I get disturbed to read and hear fellow artists agree to let their work be undervalued.

It’s the dirty little secret. Women take advantage of each other in the name of fundraising. (I do know there are a few men members)

I believe there is a market for art quilts, as long as they’re art. And many aren’t. they pass as what might be good for the average taste. (But that’s another discussion).

Is it wrong to think poorly of an organization whose funding depends on the unpaid labor of others?

SAQA has a real opportunity here to be leaders and change the way money is raised.

Dare I say raise the price of admission and be done with the fund raising?

Look at these stats from the auction:

12% of the sales of this auction were by non-members ($3400)
88% were purchased by members ($24,350)

If SAQA wants to promote artists, then they should behave more like an art dealer and less like a fellow-artist struggling to “get by”.

SAQA should act like a business and not a charity. Be the leader. Charge for services and then provide them. Go out and make the contacts. Stop expecting members to do the leg work and hire a pro to get this going.

Not the only answer, but a suggestion at best.

Alas, I went to SAQA meeting at QN.
Many still stuck in old mindset, self-appointed leaders of quilt art, with little or no innovative direction.

Cherry

I think many art quilters go through similar ponderings.

Shelia - Thanks for you comment. I can relate to your comments. I watched the movie Mean Girls with my daughter last weekend. The parallels to the art quilt world definitely stood out in my mind.

Elio - thanks for your comments. 13 galleries - wow - that’s great.

However, I keyed into one of your basic questions that gets back to the root of it all — is there really a market for art quilts? Or should we all just pick up a paintbrush? Actually I’ve been thinking that for the last several weeks. Somehow I’ve lost interest in the whole art quilt thing and have been painting for the last two weeks (okay, the last two weeks when I had spare time, hehe!) But if you look at the prices that paintings go for compared to art quilts, are we really in the right art business?

I have been a long time lurker. I am a painter and am currently represented in 13 galleries.

I applaud you for being so bold and standing up for galleries. I think organizations and even many artists (who sell work via ebay auctions) don’t realize how vital galleries to an artists success.

I love your work.

E

This also reminded me of my experience with the fundraising auction for MAQS during the AQS show. I was stunned at how little was bid on my piece that was well done and hand-quilted, requiring many hours of labor. I vowed never to waste my time like that again. It was obvious people were looking for deals - a lot like ebay. Any guilt they might have about getting something at such a steal is assuaged because - hey, they’re contributing to charity. Then one year I got the chance to attend the auction. Well known quilters’ pieces were heavily bid on and bid up. A few important names that I was familiar with but obviously were not well-known amongst the crowd barely got bid on at all. Again, I was stunned - these people obviously don’t have any idea who that is or they’d be clamouring for her piece, was my thought.

It would appear that SAQA is operating under the traditional quilting mode - preaching and selling to the choir - as well as treating these items as if they were destined for a bizaar sale. Which, now that I think of it, might account for the unevenness of the quality of the work. I agree this is no way to promote a professional art organization.

I need to not let theses groups’ unprofessional behavior bother me. I tried to be part of these conversations from the inside but it wasn’t going to go anywhere - so I quit. I doubt I will make a difference from the outside. The rumors I hear indicate that the organization has no interest in change.

I suppose part of the problem is that quilters spend a lot of time in groups instead of working on their solo art careers. Many of them probably have no desire to have an art career and belonging to a group is much more important. Kinda hard to convince those people that their actions might have a more global effect than their small world.

Why keep beating my head against the wall?

Too bad because SAQA could educate their members about how to approach art auctions, as the goldsmith society has done, and be part of the solution instead of continually being part of the problem.

Some of these issues of quality, auctions, price, cultivating buyers are universal for most of us artists.

I appreciate Lisa, that you have summarized what those guidelines said. I went over to read them before … and said … later. Glad to have read them through this post (the summaries).

We sure need to hone how we talk with each other about issues to reach resolution - Lisa, this is NOT NOT aimed at you!! I am much more thinking about local issues and these issues and how hard it is for most of us to sit down and work things out. Often it is just the sitting down and power sharing that is hard. And often people don’t recognize the work of those of us who work so hard. Again, Lisa, this is NOT about you!! Much more about building the creative economy in a way that works.

~ Diane Clancy
http://www.dianeclancy.com/blog

Tricia - I suspect that initial pitch (work in front of the serious collectors) is what resulted in saqa being inundated with work. Too bad they didn’t follow through with their promise. Now instead of the deep pockets buying the art it is back on the shoulders of the membership to foot the bill.

Even though folks volunteered to send in the work that doesn’t mean it is the right way to hold an art auction. I hear the saqa exec said she doesn’t believe in art auctions but for some reason, even though they realize that art auctions are not good for the art world, saqa stills holds auctions like this. Why not put some effort into doing it right - give some back to the artist, set a reasonable reserve price.

Fund raising is necessary but saqa has repeatedly held auctions with laughable reserves. In this case 10% of the income is coming from 40% of the work selling at ridiculously low prices. It would not be much of a loss of income to set the reserve prices higher and forgo that final small amount of income just to boast that all work sold. They make anything cheap enough someone is bound to buy it - especially with the pressure the board is putting on the members to buy this work to support the organization.

Personally I think there is some work (a large portion) that is absolutely horrible in that auction. If saqa is about art (and not just any old quilt) - why not jury the work and toss out the work that doesn’t make the cut. Or stop calling it art. Truth is most of it isn’t competing with gallery sales because most of it isn’t good enough to put in a gallery.