Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Context Day One

Today was the VIP opening at Context Art Miami in Wynwood... we got there a little early, in order to get some time to walk the fair before the opening.

After parking I got me a cortadito on the walk from the parking lot to the fair. I am convinced that Cuban coffee is the real reason that crack never took hold in Miami. The cortadito was $1.87 in Wynwood... In most places in Hialeah you can get one for a quarter.


Booth 326 looked really good - there was Dulce Pinzon, Audrey Wilson, Jodi Walsh, Georgia Nassikas, Tim Vermeulen, Elissa Farrow-Savos and Alma Selimovic - and my art - rocking the booth!


Meanwhile, over in Miami Beach's SCOPE Art Fair, Tim Tate was manning our booth at that fair showcasing his new work... but more on that later.

Opening night was the usual stroll of impossibly slim women in impossibly high heels, and handsome young dudes in tight pants and sockless long shoes. There was also a lot of very good tasting food and plenty of Prosecco flowing.

My family started arriving in waves, and I spent much of the night speaking to them... collectors also came by, most notably Texas ubercollector Ardis Bartle.

Audrey Wilson, Ardis Bartle and Jodi Walsh

With most of my family members in one place together, I brought out a folder with around 100 lithographs and etchings that I had done 1977-1981 while a student at the University of Washington School of Art... I wanted to give them a choice of some of them as gifts.

Soon my familial peeps were spreading out the prints on the table and selecting them as a group. A few minutes later I noticed that several other people were also gathering around the table and selecting work. When I say "other people" I mean strangers.

Before my mind got this fact clear, I realized that people were helping themselves to the artwork - just anyone... not just my family.

By the time that I reached the folder, about 20 prints remained - I say maybe a third of those were in my family's new art collection; the rest now belong to perfect strangers who never bothered to ask a question, but just angled in, got some prints and left.

I guess that my artistic collectors' base just got expanded! cough... cough...

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