When Shirley Williams came to smARTist last year, she had reached a plateau after 18 years of being a self-supporting artist. After the telesummit, she went on to win Canada’s National Portfolio contest. This started a series of events that have shot her career forward like a shooting star.
Her keynote presentation for the conference will be on Tuesday, January 20th. In her own words, here is what she has to say:
I’m usurping Paul’s post today, so I can show you a letter sent to me by a fellow artist who wants to make sure you don’t fall into the Insurance company fat trap, as he did.
Bless his heart. He took the time to pen the following. It reveals a little known loophole that insurance companies have created to keep from paying you what is right fully yours.
Thank you, Wm. Kelly Bailey. If even one artist pays attention to your story, you have won something back from all that you lost.
All right, how many of you print a Certificate of Authenticity each time you sell a work? 
Well if you don’t, and if no one ever told you what one should contain, here’s a simple example.
Please note that I list title, medium, size and current value.
Also note that I indicate to whom the copyright actually belongs, and how infringement is a VERY bad idea.
Do I ever have to enforce this with an attorney?
Nah; it’s better to stay on cool terms with everyone. The big artillary should always be a last resort.
Note: to enlarge the image so you can read the text, click on it.
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Paul will be one of 11 Keynote speakers at the smARTist Telesummit in January 2009.
His topic: Corporate Collectors: The New Medicis Where to find them and how to get in the door. Just click on “Click to learn more” under his photo for all the details.
Dreams of Glory
Visual Art is EVERYWHERE (…forget galleries, museums, & exhibitions - for the moment.)
These three short, short stories chronicle one snowy afternoon where I encounter art at every turn.
First At the tire dealers, then on the radio, and now…
I’m whirling home, confident as one can be with studded snow tires, happy with NPR keeping me company on the radio. I’m planning a quick stop at the local pub up the road from my home.
The Roadhouse 63 is haven to a handful of fantastic musicians we have hiding out in these Western Mass back woods. The venue is small, intimate. The crowd and atmosphere playful, but not rowdy. Slightly high, but not awash in drunks. It’s really a place you can take…
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So often it’s easy for artists to feel “ripped off” by the cut that a gallery takes for showing and promoting their work. Acknowledging that there can be unethical galleries here and there, what’s missing from the “ripped off” perspective is knowing what it takes to pull off a successful gallery gig.
So I thought sharing this exchange between myself and another gallery owner might shed some light.
A New York gallery owner and artist wrote me for advice. He was having a very hard time staying open, and wanted to know if I could provide a little guidance. Not long after I sent him my suggestions…
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When the sculptor Arlie Regier first came to me in 1994, he was as unknown an artist as I was a gallery owner. But I instinctively realized that his works, some of them composed of 5000 pieces of stainless steel, would find a broad audience if I could just succeed at promoting him. Man, did that take years of hard work for both him and me. A new artist (he was 64 at the time) is always slow to be recognized. But if you believe in the work and the artist…
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This is the first of three “story” posts, all of which happened within a three hour span of time.
It is February 2008, right after a major snow storm that buried large parts of the Northeast, and I snail my way over to our local tire dealer, Tire Warehouse. (Hard to imagine any surprises with a name like that.)
I need studded snow tires so I can make it down to New York City without sliding into a semi on Interstate 91. The radio is on full blast and I’m humming.
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In some ways, this is old news, given that NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) put out their study in June. But with everyone watching Chicken Little running around staring at the sky, I thought it was a good, sharp jolt of good news, and a different take on what we collectively call “reality”…
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Warmth of Evening - Kim Casebeer
If you haven’t accomplished enough yet to compile an impressive resume as an artist, you can simply write a bio, which can often be a mild combination of the two.
Below I’ve listed a typical bio for a woman in my gallery-Kim Casebeer. Due to her relative youth, Kim’s accomplishments don’t yet rank with those of my older artists, but I know in time they will.
Her work has a sophistication that goes beyond…
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I recently finished negotiations on a large equine sculpture for a major developer. Erik, a sculptural genius, is working with me on this. To date, we’ve had three meetings, and have invested about 8 hours of our time-most of that coming from Erik in the form of renderings. And all of this we did without…
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When I first started my art business in the basement of my house, in 1991, I had no public space for my artists. Did this mean that the work wasn’t any good? Of course not. I was happy with much of it, and grateful that these artists had entrusted me with their careers.
The challenge was to get them…
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A client dropped by my gallery once and said she was in love with a huge Phil Epp painting, “Storm Over Sage,” which she’d seen in the lobby of a regional corporation.
Of course the original painting sold some time ago, so it’s not available. But the client wanted to know if the piece could be painted in a smaller size. I said…
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"Mark Twain" by Jim Brothers
I placed Jim Brothers‘ monument of Mark Twain in Hartford, CT after an earlier deal fell through with a scheming Missouri businessman who tried to “commission” the piece from Jim, meaning the guy wanted it for next-to-nothin’. The City of Hartford bought it in 1994-although for far less than what Jim gets now.
Why did I take the lesser price?
On March 30, 2007 my new gallery was only at 90% of completion with the Grand Opening that night. I expected at least 300 people. What a riot.
March 30, 2008 - Leopold Gallery at 90%
Did moving to this enormous space involve a risk? Oh yeah. Couldn’t I have just stayed in our smaller gallery? Not if I wanted to grow. What would happen if my plan didn’t succeed? I’d fail. Did I consider that an option? No.
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When a client falls in love with one of your works, but it’s already sold, what do you do?
Show them something else? Take their contact information and say you’ll be in touch? Let them go out the door disappointed?
Or do you do something practiced as far back as the Dutch Golden Age: offer to have the artist execute the piece in a larger size.
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