AAF Full Report

We attended our first Affordable Art Fair in New York City the last four days and although it was very hard work, it paid off handsomely. Herewith a full blow by blow:

Thursday

4:00 AM - Wake up, shower and shave and prepare to drive van full of artwork to New York.

5:15 AM - On the road, and driving the gallery van full of Lida Moser, Sandra Ramos, Andrzej Pluta, Marta Maria Perez Bravo, David FeBland, and Maxwell MacKenzie work.

9:00 AM - I'm at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, as by some weird warp of time I've actually made it this far in less than four hours.

10:00 AM - Takes one hour to cross the tunnel.

10:05 AM - Arrive at David FeBland's studio. I'm an hour early, so I call David to let him know that I'm outside his studio on Greenwich Street, but an hour early. David's at his doctor's appointment. "I'll be there in an hour," he says.

11:45 AM - FeBland arrives, and we load his work and drive to the AAF at the Metropolitan Pavillion on 18th Street.

12:15 PM - Arrive at AAF and found a primo parking spot right across the street from the entrance! Our space is about ten feet from Richmond's ADA Gallery and 25 feet from DC's Curator's Office.


12:30 PM - Begin unloading artwork; everyone else is pretty much already set up.

2:00 PM - I get a massive Pastrami sandwich and a Diet Coke for $7 at a nearby deli.

3:00 PM - Camera crew asks if we can please stop hammering while they film around us.

3:17 PM - I find a parking ticket on my van as my welcome to NY; noticed that all other unloading vans and trucks are also ticketed for parking in a loading zone.

4:00 PM - We're pretty much done with the hanging and display and the show opens to the press. Tons (I mean tons) of people with "Press" badges begin crawling all over the place taking notes; didn't run into any NYC art bloggers, although bloggers were accredited as press (as they should be).

6:00 PM - Doors open to preview for collectors, and the place packs right away; open (and free) bar(s) at this point and I suck on a brew and grab another one for the booth.

6:30 PM - Bryant Gumbel and lady friend come by and admire the work of New York painter David FeBland. He says that he'll come back.

7:00 PM - Christie's photography curator comes in, with Lida Moser in tow. We discuss all the amazing stories that Lida has about the New York art scene from the 50s through the 80s. Magically several art dealers and other curators appear in our booth to say hello to the Christie's curator. She and her partner give us an amazing idea for Lida Moser's next exhibition.

8:00 PM - We've sold several thousand dollars' worth of artwork, and by now Gumbel has returned four times to stare and ponder a $4,200 original oil by FeBland.

8:01 PM - Gumbel apparently decides that (either) the FeBland is too pricey for his budget or his taste, and then acquires a lesser-priced art of naive style piece from our neighbor gallery.

9:00 - One last minute sale of a Sandra Ramos digital print.

9:30 PM - Drive to the Marcel Hotel in a terrifying dance with NYC cabs as I try to make my way to 24th Street according to the "directions" of MapQuest.

10:15 PM - Forty-five minutes to drive 1.44 miles.

10:30 PM - As if the $200 for a tiny hotel room is not enough, I am informed that vans are an extra $10 a day parking for a total of $85 parking bill.

11:00 PM - I am exhausted and running on fumes but starving, so we go for a stroll along 3rd Avenue looking for a place to eat.

11:19 PM - 100 great eating places later we end up in a great Vietnamese joint with the unusual name of Lannam.

12:30 PM - After a walk through the packed streets of 3rd Avenue, I finally hit the sack in the postage sized room of the Marcel Hotel.

Friday

9:00 AM - Up and about and walk to the Met Pavillion.

10:00 - Breakfast of lox and coffee.

11:00 AM - At AAF to discover that the fair opens to the public at noon; wasted an extra hour of possible sleep!

2:00 PM - A couple begins a near marital spat as they argue over which three FeBland paintings they like best. It's their third visit during the day - they finally walk away in separate directions.

3:00 PM - The couple is back (apparently having decided and made up). She steps into the booth, he's a few feet behind her. She glances back at him. "So, which ones do you like?" she asks. He points to the same three paintings that they have been arguing for a couple of hours. "Should we get them?" she asks, looking back at him. "Just get them," he answers. She looks back at him anxiously, even I can tell that she's just wanting him to step next to her and be "there." He notices something in her look and asks, "Which ones do you like?" She looks at the display again and agrees with him. "I like those three as well." Now I'm thinking "sale made." She looks back at him, as I approach the wall to remove the first of the three paintings. "So, get those three?" she asks again. His cell phone rings and he answers it and begins to walk away. She rolls her eyes, yells something at him and follows him in a huff calling him names.

5:00 PM - A couple of good sales of two lifetime silver gelatin photos by Lida Moser are carrying the day so far. The crowds are fairly good and constant.

6:00 PM - Crowds thicken; the London gallery next to us is either doing gangbusters or rotating the work on their walls every hour.

7:00 PM - A man who had loved FeBland's work on the Thursday night preview and who wanted his wife to see it (to see if she liked him as well) returns with the wife in tow. She glances at the work and says "I don't like it." I look at her puzzled, as she has actually just glanced at it for a second. She notices and as if to offer an explanation tells me that "we always come to the art fairs, but we never buy anything because we can never agree on anything." The husband sighs, and I am sure prepares to dislike whatever she picks next.

8:00 PM - Fair ends.

10:00 - Another great spot to dine on 3rd Avenue - this time at Choice Restaurant. I order grilled shark from a nervous new waitress. She comes back and asks how I want it cooked. Never having been asked this before for seafood, I respond that I want it "flaky." She says that the computer is asking her if I want it rare, medium, etc. Even more puzzled I say "medium."

10:20 PM - I get a medium cooked steak (the other special). I inform the busboy that I had ordered shark. In Farsi he tries to communicate with me. The manager is there in a New York second and wants to know what the problem is. I tell him and he apologizes and tells me that she's a new waitress and that she made a mistake on entering the dish. I tell him that I'll take the steak and that she shouldn't get in trouble as she's new. He says "don't worry," and tells me that the shark will be there in 10 minutes, and that drinks are on the house.

10:35 PM - Two beers and ten minutes later a huge piece of really nice shark arrives. The food is excellent!

11:00 PM - Sated (and a little drunk) - I leave the waitress a really good tip.

11:45 PM - In bed, thrashed and full (bad idea).

Saturday

9:00 AM - Up and it - my feet are killing me; head OK.

10:30 AM - Have walked from hotel to AAF and sit down to watch a little Word Cup at the New York deli and have a bagel and lox again for breakfast; yummy.

11:00 AM - AAF opens to the public and good crowds begin to come in immediately.

2:00 PM - The director of a major Los Angeles gallery comes by and discusses representing the work of David FeBland in Los Angeles.

4:00 PM - A NYC photography collector who has acquired several photos from us through Sothebys.com drops by to pick up some work that he had adquired before and in the visit also buys a few Lida Moser vintage photos and also closes a sale that we've been working on for two years for a $7,000 Joyce Tenneson dyptich.


5:00 PM - Richmond's ADA Gallery seems to be doing gangbusters and selling quite well. The Brits next to us continue to sell or rotate work.

6:00 PM - Strong sales day, with more Lida Moser sales, as well as a major Sandra Ramos piece.

7:00 PM - We sell a FeBland painting to a collector near the very rare top of the 100 most influential people in the world in art. A couple of other art dealers magically appear as we're closing the sale to introduce themselves to the collector. They later inform me who this Ubercollector is, although the collector's spouse had done a pretty good job of filling me in already, as well as telling me that "the most important event that happened to your gallery in this fair is not the sales, but the fact that you have placed this painting in this collection and home; you'll see what happens now." OK, let's see.

8:00 PM - Fair closes for the day - good sales.

10:00 PM - Excellent pulpo at an Italian restaurant on 3rd Avenue.

12:00 PM - Out.

Sunday

6:00 AM - As much as I hate it, I get up super early in order to find a good parking spot at the Met Pavillion, as we will be loading the van at the end of today's last day. I drive to 18th Street and find a spot right in front of the door.

8:00 AM - It's already in the 90's in New York and the streets are nonetheless packed with people as I have breakfast and watch the World Cup on TV. The Central American deli guys tell me that the US got ripped off in their game versus Italy.

10:00 AM - I have a good, long chat with an Israeli art dealer who's having a slow fair. She tells me that her neighbor has only sold $1,000 in the first three days, and that last year the same gallery sold $40,000 at AAF.

11:00 AM - AAF opens for its final day - once again, good crowds come in.

2:00 PM - We've spent nearly two hours working with a young couple who wants to buy some Maxwell MacKenzie photographs - they're having a very difficult time deciding what to get.

4:00 PM - Nearly four hours later, the couple buys two MacKenzie's.

4:15 PM - A small child knocks a sculpture down in the ADA Gallery space. The parents (who had not been keeping an eye on their child) berate and yell at the child instead of immediately apologizing to the gallery and offering to pay for damages. Fortunately, the sculpture is minimally damaged and should easily be able to be fixed... still.

5:00 PM - A major New York City gallerist drops by and buys a large painting from ADA Gallery.

6:00 PM - Time to close, pack up and leave. And then a lady wearing a press badge comes in and wants to buy a Marta Maria Perez Bravo photograph. As I am closing the sale I notice that the photo has a tiny dimple. I unframe the photo to examine it and see if it can be repaired. It can't, but if reframed it can be hidden without the affecting the integrity of the image. I offer her (since it's the last one) a generous discount if she still wants to keep it, and she decides to keep the photo. By now it's almost 6:45PM, but we make one last minute sale.

7:00 PM - Begin loading van - it's super hot and muggy in NYC.

8:00 PM - All packed and ready to go, but I have to drop David FeBland off at his studio and pick up two large paintings for his upcoming solo with Fraser Gallery later this year.

9:00 PM - On the New Jersey Turnpike and heading home. The fair has been a terrific (but hard) success.

12:30 PM - Home.

I'm back!

Back from NYC - full Affordable Art Fair report coming in a few minutes!

What the flag?

Today the WaPo's Chief Art Critic reviews... ah... the flag.

And the blogsphere reacts; Bailey writes: "And so today the Washington Post’s chief art critic locks himself inside his 60s-era party pad, turns on his lava lamp, raises the volume on his scratchy Hendrix album, fires up his liberal hippie bong and connects the stars and bars for us to American art." Read the whole post here.

And Snarky Bastards writes: "Now Gopnik is not an ignorant man. In other parts of the piece, he mentions, by name, the Union Jack. But in this graph, he treats our red, white, and blue color scheme as something outlandish, created ex nihilo by madmen." Read the whole post here.

Ashe Tori simply says: "Don't wear the flag. It'll make you look fat." Read her post here.

Update: Others chime in:

More links here.

MOCA

Over at ArtDC, MOCA's David Quammen defends MOCA DC, which has apparently been accused by someone of being a vanity space.

Read it here.

Art Teacher to be Fired Over Nude Photos

Of herself.

Austin ISD wants to fire an Austin High School teacher over nude photos posted on the Internet.

The AISD school board Monday unanimously decided to begin the termination process for Tamara Hoover, who teaches art. The board said Hoover violated the terms of her employment contract.

Hoover has been on paid administrative leave since May 19 after school officials found out about the images.

She defended her actions in a blog by saying that the pictures are not pornography but "artistic photography."

Full article here.

AAF

Lack of extreme posting mostly due to the fact that I've been super busy preparing for the Affordable Art Fair in New York this coming Thursday through Sunday.

Tons of framing, plus cataloguing over 500 Lida Moser vintage and lifetime photos leave very little time.

On the other hand, I will take the laptop to NYC and will be doing some live blogging from AAF (if they have wireless in the Metropolitan Pavillion that is).

Roberge to leave

The Washington City Paper's Arts Editor, Leonard Roberge, will soon be leaving his job as Arts Editor for the CP to pursue a variety of private artistic issues.

Roberge will be missed sorely, as he was a key part of the CP's increased arts coverage while he was in charge of the cultural side of the free weekly.

Fair winds and following seas and we hope that your replacement will continue what you started!

Sneaked through

The person at the WaPo whose job it is to ensure that as little as possible visual art reviews take place must have been sick today, as there's an art column in the newspaper today! A Monday!

John Kelly's Washington discusses and delivers a really nice piece on Jeff Wilson at the Ellipse Art Center -- curated by Cynthia Connelly. Read it here.

Seminar

Today I'm doing the seminar for artists at the Warehouse.

Details here.

Bethesda Artists Markets

Today is the Bethesda Artist Market.

Bethesda Artist Markets are one-day events featuring 30 local and regional artists in the Bethesda Place Plaza.

It's on till 5PM. Directions here.

Bethesda Painting Prize Winners

$10,000 awarded to the Bethesda Painting Award winner! (See bottom of posting for award winners if you have no patience).

Nine painters had been selected as finalists for the Bethesda Painting Awards, a juried competition and exhibition produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District. More than 200 artists from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. submitted work to the second annual competition created to exclusively honor painters. The work of the nine finalists is now display at the Fraser Gallery through July 12, 2006.

The top prize winners were announced and honored on Wednesday, at a private press event held at the Fraser Gallery. The Best in Show winner was awarded $10,000, second place was honored with $2,000 and third place was awarded $1,000.

The nine artists selected as finalists are:

Paul Ellis, Washington, D.C.
Michael Farrell, Bethesda, MD
Haley Hasler, Charlottesville, VA
Scott Hutchison, Arlington, VA
Megan Marlatt, Orange, VA
Phyllis Plattner, Bethesda, MD
James Rieck, Baltimore, MD
Tony Shore, Joppa, MD
Andrew Wodzianski, Washington, D.C.

Entries were juried by:

- Janis Goodman, Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the Corcoran College of Art & Design and the visual arts reviewer for WETA's Around Town.

- Ron Johnson, Assistant Professor of Painting at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

- Barry Nemett, Chair of the Painting Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

Catriona Fraser, director of the Fraser Gallery, is the non-voting Chair of the Bethesda Painting Awards.

The Bethesda Painting Awards were established by Carol Trawick in 2005 and she continues to be a beacon of light and a great example as a small business woman who puts her money where her mouth is.

Ms. Trawick has served as a community activist for more than 25 years in downtown Bethesda. She is Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, Past Chair of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. and founder of The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards. Ms. Trawick is the owner of an Information Technology company in Bethesda, Trawick & Associates.

A public opening will be held tonight, Friday, June 9, 2006 from 6 – 9pm in conjunction with the Bethesda Art Walk.

As tonight is the second Friday of the month, it is thus the Bethesda Art Walk with 13 participating venues and with free guided tours.

Winners

Tony Shore (who teaches at MICA) of Baltimore, MD was awarded the Best in Show prize of $10,000.

James Rieck of Baltimore, MD (who I think teaches at the Corcoran) was named Second Place and received $2,000.

Scott Hutchison of Arlington, VA (who teaches at George Washington University) was honored with Third Place and was given $1,000.

See ya there!

Weekend Online

The staff of the WaPo's Weekend is again online at 11AM and discussing their coverage and answering your questions.

Details and a way to ask questions here.

No Tolls on the Internet

Congress is about to cast a very important and historic vote on the future of the Internet. The vote will decide whether the Internet remains a free and open or instead becomes the property of cable and phone companies.

Read the details here and then contact your elected representative.

Kirkland on Compelled II

Thinking About Art reviews our last show (Compelled by Content II). Read the review here.

If you don't get it...

I guess it takes a thousand... this is from the last Weekend live online chat last Friday:

Arlington, Va.: For several weeks now when questioned about the sparse arts coverage you guys have talked about giving equal coverage across the board and meeting demand. You say that you're listening to us asking for more reviews of our local galleries. You also say that everyone wants more coverage of movies, theatre, music, etc.

My question is this: where are all of those people in these chat sessions? You are asked repeatedly about providing more art coverage but I have yet to see one comment asking for more music reviews or theater reviews, etc.

Something doesn't jive about this. Could you please really address the issue instead of talking more about this so-called demand for more coverage across the board and lack of print space? O'Sullivan is an asset to our area but he can't do it all himself.

Joyce Jones: Thanks for joining our chat. Our first chat had lots of questions about our "sparse" dance coverage. We have many chatters who come to our chats, fortunately, and considering that this is only our fifth week, I hope the numbers will grow exponentially. Maybe when we get 1,000 questions a week, I'll consider the makeup of the questioners to be statistically significant (sorry, i majored in economics, minored in art).

Our mission is to cover entertainment. That's a lot. We take our mission very seriously and we try to give a representative sample of the best the area has to offer, while being geographically representative and keeping in mind that we have a broad readership. We are not a guide to the galleries. But we do take the galleries seriously and Michael does a great job of covering all of the arts. But, yes, he is one person. (Though I'm working on cloning him.)

You may want to focus on other venues within the paper when pressing for more gallery coverage, perhaps the Arts section or even the Extras, which often can give good space to venues within their area.

What Arts Section? Did she mean the one that was renamed Style section about 15 years ago? (It used to be called the Arts Section) or did she mean the Sunday Arts (which has done about four gallery reviews in the last couple of years - and then most of those were done on one gallery which could not be reviewed by Style due to conflict of interests on the part of the reviewer - and thus the Sunday Arts review "make-up" review.

The next Weekend online session is this coming Friday. You can submit your questions here.

Prints

I'm hearing good things about the current Kirk Waldroff exhibition at Washington Printmakers Gallery which opened last Friday.

Details here.

Congrats!

To DC area artist Chawky Frenn (represented by us), who is currently in Lebanon where he delivered a lecture at The American University of Beirut recently, and who has been selected to participate in a major museum show at the Sursok Museum in Beirut in September and who will also be delivering a lecture (arranged by Alan Feltus) at the American school in Tuscany in his way back to George Mason University, where Frenn is a member of the art faculty.

Grants

Deadline: June 12, 2006

This NEA grant offers funding for projects that help children and youth acquire appreciation, knowledge, and understanding of and skills in the arts. Projects must provide participatory learning and engagement of students with skilled artists, teachers, and excellent art, and ensure the application of national, state, or local arts education standards. Maximum Award: $5,000-$150,000. Eligibility: school-based or community-based projects.

Boot Camp for Artists

On Sunday, June 11, 2006, we will present another one of our highly successful "Success as an Artist" Seminars. This next seminar will be jointly hosted with the good people from Art-O-Matic, and the Warehouse Theater, Café and Gallery, on Sunday, June 11, 2006 from 10:30-6PM, with lunch provided.

The seven hour seminar, which has been taken by over 2,000 artists and arts professionals from all over the Mid Atlantic is designed to deliver information, data and proven tactics to allow artists to develop and sustain a career in the fine arts. The seminar costs $80 (includes lunch) and is limited to 50 people. For more details please visit this website. For this seminar, sometimes called "Boot Camp for Artists" by the attendees, people as far as Arizona, California, New York and South Carolina have attended, including many, many university level art professionals.

In its seven hour format, the seminar covers a wide range of structured issues including:

1. Materials - Buying materials;strategies for lowering your costs, where and how to get it, etc.

2. Presentation – How to properly present your artwork including Conservation issues, Archival Matting and Framing, Longevity of materials, a discussion on Limited editions, signing and numbering, Prints vs. Reproduction, discussion on Iris Prints (Pros and Cons).

3. Creating a resume - Strategy for building your art resume, including how to write one, what should be in it, presentation, etc.

4. Juried Shows – An Insider's view and strategy to get in the competitions.

5. How to take slides and photographs of your artwork

6. Selling your art – A variety of avenues to actually selling your artwork, including fine arts festivals, corporate acquisitions, galleries, public arts, etc.

7. Creating a Body of Works

8. How to write a news release

9. Publicity – How to get in newspapers, magazines, etc. Plus handouts on email and addresses of newspaper critics, writers, etc.

10. Galleries – Discussion on area galleries including Vanity Galleries, Co-Operatives, Commercial Galleries, Non-profit Art spaces, etc.

11. How to approach a gallery – Realities of the business, Contracts, Gallery/Artist Relationship, Agents.

12. Outdoor Art Festivals – Discussion and advice on how to sell outwork at fine arts festivals, which to do, which to avoid, etc.

13. Resources - Display systems and tents, best juried shows and ones to avoid.

14. Accepting Credit cards – How to set up your art business.

15. Grants – Discussion on how to get grants in DC, Regional and National, including handouts on who and where and when.

16. Alternative Marketing - Cable TV, Local media

17. Internet – How to build your website at no cost, how to establish a wide and diverse Internet presence.

The seminar has been a spectacular success, and the feedback from artists can be read online at here and we continue to receive tremendous positive feedback on the practical success that this seminar has meant for those who have taken it.

You can sign up for the seminar at 301/718-9651 or via email at info@thefrasergallery.com. There are a few spots left!

Congrats!

To my good friend Jeffry Cudlin from the Washington City Paper, who has been nominated for the Association of Alternative NewsWeeklies Awards (for art criticism).