Using Facebook

I am now on facebook and having great fun with it. I have contacted many friends and future friends. Its a lot of fun, the best is looking at the work of other artists that I know and am beginning to know. I am also making contacts with many organizations and they keep me up to date with their events. Its great and everyone should do it.

An upcoming Corporate Exhibition

Curator visit to select work for a new exhibition It is interesting when a curator comes to visit your studio. In my case the studio is all over the place, my home in Teaneck, a friend's home in Harlem and in a storage unit located in Englewood. When the curator arrived I had all of my portfolios out and ready for her review. I made cinnamon coffee to make the home welcoming. The reason I have the portfolios is so she can get a feeling of what she wants before we actually look at the paintings. After looking at the portfolios we went down to the lower level to take a look at the actual work. She quickly got a feel for what she wants to express in the exhibition. Then slowly she pick out seven paintings from my Keyhole Series. Then we jump into my car and drive to my studio where she select another 5 smaller paintings. Later I make an appointment to take her to my friend's home to see another nineteen paintings. I have a huge inventory of paintings and am working on paper now because storage space is short in supply. This is a big discussion point with many of my artist friends, what happens to the work when we're gone. My answer is there will be no work when I'm gone. I hope I'm right!

Belskie Museum - The Selection

I brought my work from Hudson Opera House directly to the Belskie Museum. I didn’t want to store them in my house or studio and have to drag them out again. The Museum was closed for the summer and the curator of painting and sculpture, Anita Duquette was nice enough to open the museum to allow me to bring the paintings in a few weeks earlier. The idea was to let them select the works they wanted for the show from that group and then visit the studio to select others later. That visit was a few days before the hanging of the show. I am nervous because this is the first time a curator is coming to my studio. I’ve read about it but what should I do? Well I spruced the place up a bit so it looked presentable, hung my new paintings on the walls of the gallery space and in the studio. I turned unfinished paintings to the wall. I didn’t have time to use the art putty but the paintings were not crooked. I worried about the light but except for the far corner of the gallery which was dark the light was fine. Now I know where to put lighting if someone comes at night. I never thought about people coming at night. I thought days and weekends, now I know I need to be more flexible. The three curators came and once in the studio began the slow paced process of absorbing the paintings. They kind of stood around and looked and looked and looked. There were about thirty paintings in the studio 2 unfinished, 13 new and 15 from other series. Some I had stacked away but they were pulled out and examined, the unfinished were examined also. Then they just stood around, the silence was heavy in the room. I didn’t know what to think or do, so I just kept busy doing I don’t know what. I hear a few words here and there, a nod and a decision was in the making. They selected nine paintings, two from the new series and seven from a fun series I’m working on and one from an old series. They also wanted a painting from another series and one from my flower series, these were at home. I was a little concerned to say the least, for those of you who know me know I would never put all of these works from different series together. I wondered how this was going to look. I would have to wait because I was not involved in the hanging of the show. The curators excitment about their selections reinforced what I have always believed about my work. I have no idea what makes a person excited about a piece of my work, it sometimes surprise me what people fall in love with. Which means you can never paint to sell because how do you know what a person will want in their lives. Ten o’clock the morning of the hanging I show up promptly with all of the requested paintings. I also brought an updated inventory list of the paintings in the show. They gave me three paintings to take home which I deleted from their list. They had already laid out the painting in the way they thought they would hang them; I was skeptical but keep my mouth shut. It was my job to make the paintings and theirs to hang them; I believed that they knew better than I. I did ask that they place at least a foot between each painting. I think my paintings need breathing room, some space between their stories. The strength of their color requires that. What I learned from this is, remember all of the packages that you sent to the gallery or exhibition space over the years. They will make their selection for the show from all of them and it their choice not yours. Save all of your statements and bios digitally because they take a lot of information from your packages. If you are like me you have a different statement for each series that you do. Who remembers them all or what you sent?

Persistence!

Persistence pays if you keep after it. I say this because I sent my first package to the Belskie Museum back in late ‘02. My show there ran from September 7th - 28th 2008.

I sent them invitations to my shows; I went to their receptions and published all of my shows in the local papers. Gradually I got to know the members of the exhibition committee so that at some point and time they began to recognize me and my work. It took about five years maybe longer but my work hung in that museum for a month.

As I write this it comes to mind that all I have read or heard from artists who have had some success, say these same things. What took me so long to get it? Well I’ve gotten it. Overtime I have selected galleries and exhibition spaces where I would like to exhibit. I know now that I have to keep after them also, it’s a lot of work.