NJM is closing

[Pete VanderLaan]

I just got a call from Lois at NJM ( Not Just Mud) in Portsmouth NH . She and Lee have sold the building and will shut the gallery at the end of July. It's been 25 years and was a great resource.They're moving to Florida.

That was the only gallery I was still willing to supply with work.

[Mark Rosenbaum]

WOW, that is an end of an era..... although they never bought my work, I knew that they were a big player on the scene....

[Pete VanderLaan]

If you look at the last few years, It's really a sea change Mark, for both the sellers and the buyers. I think the question for those of us that were "sellers", or likely still are, is "How do you accept the change gracefully? Can you recognize the change? "

I'm on the inland waterways now, no longer an ocean going vessel. What's in my head about "How" is more important than what I can make. I can sit on the porch now and mumble the words to old songs from "the Band".

Enjoy the end game if you can. It's really all that's left to your dignity. If you can still contribute, however, do it.

[Franklin Sankar]

Is the same thing happening to paintings? I know it's a different market but don't know how.
Franklin

[Pete VanderLaan]

I don't know about that. I do know the internet graphic arts secondary market is amazing right now. I just saw an R Crumb "Fritz the Cat "original artwork go for 700K. Amazing fantasy 15 ( first spiderman 63) just sold for 53,000 in a 6.0 grading. A 4,0 went for 35K. That was yesterday. Two months back, a 9.4 went for 454K

[Eben Horton]

Pete the glass market is fine. There are still galleries selling glass. You have not done any wholesale shows in how long? Since 2010? You left the scene in the crater of the Great Recession. With Wendy bumbling things up with her show and ACC allowing steel garden art to be sold, one would think that the glass market is dead, but there still are collectors, galleries and commissions to be had.

It's not like the glory days but your post sounds like the end is near or something. It's not.

[Greg Vriethoff]

Originally Posted by Franklin Sankar

Is the same thing happening to paintings?

A painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat was just sold by Sotheby's for $110.5 million USD. He's only the second or third American to ever break the 100M mark.

But that's not really a good comparison. I don't pay that close attention to painting (much less the actual market). IMHO painting is at a low point in history. A lot of what I run across is total garbage.

As far as having an income as a working artist, the MFA types are sticking to abstraction:

http://www.vulture.com/2014/06/why-n...-the-same.html

I think you could safely argue for a pumpkin analog here.

I love the term "Crapstraction."

[Pete VanderLaan]

Originally Posted by Eben Horton

Pete the glass market is fine. There are still galleries selling glass. You have not done any wholesale shows in how long? Since 2010? You left the scene in the crater of the Great Recession. With Wendy bumbling things up with her show and ACC allowing steel garden art to be sold, one would think that the glass market is dead, but there still are collectors, galleries and commissions to be had.

It's not like the glory days but your post sounds like the end is near or something. It's not.

*********
Well, I see your point up to a point. I stopped doing shows because the methodology was no longer working. It used to be that they were six figure once a year outings. Find me that anywhere. Now, what I see is a craft show Bedouin method going from camp to camp selling mostly $75-100 dollar items.
It's not dead but it's not the same either. At one point I used to sell at least one 1600 dollar retail piece a day. I can't imagine that now. ( I also can't make them anymore either). The Santa Fe Gallery was capable of occasional 35K days. That's long gone.

[Eben Horton]

Originally Posted by Pete VanderLaan

*********
Well, I see your point up to a point. I stopped doing shows because the methodology was no longer working. It used to be that they were six figure once a year outings. Find me that anywhere. Now, what I see is a craft show Bedouin method going from camp to camp selling mostly $75-100 dollar items.
It's not dead but it's not the same either. At one point I used to sell at least one 1600 dollar retail piece a day. I can't imagine that now. ( I also can't make them anymore either). The Santa Fe Gallery was capable of occasional 35K days. That's long gone.

Yes. Thames days are gone. But I truly believe you were in a magical golden money vortex on canyon road. Those numbers would never have happened in 90% of the glass studio/retail galleries anywhere.

[Rich Samuel]

Good article, Greg. We used to sum up all that with the term corporate, or lobby, art; something that doesn't hint at an opinion about anything. I once worked a temp job at an insurance company that was moving to a new building. They let me "vote" in their cafeteria balloting for one of three finalists for their lobby painting. I liked the one that had two characters (an "M" and a "9"). I later learned that even though it won the employee ballot, the CEO nixed it because any "real" symbols might have a negative connotation to a client or potential client.

I think I read somewhere that the guy who bought the Basquiat makes a hobby of paying well above the market for art. It seems to be his "thing." I wish he liked glass.

[Pete VanderLaan]

Originally Posted by Eben Horton

Yes. Thames days are gone. But I truly believe you were in a magical golden money vortex on canyon road. Those numbers would never have happened in 90% of the glass studio/retail galleries anywhere.

*********
Santa Fe was at the time and still might be, the third largest art market in the United States coming in behind San Francisco and New York. That was pretty remarkable for a city of 55 thousand in the middle of the desert.

I would note that the market was and remains one for Southwestern Art. Lots of Remington Bronzes, Georgia O'keefe's and Pueblo Ceramics and weaving. Indian Market continued to draw collectors from all over the world. It was pretty funny to watch the booth set ups compared to doing ACE. . It usually consisted of a folding table and two plastic chairs. The work went on the table- no tablecloth. The collectors had camped there, in line for up to two days. The artist would usually have six to eight pieces. Usually they were sold out by 9:00 AM the first day, or earlier. The Take? Usually in the neighborhood of 100-150K per well known person.

I would note however that Glass was simply a niche market. Wes Hunting sold his work down at Purple Sage I think, Preston Singletary was at Arlene Lewellen's as was Rich Royal. Priscilla Hope, who had done amazingly well in Asheville with Hope Gallery came and opened in a place that ran 10K per month and she crashed and burned badly with really high end work. Gerry Peters did have a Chihuly show but I don't recall him really doing much with it. We had our gallery at the very entrance to Canyon Road and it had a rent of $5,800 per month. The season remained Late May to Oct with June being awful. Winter was dead. It could be dicey. We did well for the people we represented and there were about 120 of them. I think at this point there are at least ten hotshops still there and over 400 fusers between Albuquerque and Taos. It's a major glass community and Bullseye wound up opening a resource center in the railyards.

Charlie Knight up in Aspen was the one who amazed me.I never saw glass move that fast. Frequently three Jon Kuhn's a week. I remember him having a John Lewis table with two Kuhn's on top of that with a piece of mine on the Kuhn. He had a hell of a strange sense of display but it just flew out the door. That was in 1987. At one point I drove up and took him 35K's worth of work and got back in Santa Fe the next monday with a message that it was all gone and they needed more. Sandy Sardello wound up buying that from Charlie and was doing PISMO in Aspen, Vail , and Cherry Creek. That's yet another high end gallery that has closed it's doors.

[Franklin Sankar]

It's scary to express ones view without it being interpreted as alignment to politics but when I find out what is art I will appreciate abstracts some more.
When real art returns Pete will flourish once again.
The devil made me say it.
Franklin

[Pete VanderLaan]

I think I'll be six feet under.

[Eben Horton]

Wow. That is amazing.

I missed the boat.

[Tony Serviente]

At my peak we were shipping to over 400 galleries/boutiques in the 90's and every day we had stacks of boxes taller than me for our beleaguered UPS driver. The market did not turn on a dime, more like a half dollar, but turn it did. 911 and the 2008 recession just mashed down on the accelerator. I did a mailing around 2010 and 80% of the 450 came back undeliverable. The other 20 were either owners who will die at the register, legacy, or personal shoppers who slipped by my filters. I know I could still sell glass at the shows, but it felt like there was no solidity to it, more like a scratch off lottery ticket. It was a fun run but I am just as glad to have been forced into a decision to pack it in. I am having much more fun now.

[Pete VanderLaan]

well, our primary collectors and store owners were really all children of the '60's and they began to try to get rid of the things they owned rather than acquire more of them. That led to poorer profits in the gallery biz with rising rents. In Santa Fe, the only ones that really survived owned their buildings.

[Tony Serviente]

That's exactly right. I think Don and Lisa Drumm typified my buyer demographic.

[Pete VanderLaan]

Indeed, the last time I saw wendy at her dying show , she was on one of those little medical golf carts for the infirm. The only thing missing was nasal cannula with a little green oxygen bottle.