Lisa Call

What is Art?

Many years ago my perception of art was Art. Big expensive stuff. Things that only rich people could buy. It was a very restrictive view point on what art can be and is. As a result I never considered myself the type of person that would ever buy Art. Instead I bought posters/prints of artwork I liked and paid ridiculous sums to frame the prints and then ta-da - I had Art, or at least a copy of it.

Some where along the way my opinion changed. Art is way more than the stuff we see in museums. The idea that I, myself, could buy art - original amazing art - was a revelation to me. I feel silly that it took me so long to get this (especially since I’m an artist) but doesn’t matter. I got it.

Now I buy art. I am an art collector. My collection is small and so far I’ve only purchased fairly inexpensive pieces but I love each one dearly and they make me smile.

Budgeting to Buy Art

A few years ago to aid in my art buying I carved out a small but important chunk of my monthly budget for art. Every month my bank automatically moves $50 from my checking account into a special savings account that I’ve titled Art.** If I see some art I want to buy I know I have money for it and I just buy it. It’s not a challenge to fit it into my budget as it’s already in my budget.

I’m saving up now for a larger piece so I haven’t bought much in a while but it’s so cool to think that in just 2 years I’ll have enough money to buy a piece of $1200 art. Effortlessly. The money will just be there. I never think about that money except in terms of buying art. It’s labeled art, it’s for art and I would never use it to buy shoes (okay I never buy shoes anyway - but you get the idea).

As my income goes up my art budget also goes up. Next thing ya know I’ll have one of those really cool houses full of amazing art that I just love. I used to be jealous of people that had this but no more - because I am building the same thing myself.

 
Do you buy art? Are you an artist? How do you budget for your art purchases?

 
 
** This is how I budget most of the big ticket items in my life. I use a credit union and have a bunch of share/savings accounts designated for special things, such as christmas and vacations. I love this hands off way of paying for things that might seem like a shock to the budget but in reality we know they are coming.

 
The last few of years I subscribed to several art/craft related magazines:

Raw Vision
American Craft
Surface Design Journal
FiberArts
Art Calendar
ARTnews
Art in America
Art Forum

The result is I have piles of unread magazines about the house. I felt that I should care about the art world and so I subscribed to the last 3. What I discovered was that the articles were interesting enough if I took time to read them but in general I don’t care about this stuff. Fascinating as it may be, and relevant to my career as an artist, I can’t drum up true interest.

Those 3 expire in February and I’m going to be happy when they don’t arrive anymore. Especially Art Forum, that thing is big and thick and heavy and interests me not one bit. Mostly it sits around the house still wrapped in it’s plastic protective wrapper making me feel guilty. I’ve gathered up the full 2 years worth (the last one arrived today) and I will be taking them to the recycle bin sometime in the next few weeks. No more "I should read and be fascinated by these" guilt!

Art News and Art in America have been more useful and provided me with some great images that I’ve used to create an idea book. The image above is a page from the book. I’m using a spiral bound sketchbook and gluing images from the magazines into the book. It’s a fun project when I’m traveling or not wanting to work in my studio but still wanting to look at art. I only cut out images of artwork that I like.

I’ve been subscribed to Art Calendar for years and realized I quit reading it a while back. I get all the marketing info I want from Alyson over at artbizblog.com. I also dropped this magazine.

Today I renewed Raw Vision, Surface Design, Fiberarts and American Craft. I don’t read many articles in these magazines but I love flipping through and looking at the images. I think I’m going to start cutting these up and gluing them into my ideabook also. Otherwise they just sit around and take up space, and I have no plans to ever go back and reread them so no reason to keep them.

 
What magazines do you subscribe to? Do you read them? What do you do with them when you are finished?

 
Some more ideabook pages:

 
I have an amazon affiliates account, which means if you click on a link from my account to amazon and then you buy something I get a small percent of the sale. Last year I made a grand total of $0 on this because I’m usually too lazy to generate the links correctly for this to work but if amazon wants to give away free money I’m all for signing up for that plan. Just thought I’d let you all know I’m doing this.

Last night I attended a preview event at the brand new building for the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) here in Denver. The museum doesn’t open to the public until saturday but they are having a few members only preview events this week to help with the fund raising for the building. A nice building for the contemporary art museum in Denver is something I am very happy to support.

I thought the building was wonderful. It definitely complimented the art on display and it was great to not be disoriented by weird angles like in the new Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum. The environmentally friendly design is both wonderful and responsible.

A few factoids on the building from the MCA Denver website:

- A DESIGN THAT SUPPORTS RATHER THAN DEFINES THE MUSEUM’S MISSION. The design clearly articulates the Museum’s exhibition and program requirements.

- A FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE PROJECT. The construction cost for the new building is $11.3 million making the project $418 per square foot.

- AN ENVIRONMENTALLY-EFFICIENT BUILDING. MCA is actively pursuing LEED certification, which would make MCA the first contemporary art museum in the country to achieve such status.

Several of the artists that had work in the inagural exhibit, Star Power: Museum as Body Electric, or that have site specific installations in the museum (a roof top garden and art in the walk way leading up to the entrance) gave a short talk about their work.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Rangi Kipa’s description of his art and thoughts about how his work fits into his culture, country and the art world. After spending 5 months in New Zealand I’m always very interested in anything New Zealand and the Maori culture. Brought back good memories, now I want to go back.

The only disappointment of the evening was learning that not all of the artists were there. They split them between last night and an similar event tonight so I didn’t get to hear some artists I had hoped to. I also also hoping to hear the architect speak but I either missed that or it was tonight.

One thing that struck me was that all of the artists were very good at talking about their art. With this blog I’ve gotten better at writing about my art but speaking about it in person, I’m terrible at it. Definitely something I need to work on.

I really like the way the museum is handling the grand opening. The first visitors invited to the museum were school kids on monday and tuesday, before the member’s only cocktail parties. In their words "reversing the idea of the VIP"

The museum isn’t quite finished, as it doesn’t open to the public until saturday so not all of the art has been installed and they didn’t have up signs with artist information and there were no maps but even with these small details to finish up the museum is looking wonderful. And the hors dourves were yummy.

In my post, Is There a Market for Art Quilts, a few weeks back Alyson Stanfield said something that I knew and told myself over and over but I needed to hear it from someone outside of that world so I could finally let go:

Lisa, you’re doing a terrific job of trying to get quilt artists to act more professional, but you can’t take on the world alone.

This is so true. Trying to raise the issues to bring awareness is a time consuming and personally draining process. I get a lot of support from people that don’t want to publicly admit they wish SAQA would change and I appreciate the support but I’m tried.

So I’m passing the baton - take it if you’d like. Or don’t. Just don’t expect me to run that race anymore.

Which is part of what I was talking about a few days ago with taking my blog in a new direction. I simply no longer have the energy to worry about the rest of the world.

So goodbye to the complaining. Time to refocus on more positive efforts that will directly support me and my personal career.

Thank you Alyson!

Structures #79    ©2007    15.5" x 15.5"

 
The above piece will be part of The Blogger Show at the Angi Gallery in New York City, November 3-30.

I’ll have additional work at The Blogger Show at Digging Pitt Gallery in Pittsburgh in November/December.

A show full of art from bloggers of course needs a blog, which you can find here: thebloggershow.diggingpitt.com. You can check out all the participants blogs on the artists page and also check out the interesting article by Bill Gusky explaining the concept behind the blogger art show.

I am the only textile artist in the group and I’m thrilled to be included and to have a piece in a gallery in NYC for a month. A big thank you to John Morris of Digging Pitt Gallery for organizing this show.

In the comments of my last posting I raised an issue that has been occupying my mind quite a bit recently.

In regards to the SAQA auction and the low price much (40% in the first round) of the auction work is selling for ($50 for a 12″ square piece) and the fact that just about the only people buying the art are other quilt artists - I wrote the following:

What all of this makes me really wonder is - is there really even a market for art quilts? The only folks that seem to buy them are other art quilters and only then at prices that are not sustainable.

Are we all fooling ourselves? Could be saqa is just pointing out the obvious - that there is not an art market for quilts.

Maybe we should just pick up a paint brush instead.

A few weeks back Karen Jacobs took a mid year inventory of your art career. To date she had sold 27 paintings.

Are there any quilters out there selling this quantity of work?

The theme I hear over and over in the art quilt world is that you can not make a decent income selling art alone and that teaching is the best way to generate the cash needed to keep afloat. Many teachers report that most of their sales are to students (themselves art quilters).

If one doesn’t teach is there a market for art quilts?

I have no doubt there are a large number of painters that are unable to make a living from their art even though they are trying. Are the chances of success higher for a painter? There are painters making a living solely from their art work.

Are there quilt makers making a living solely from their art work?

Do you know of any?

 
These are some thoughts that have been running through my mind recently. My recent plans to attempt to generate income from the artwork has made me question if it is something I want to do or might even succeed in doing. As with any business a market analysis is a good idea. If you have information you are willing to share on this issue it would be most appreciated.

While I doubt I will stop making contemporary art quilts, given my love of the process, I do need to figure out what my big goals are for my art career. I used to think I knew but lately it seems the more I make decisions the less I’m sure of them.

As I mentioned before Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) is holding an auction for a large number of small 12″ square quilts. You can watch the progress by reading the news on the SAQA home page.

This morning I sent the following letter to the board of directors.

[I have been warned by a friend that I should not pursue this matter for fear I will be blackballed by the very influential and powerful members of the board. Apparently I don’t believe the board members are so petty as to behave this way. I suppose I could be wrong - but so be it - I refuse to sit there quietly and say nothing.]

Dear SAQA,

I am extremely concerned by the current reverse auction that saqa is holding.

Several years ago I sent you links to some documents from the society of north american goldsmith’s concerning art auctions, www.snagmetalsmith.org/Publications/Professional_Guidelines/. I’m curious if the saqa board has read them.

I’d recommend the board reading each document in entirety but failing that here are some summarizing points:

III. FINANCIAL IMPACT OF FUNDRAISING AUCTIONS ON GALLERIES

Despite any altruistic intentions, fundraising auctions are dedicated to the selling of artwork and craft, - and in doing so, compete directly with galleries. Galleries operate year-round and must recoup the expenses of renting or buying exhibition space, advertising, inventory, staff, etc. - before they see any profit. Auctions do not operate year-round but benefit from the on-going public awareness generated by galleries. Auctions that sell art or craft at prices far below retail compromise the economic viability of galleries.

A. Revenue deferred or lost. The same people who visit and buy art and craft at galleries are also invited to auctions. Patrons may defer a gallery purchase in anticipation of finding a particular artist’s work at an auction. Or in another scenario, if collectors have purchased a piece by an artist at an auction they may not be interested in buying another piece through the gallery. Given both these examples, frequent auctions impinge or may even exhaust the resources patrons budget for the viewing and purchase of art and craft.

B. Artwork Devalued. Auctions rarely sell artwork for full retail prices. All selling prices of artwork impact the market for art and become part of the provenance of artwork. Abnormally low prices generated by auctions may become the de facto market prices. Retail sales at galleries may be directly impacted - and ultimately the value of artwork in collections and artists’ livelihoods may be affected.

 
FINANCIAL IMPACT OF AUCTIONS ON COLLECTORS

A. Sustainability. If a piece of artwork is just what you wanted and sells well below the retail price, then collectors may have gotten a bargain. But this is a relatively short-term advantage, since this practice, ultimately, is not sustainable. Artists and galleries suffer the cumulative financial impact of frequent auctions, possibly putting them both out of business. This negative financial impact is compounded if the auction is held within the same geographical area as the gallery or the artist’s retail business.

The closing of a gallery impacts the art community–artists, patrons, appreciators and collectors–by removing a location for the discovery and advancement of artists, the screening and selection of art work, and guidance offered by galleries relating to purchase and acquisition.

B. Auction prices can affect collection values. The value of a collection depends on the established value of the artists’ work. This value relies in part on demand for an artist’s work which is a matter of perception. When higher or lower (above or below retail) prices are generated at auction, the established value within a collection may change. Since appraisals for insurance purposes are often based on the recent sales of similar works by the same artist, changes in established market prices may impact appraised value. When generous bidding at auction yields higher than retail sales prices, every one wins. Unfortunately, since artwork sold at fundraising auctions often sells below established retail prices, the collectable value of an artist’s work may suffer.

 
FINANCIAL IMPACT OF FUNDRAISING AUCTIONS ON ARTISTS

A. Artists receive little or no compensation for donated work. Often, there is considerable pressure on an artist to donate work outright - receiving no percentage of the winning bid. Only the most generous auction organizers offer a percentage of the selling price to the artists. Since the work offered at auction typically sells well below the retail price, even with a percentage, the artist only receives an amount far below the wholesale value.

B. Artwork sold at discounted prices in auctions may affect your retail values elsewhere. Every artist should maintain control over the selling prices of his or her work. (Please see the discussion about value in the Discounts document, section II. Some Remarks About Pricing). Since auctioned artwork often sells far below retail price, maintaining control of pricing is impossible. The ultimate result of this discounted selling price is that the value of an artist’s work and the ability of a gallery to command full retail prices for the entire body of an artist’s work is adversely affected.

 
IV. RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES COMMITTEE

A. Set a Reserve Price
The Professional Guidelines Committee recommends that the auction sponsor set a “reserve price” for work offered in an auction. The “reserve price” is the price below which the artwork will not be sold. This reserve would ideally be 80% of the retail price. The artists should be offered 40% of the retail price for their donations. The art organization will receive 40% of the retail price for fundraising and the collector has the possibility of receiving a 20% discount. Work sold above the retail price (as a
result of generous bidding) creates additional revenue for the auction sponsor.

 
I find the current auction being held by saqa to fundamentally flawed given the extremely low final bid ($50 /sq foot) and that the artists are not receiving a portion of the sales.

Does the saqa board disagree with the findings in the above reports? If the board disagrees I would like to understand why they disagree (does the board have proof that this information is incorrect?). If the board agrees I’d like to understand why the board is holding an auction that clearly goes against the recommendations in these guidelines.

While I am not a member a saqa, I am a member of the larger art quilt community and I feel the actions of saqa are negatively impacting all of our careers and I would like to understand why a professional organization that is supposed to be supporting their member artists is behaving in a way that is hurting all quilt artists in the long run.

 
Lisa Call

Structures #6    ©2001 26" x 20"

 
Last week Seth Godin wrote:

Most organizations need a good reason to do something new.

All they need is a flimsy excuse to not do something for the first time.

I know this is true for me as an individual also. It’s scary doing something new so I often come up with flimsy excuses not to do them.

The idea of trying to sell my artwork, to make a living at something I love, is new and scary for me. I have a lot of ideas about selling artwork that I formulated based on discussions with someone I respect very much. I didn’t spend much time talking to other artists about these issues and for the past 10+ years I’ve just worked to become the best artist I can and felt looking to the marketplace would in some way hurt my work. The freedom to create whatever I want without regards to any marketplace has big advantages.

It is also has some big disadvantages, namely the 9-5 job that takes up so much of my time and energy.

Over the last 2-3 years I began talking with many other artists, mostly through my blog but in person also, and reading biographies of famous artists. And my opinion about art and selling has slowly been shifting. It’s been a rather difficult journey and I think my post last week about selling art, titled "what am I doing", was my last attempt of throwing up a flimsy excuse to not go down this new path.

While I’m not sure exactly how this will workout for me I do think it’s time to stop worrying about what others think and embrace my own opinion and just get on with it. I’m not sure how I will approach this, I’ll be working that out over the next few months and years, but I do know I don’t want to spend the next 20 years in a cube if I can instead create another option in my studio. No more excuses.

As usual, thank you to everyone that took time to comment on my previous 2 posts on this topic.

 
In a related note, Edward Winkleman had a very interesting post this week about the the 50/50 split between artist and gallery. As I mentioned in my post about selling last week, I would have no problem giving a gallery their share if they are promoting and selling my work and I highly recommend reading Edward’s post here as to why they earn this. As usual for his posts, don’t skip the comments. Buried in there is a list of what he believes the gallery should be delivering for their 50% cut and a discussion about why the 50/50 cut might need to be reevaluated for established selling artists.

 
The piece shown above is a much older piece that I have never exhibited or shown on my website. It was just another piece in my development as an artist. I do think taking the last 10+ to concentrate on developing my voice and creating a large body of work was extremely beneficial. I am very confident about my artwork as a result and now it’s time to take it to a new place.

A few weeks back I first wrote about the Gee’s Bend quiltmaker that filed a lawsuit against those that were promoting her art.

Since that time at least 2 other Gee’s Bend quilters have filed suits and there have been several articles on blogs and in newspapers about the events.

Here are some snippets from some of these sources.

The first from a brand new Tinwood Alliance blog from the Arnetts, who are being sued:

The Arnetts and The Collective decided years ago to promote their quilts as a community – the Quilts of Gee’s Bend. Ms. Young now seeks to promote herself over the group; she is no longer a team player.

This is an excerpt from the Alabama Press-Register:

Echoing statements made by the Arnett’s lawyers, [Louisiana] Bendolph said many quilters didn’t want anything written down about the money they were earning because they were afraid it would jeopardize their Medicaid eligibility.

Bendolph acknowledged that she has made several times more money than Annie Mae Young says she earned in the years since the Arnetts showed up on her doorstep, asking to buy quilts.

That discrepancy in earnings is at the heart of the lawsuit filed by Young, whose works are among the most reproduced of all the quilters.

Bendolph said the reason she has made so much more money than Annie Mae is because she has control of her copyrights. She said all of her income was related to a series of about 200 limited edition prints produced from quilts designed by her and her mother-in-law.

“I have the copyrights for the quilts on these prints because I didn’t sell them to the Arnetts,” Bendolph said, noting she keeps 90 percent of her earnings and gives 10 percent to the collective, instead of the usual 50/50 split.

I’m confused. How can the Arnetts claim that Ms. Young isn’t being a team player when all players aren’t being treated the same?

Was that comment supposed to make me think: How dare some little old lady stand up and ask for what she believes is rightfully hers? She should shut up and sit down and just accept what she’s given and stop making waves.

I don’t think so. Hurray for her. I don’t know all the facts and I’ve never spoken to her but I give her huge marks for asking questions. From her side things don’t look right and instead of sitting there quietly and accepting it she’s doing something about it. For that I’m behind her 100%.

We don’t need to accept everything the powers that be tell us. If it feels wrong - question it. If you don’t get answers that make sense, go to the courts. That’s what they are for, to help sort out these types of issues.

Don’t try to tell me this woman isn’t being a team player. I’m not buying it. The Arnetts look out for themselves and even have a new blog to tell their side. And so should Ms. Young and the other artists that have filed suit.

 
One of the quiltmakers from Gee’s Bend has filed a lawsuit against several of the corporations that are using images of their quilts and the three men that were promoting their work, William Arnett and his sons. She claims she didn’t know her images were being used for anything other than the book and that she has never received "one penny from these enterprises".

You can read a short article here.

I always wondered if these women were being exploited and wondered what they felt about their work being reproduced on coffee mugs and rugs. I was sure hoping they were seeing a large portion of the proceeds. It will be interesting to watch this develop.

The Architecture of the Quilt, the second of the Gee’s Bend quilt shows will be at the Denver Art Museum in April 2008. I saw the original exhibit in Washington DC and I’m looking forward to seeing the second show. I have mixed feelings about the work. I’m not sure all of it is at the same artistic level and the show could use a heavy curatorial hand, but there are some beautiful pieces of abstract artwork made by these women.