Saturday, December 08, 2018

Art Basel Miami Beach week: Saturday

The weather for Saturday was fantastic! And the aisles of Context Art Miami and its sister fair Art Miami were packed!

Wall to wall people.

Just as its larger companion piece did last year, my "Your Portrait in a Gallery of Portraits", which is an interactive video drawing that employs a hidden miniature camera to bring your image into the artwork, attracted a lot of attention and a lot of selfie photos.



The first celebrity sighting of the fair occurred when Professor Alan Dershowitz, who has taught law to more Presidents and Senators and Congressmen/women than all other law professors combined, dropped by the booth and ended up with a small lithograph of President Obama in his collection. "I voted for him!" he told me.


We then sold a nice tryptich by former DC area artist Amy Lin, who now lives in South Africa! It went to a local Miami private collector.

Amy Lin
The the following happened - and this has happened many, many times before, but never with the end result that I'm about to relate.

A very attractive lady and her equally pretty daughter came by and were quite taken with one of my "obsessive series" drawings - the one that I've always titled in some variation of "Suddenly she wasn't afraid any longer", and which depicts a figure - usually female - jumping into a void of white paper.

This work is charcoal and a little, tiny bit of watercolor on the body of the woman. Using the double encrypted "form" of writing that I've developed over the years and which marries Celtic Ogham and navy Falcon codes. On her back I've written in this code "No fear" and a double hand gesture for "freedom."


After I described the work, I could see that they quite liked it - but they walked away nonetheless.

A few minutes later, a young woman came by, became mesmerized by the work and bought it. I packed it and got it ready to be delivered the next day.

Half an hour later, the first two ladies returned, and were shocked to see that the work had been sold. Things became very emotional and the younger lady began crying.

It broke my heart! I've never seen anyone cry because they liked one of my pieces so much that they became emotional over the loss.

I consoled her and let her know that I could try and reproduce the work - after all, it is one my obsessive images. She would not be consoled and walked away in tears.

A while later, a bit calmer, she returned, and we began to discuss a possible commission, which we eventually agreed on - I then gave her a small lithograph that I had done in art school as a present.

There are lessons there for all kinds of things; more later when I produce the new work.

Tomorrow is the last day, and then the grueling dance of re-packing, re-loading and driving the work back begins...