A New Venture

Banner for my new online shop, StudioCassandra

As I wrote a while back, I've been musing about what to do with some of my artwork. Back in the U.S., I was associated for just about thirty years with AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, NH, a non-profit exhibition and educational institution, first as an exhibiting artist and then, for many years, as a board member, board chairman, and member of the education committee. It was an important part of my life, and something I really believed in. Over the decades I saw AVA (that stands for Alliance for the Visual Arts) grow from a small local gallery to an arts institution known and respected throughout northern New England, with a vibrant year-round educational program for children and adults, ongoing exhibitions of very high quality, showing the work of the best contemporary regional artists and often taking risks; most recently, AVA bought and renovated their own building, full of exhibition and teaching spaces and artist studios, in the most environmentally sound way.

Early on, I was still doing a lot of art, but during the years when I was working hardest at our design and communication business, I didn't do much art myself but I always cared about it - and AVA was one way I could, and did, stay involved. After moving up here, though, I haven't been thrilled about the gallery scene; for all its strengths in music and film, I don't find Montreal very strong in the visual arts or crafts, though we do have a very good contemporary museum. There are the predictable galleries catering to tourists in the Old City, but a lot of the work shown elsewhere is very conceptual and intellectual -- the kind of thing where the artist's statement seems more important than the work on the walls. And there is also the problem of money: Montreal doesn't have the sort of individual wealth you still find in America, and while Canada and Quebec have always strongly supported the arts, the Harper government is busy cutting arts funding right and left.

As in publishing, artists have the freedom now to market their own work, and some do quite well on the internet. So I've decided to open a virtual "shop" -- I'll give it six months or a year -- hoping that this will also be an incentive for me to keep producing new work, especially prints which are affordable, and also that it might add to our income. I have no desire to go backward artistically; I want to keep growing and pushing myself forward, but I do have a number of paintings and drawings in my flat file drawers and on my shelves that I'd rather know that people are enjoying in their homes, so I'll be listing some of those as well, and may in the future produce some high-quality, archival giclée prints of certain pieces, such as oil paintings and large works like the Iceland drawings.

I think all of us artists and writers are uncomfortable promoting our own work, but unfortunately this is the present-day reality unless we are well-established, with agents and sellers who are representing us - and who, of course, share in the profits, as they deserve to do. Making a living as an artist (and here I mean all the literary, fine, and performing arts) is becoming harder and harder, precisely at a time when  -- I feel -- society needs art, and artists the most.

I don't want The Cassandra Pages to be commercial, so I've taken the "shop" offsite. I'll mention and show new artwork here, and continue to talk about the process, because you've been so interested, supportive and helpful with your comments and suggestions, but, as with Phoenicia Publishing, the transaction space will be over there for now. Of course I'm glad to hear any comments, suggestions, or stories of personal experience you've got relating to this venture, too!

Comments

[NT]

I think this is wonderful! Good for you for being brave and energetic!

[Pica]

Practically wetting myself, I snagged those blueberries! So, so happy...

[Marja-Leena]

How exciting, and it looks lovely! Wishing you much success! I've been exploring similar options for a long time but am still on the fence. Will watch your venture with interest.

[Hattie]

Good luck with this project. I admire your long-term commitment to art. The problem today is the proliferation of bad art at all levels of consumption. The best selling art these days in the U.S. (and it's considered to be high art worth paying a lot of money for!) is stuff like the pop pornography of artists like Lisa Yuskavage and John Currin. I seldom see any art that arouses anything but the faintist interest in me, because it's bland, flat, commercial in some way or other or otherwise kitschy and vulgar.

[Beth]

Thanks, NT -- you've been encouraging me to do it, and now I've plunged!

Pica: Thank you so much!! I couldn't be happier than to have the first sale go to you, and to know those New England blueberries will be on your wall.

Marja-Leena, thank you -- it's difficult to know what to do, isn't it? Having made my first sale, of course I feel pretty positive at the moment -- we'll see how it goes.

Yes, Hattie, I agree with you, and that's the sad state of things in a world where art is a commodity, artists seek fame and quick bucks, and people are very unsure of their own taste.

[Kristin Berkey-Abbott]

At the risk of sounding ______ (not sure how to fill in this blank--naive? like a philistine? bourgeouis? very low brow?), I'd love notecards in your shop. I lack much wall space for art (and until recently, the funds), but I've always loved being able to buy notecards--in my budget and also increasing the ability to share work that I love.

[Beth]

I don't think it's low-brow, Kristin -- good heavens, how many boxes of cards have I bought in museum shops? -- and it's something I'm considering. I'm glad you brought it up - NT also suggested that a while back. Thanks, and I'll let you know!

[Lorenzo da Ponte]

I envy you art's portability and presentability. The internet has allowed me two or three occasions when I've bought works of art I've been able to assess remotely without the terror of entering a gallery under the watchful and hungry eye of the artist and then been forced to turn on my heel when nothing appealed. Novels are much more cumbersome, identified (ironically) by the works of art on their cover. Extracts? How can one choose a 300-word passage as representative of a work that runs to 150,000 words? There are ways of harnessing the internet and I'm working on one at the moment. But it's laborious. As I say the virtual gallery is an elegant compact solution.

I would slightly dispute your fears about making Cassandra Pages "commercial". It's only a word, you know, and can be substituted. Think of the cash paid as a tribute to the work rather than a reductionist part of a transaction. Spoken and written praise are cheap and dubious, especially given the western world's tendency not to give offence. Cash can be seen as an unequivocal expression of pleasure.

[Beth]

Hah! Lorenzo, you've made me smile this morning with your keen observations about galleries, real and virtual, and your last sentence. I sold three pieces yesterday and it seems that both buyers and seller felt a good deal of pleasure!

[Dorothee]

That's wonderful news. The banner looks great. All the best for this new venture!

[Natalie]

Bravo Beth for taking that plunge and your Etsy page looks great. I wish you great success with this venture.
I too have been thinking about doing something like this for a long time but procrastinating as usual.
But your example motivates me and I'll get moving with this ASAP.
I think it's very sensible to use Etsy rather than adding a selling section on one's own website - keeps things separate and neater. And I agree with Lorenzo, 'commercial' is only a word!
Why shouldn't we give others the pleasure of owning some of our work, while simultaneously clearing space in our studios?

[Lucy]

Bravo and good luck; and I too am inclined to second Lorenzo (who, I might add, is the only person I've ever sold a painting to!), please don't hesitate to remind us the shop is there, with the best will in the world we may need a nudge from time to time or we'll forget that it's there. And put in a nice clear sidebar link, of course!

Your disappointment with the arts scene in Montreal is interesting, and rather reflects what I've found in France, compared not only with the UK but also what I saw in Australia and NZ and what I remember in the US too. Yes, Paris is the great city of the arts, but there's not much in the provinces.(Pont Aven, for all its trumpeting, is full of atrocious rubbish!) Partly demographics, perhaps, but I wonder if it's something about the Francophone world. I hate to react ignorantly and over-generalise about any culture, but I more and more I feel there's a dearth of personal creativity here, and wonder if a preoccupation with what you describe as the 'conceptual and intellectual', while good in some ways, isn't something to do with it.)