in our apt, we have to display his stuff somewhere.)
We're mini collectors, my husband and I. He's also an artist, although we have none of his work on the walls. I have to say that we've been pretty lucky with our collection. A lot we've gotten through trades, but much of it we've gotten from small galleries. We used to live next to Bellwhether when it was till in Brooklyn, so we got some great small pieces from there.
Lately we've been buying at benefit auctions. Our favorite recent purchase is a Nancy Spero print.
Jen--
Another great topic, near and dear.
It is so exciting to hear when gallery owners like you "get it" about how their world can be/has been perceived as off-putting and snootified. There is definitely a pool of gallery folks who have embraced the *retail* (gasp!) side of their business, and it's opened doors to more sales and broader interest.
These same folks realize some people (like myself) will spend the money on a piece, but can't do it all at once. I've had galleries and artists offer "installment plans" (but only when I prodded...)
I've also had the amazing opportunity to "buy direct" from artists with whom I've made contact via email/websites. (note to artists: if you provide an email on your website, be prepared to actually answer it...)
What do I collect? Male portraiture (from vintage oils to contemporary photography) and photography of signage/typography. I've found I've had to provide these self-imposed limits to control my wildly eclectic tastes... and also make the "hunt" more interesting, as I challenge myself/my tastes within these channels.
But Jen, the only bone to pick...
I think when national retailers like Pottery Barn use the work of artists, they are not doing it without having made a purchase/licensing deal to do so with the artist (unless all rights to the piece have expired). So, the artist does in fact see some profit from the deal (they've most likely signed off on the deal...). I find this a better deal for the artist than when a gallery/collector resells an artist's work and the artist is not in the commission loop... (I'm talking not about the scenario you have, because you are repping the artist... I'm talking about when a piece changes hands after the first gallery/artist to collector buy.)
This is one of my favorite AT topics so far and fits right into one of my bizarre obsessions. Bravo!
My favorite piece is what purports to be an original Picasso etching ("Pour Roby"). It is a beautiful line drawing of a face, and although it came with an old certificate of authenticity, I didn't pay much for it and I don't care if it's real or not. I paid a couple of hundred dollars for it and probably about the same amount to have it framed. I also have a Chagall "Green Violiniste" which, for all I know was produced on a Xerox copier. But I love it.
I've come to realize that although my tastes in furniture and interior design run to modern, I am really drawn to antique lithographs. I only choose those whose subjects have special meaning to me: primarily places that I have lived, worked, or studied. I have both hand-painted and unpainted. I only have them French-matted.
It's the framing which drives me crazy. I am willing to spend double or triple what I pay for the artwork to have the perfect matte and frame. Sometimes, picking them up from the framer feels like buying them out of hock.
I am looking forward to the day when I can produce and frame my own photographs. Used to do so many years ago, but the thought of photo chemicals in my NYC apartment isn't doing it for me. I hope to get a digital camera this summer to help facilitate the process.
I suppose this all means I feel like I need to put something of myself into the art I surround myself with.
And with photo chemicals, some of that art has no doubt found it's way into you. ;)
Well, I hail from Mexico where every cat and dog is an artist and where it's easy and inexpensive to buy. I started with my first painting at 14. Here I don't know of any venue where one can buy directly from artists unless one knows them well, and I don't have a lot of money. Twice I've been lucky enough to find paintings I've liked at a thrift store.
My best acquisitions in the US are two Poetry in Motion posters from the subway which I got for free before they stated to sell them--one is Sappho's "Thank you;" the other an excerpt from the "Song of Songs."
As to living with art--my taste in decor is simple and I don't like trends. Thus living with art is easy as I just hang things where they look best. The problem in NYC is the limited wall space; I have to bunch things up.
To you artists out there--if I had talent, I think I'd hang my own work, but then again, perhaps it's a personal thing.
A couple years back we decided to upgrade to 'real' art after a phase of buying prints from furniture/accessory stores. A great resource we found was novica.com They are in association with National Geographic and sell all sorts of wares from around the world, including artwork. We bought a couple of oil paintings and a watercolor that we really loved. Like with any art, prices and quality can vary, so it can take some time to sift through it all to find things you like.
Thanks for the tip, Jeremy. I just checked novica.com out, and it looks very promising!
As to me, I usually buy art on my trips home. I'm from Ukraine, and you can still buy nice big oil paintings there from professional artists for ~$300. I usually get 1-2 each time I visit. The only problems is getting them on the plane with you, but the flight attendants are usually quite nice about it, and they let you put it in first class' huge coat closet:) One tip - get the certificate of ofigin before leaving the country, or otherwise you might have problems getting through customs. You can get it for ~$5 in any art gallery.
I live with art. I live with paintings that both I and my husband have done, paintings done by friends and street artists, photographs by friends, and a few prints. Money is the biggest obstacle to buying more orginal pieces of other artists. We have worked out bartering before for some awesome stuff, and another tip that I use alot is is to buy cards/post cards/prints of pieces by local artists that I like. A framed, hand printed card looks amazing, and is far cheaper than even the mass-produced stuff.
Having lived and travelled all over the country, we have framed photographs, drawings, and paintings in every closet as we haven't found a way to mesh lighthouses, snow, and cowboys.:
We are big rodeo fans and the art that is shown both at juried shows and just for show is amazing AND outside our budget. BUT, many of the artists are now making beautiful magnets in all sorts of sizes. I have begun framing them and they look beautiful in vignettes.
One artist took the time and told us the wonderful and some "inside" stories of the subjects and landscapes. I am saving for a couple of the prints and if my long lost grandfather leaves me some many, a few "originals" too!
Jeremy -- thanks for the novica.com tip. Very nice!
Olya -- My husband is from Ukraine and will visit soon, but I won't be with him. Do you know of any Web sites?
My art consists of a couple of wall calendars. My main problem, besides lack of large art funds, is that I feel very noncomittal to any particular images and I think I would get very tired of anything that I might put on the walls. I also am fortunate to have a fabulous view that's really the focus of my living room
(and bedroom when blinds are open). I like abstract a lot, but not anything I can afford. Posters don't work, too dorm-y.
My husband & I began collecting art when we were in grad school & over the years have managed to put together a very decent collection consisting of oil paintings, water colors, photography, lithographs, drawings, etc. All the pieces have a story. Some were inherited, others were gifts, a couple were found in pawn shops, others bought in small galleries. Also, every year we buy artwork as an anniversary present to each other. Lately, we've been collecting lithographs by Austrian artists (Fuchs, Hausner, Rainer). Also, check out the great site http://www.eyestorm.com. I especially like their photography section. Look at Dennis Hopper's photographs, esp. those of James Rosenquist & Ike & Tina Turner--very nice!
Terry - I don't know of any websites, but if you have any questions, feel free to email me. I hope your husband enjoys his trip!
That photo of the gas station is way cool.
I have bought three works of traditional Chinese art at auction here in Shenzhen, China (one of which I regret). But I want to buy contemporary Chinese art now. Unfortunately, the good stuff is not as cheap as you would think for China and I have seen a few too "edgy" riffs on Chinese propaganda art. I have a few qualms about buying the actually propaganda posters from the days past (propaganda still lives on here in the media). So what I think I will do is just take some cityscape photos for the time being until something comes along and hits me over the head. Or maybe decorate a wall with a blown-up graphic image of some sort.
They actually have painting factories here in Shenzhen where distributors come over at the art fair and contract the to make 100 paintings in style xxxx and so forth.
cool photos photos of Hong Kong's density:
http://photomichaelwolf.com/hongkongarchitecture/
My partner is a painter (www.ericaharris.org, or click my name), so we live with a lot of art, both hers and things we've traded for. We keep the living room white and bare-walled (except for one piece we did together) for restfullness.
My new favorite artist, except for Erica, is Mac Premo (www.macpremo.com) but you're not allowed to buy the pieces I'm saving up for...
Great thread--I'd love to see Curtis' paint by numbers murals, and Terry reminded me that I have a Poetry in Motion poster laying around somewhere...
I stated on a previous thread that I have a wider definition of what qualifies as wall art, especially if its purpose is specifically decorative. I buy into the school of thought that if it makes you happy, go for it. That being said, I think that if you're able to afford it and it's enough of a priority for you, you should definitely try to live with original art.
For me, purchasing art is a deeply personal decision. More often than not, I won't buy a piece until I've met an artist and spent some time talking with them. I see a good amount of art in non-traditional art spaces like cafes, restaurants, home decor retailers, art fairs and open studios. I tend to only patronize galleries at openings when I know the artist will be present. That connection with the artist is important to me. I like the interplay of discussing their intent and my interpretation of it. It's such a wonderful discovery process for both us. The artists I've met have sincerely appreciated my feedback as much as I've appreciated the "story" behind their work. I've often gone back to artists for another piece or two. (Conversely, I've passed on so many striking works because of that lack of connection.)
Passion is a big factor for me when deciding on a piece. I have to really love it, and don't pay as much attention to whether the colors or imagery "go" with my decor. If I love it enough, I'll make it work in my space. A handful of pieces are very powerful and "difficult to live with" visually. But in those cases, it wasn't about buying something pretty--it was about the strong emotions it invoked. (Unfortunately, I never seem to have enough wall space and don't like an cluttered look. So, my art tends to go in and out of rotation. Luckily I have enough closet space to store pieces not in use.)
Art seems to be undervalued by society these days. Like Jen stated above, many people would rather purchase big-ticket designer or durable goods than purchase original art. Maybe people are intimidated by "Art" (with a capital "A") and the process of purchasing it. Maybe they don't trust their own instincts and feel inadequate to make the "right" purchase. Here's my take on that. Does the piece really move you or make you think? Do you go back to the image when you're around it and again in your mind once you've left it? If it resonates for you, then it's probably the right piece for you. A good gallery owner or dealer will help you through this process if you don't trust your own instincts.
I tend to purchase work because of this type of emotional connection and am not concerned with its investment value. In my mind, you can't put a price on something that invokes emotion or passion. So, dollar value is largely irrelevant to me.
Because of my (self-imposed) criteria of connecting with the artist--even if just for an hour or two in their studio--most of my pieces are done by largely unknown artists. And this leads me to why I think it's important to purchase art.
I'm in awe of people who choose to make a full-time living as artists or supplement their passion for creating art by working McJobs to make ends meet. Unless they become art-world stars or are lucky enough to license or market their images to wider audience, the artists I've met seem to lead very simple lives. Yes, part of it is my romantic projection of "the artist's life". But, really, the artists I've met don't roll around in Gucci or drive the latest German import sedan. They're just regular folks with a different set of priorities--most centering around art. When I purchase a work from them, it's a good feeling to know that in addition to getting a something I love, I'm helping them buy some more time in pursuit of their dream.