The bus is all warmed up!

Opportunity for Artists

The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. (HSW) has announced the launch of “For the Record: Artfully Historic D.C.”, a new program to capture and preserve scenes of the District’s built environment. 

 

Co-sponsors include the DC Preservation League, the Capitol Hill Art League, and the National Building Museum. The initiative seeks submissions of paintings and photography for the juried competition by February 1, 2015.

Continuing on its long tradition of collecting artworks that depict life in Washington, the Historical Society partnered with the DC Preservation League to develop its list of Most Endangered Places. That list will provide local artists with the subjects for art and photo submissions to a juried contest. The Capitol Hill Art League is helping guide the competition process.

Details here.

Lessons for Artists

An oldie but goodie from seven years ago with plenty of lessons for artists:

My post on the subject of the unfortunate theft of Afrika Midnight Asha Abney’s work from a restaurant show, and the subsequent issue of who (if anyone) pays for the loss, and my mention of why it is important to have contracts when forming a business association with a gallery or dealer - or any exhibition venue, for that matter – brought an unexpected deluge of emails from artists (and one gallerist) asking why a contract is such a big deal.

Let me give you some examples:

1. Take Afrika’s case: An artist has a show and someone steals a piece of art. What happens next? With a signed contract, the artist would know ahead of time that either (a) the gallery has no insurance, in which case the theft is a full loss, or (b), the gallery has art insurance, in which case (a) the gallery puts a claim in with the insurance company, or (c) the artist deals directly with the insurance company. And, by the way, in the event that there’s insurance, don’t expect to get the full value of the stolen work, but in most cases (and policies) only the 50% commission that you’d have received in the event that the work had sold instead of being stolen.

2. Talking about commissions; how do you know, other than a handshake, what the gallery’s commission is? Let’s say that you are told that the commission is 50% (the general standard for independent commercial fine arts galleries around here). Is that 50% of the price of the piece or 50% of the final sales price? I know of at least one major DC area art gallery that has a record of really screwing artists by giving them 50% of an agreed price for a piece; however, the gallery also often sells the piece for a lot more money to its out of town collectors and keeps the difference. Here’s how it works. The artist agrees to sell the photographs for $500 each and thus expects a commission of $250. The unethical gallerist sells some for $500, and some to its out-of-town clientele for $1000, but gives the artist the same $250 commission on those sales.

3. But let’s say that you have approached a gallery, and show them the works, and discuss representation, and the gallerist agrees to hang some of your work in his next group show. You are not sure if you are “represented” in the sense of the word as you understand it, but shake on it and prepare for your first appearance in a well-known gallery and invite all of your family and friends. At the packed opening, your second cousin-once-removed is admiring one of your huge watercolors, which are tacked onto the wall in a really cool post-post-post-modernist style. He leans forward to admire your brushwork and accidentally spills his white wine onto your watercolor, immediately making your representational work of art into a messy abstraction. What happens next? Does insurance cover damage? Is there insurance? Is that the guy who spilled the wine making a dash for the door?

4. Having learned your lesson, at your next opening you resign yourself to getting your new work framed and spend a ton of money getting them framed at the most affordable (in other words cheapest) possible way, but still spend a considerable amount of shekels -- because as everyone knows, framing is very expensive (unless you attend the Boot Camp for Artists Seminar and learn how to cut framing expenses by 80%). When you deliver the works to the gallery, the gallerist goes into fits about your gold leaf rococo frames from Target and silver acidic mats and refuses to hang the work. A good contract would have specified ahead of time all issues dealing with framing and presentation standards.

5. Having calmed down, the gallerist then offers to re-frame all the work for you. You accept with a sigh of relief, and at the opening your 20 newly framed watercolors look great in the 8-ply pH-balanced, acid free mat board, under UV glass and Nielsen mouldings and backed by half-inch, acid free, pH-balanced foam core. You sell four pieces and are happy that things worked out in the end. A few weeks later you get a huge bill in the mail from the gallery; it is what remains of the framing bill after the gallery applied all of your commission to the total framing bill. A good contract should also specify the economic who’s and what’s of any framing done by the gallery.

6. Your relationship with the gallery is now seriously on the rocks, but then you are told that a review in Art News will come out soon. Three months after your show has closed the review finally comes out in Art News and it’s a good one. A young computer geek in Bala Cynwood, Pennsylvania, who is waiting to see his doctor for his annual physical reads that Art News review while waiting in the doc’s office, sees the nice reproduction of your work and after he goes home, looks you up on the Internet and contacts you directly and tells you that he read the review of your gallery show in Art News and wants to buy the painting reproduced in the magazine. You sell him the painting and put all your money in the bank. Sixteen minutes after the painting is delivered to Bala Cynwood, the gallery gets a call from a collector in Spokane, Washington who has also read the Art News review and wants to buy that painting. The gallerist calls you and tells you the good news. You are ecstatic that two people want your painting, but then you tell the gallerist that someone else in Bala Cynwood read the review and that you sold the painting to that person. The gallerist congratulates you on the sale and then asks you to make sure that you send him the gallery’s commission. You are confused because you had no idea that you owed the gallery a commission.

7. Your review in Art News has opened a few doors for your artwork and you are invited by a non-profit art venue to have a solo show at their space in a year. You are pleased and tell everyone, including the gallerist, who informs you that because his gallery represents your work, you are not allowed to exhibit anywhere else in the city, or maybe the area, or maybe the state, or maybe the US, or maybe the world.

8. Then your Alma Matter, impressed with your artistic prowess, invites you to a group show of alumni artwork in the school’s gallery. Since you attended art school in another state, you are pretty sure that it will be OK to show there, because after the last confusion, you discovered that the gallery had exclusive representation for your work only in DC, MD and VA, and your art school is in Brownsville, Texas. You tell your gallerist, and because he has never heard of Brownsville, Texas, he looks it up in the Internet and then he informs you that if you exhibit your artwork in “certain places” it will bring the reputation of the gallery down and thus the gallerist doesn’t want you to exhibit in Brownsville, Texas – or anywhere in Texas, Arkansas and Nebraska for that matter.

9. You beg and plead because you really want to impress your ex-girlfriend in Texas, and the gallerist allows you to include one piece in that alumni show, but makes it clear that he needs to be consulted on any and all exhibitions of your work. And so you exhibit your best piece in Brownsville and a New York gallerist, who happens to be a Robert Ervin Howard admirer, visits Brownsville to pay homage to REH's birthplace and decides to check the local yokels show at the art school. Because your immense watercolors are the largest works in the show, they catch his attention and he jots down your name. Weeks later his intern calls you and tells you that they want to show some of your work in their next group show. This is really hitting the big time, and you announce to your gallerist that a big shot New York gallerist is including you in his next group show. He congratulates you and reminds you that you owe him 10% of any sales made in New York, or in Brownsville, Texas, or anywhere for that matter. You rant and rave and ask why, and he tells you that the reasons for your recent success all lead back to the exposure that he has given you. You demand to know why none of this stuff was made clear from the beginning. The gallerist answers that “everyone knows this,” and that he “likes to operate on a handshake and without a contract.” You then realize that you have him by the balls, since you have no signed contract with him or his gallery, and tell him that you are leaving. He says some threatening stuff about verbal contracts, but you walk away anyway, wondering how you are going to get back the six paintings of yours that your soon-to-be-former gallerist still has in storage.

10. Nonetheless, New York is New York, and you go visit the big shot New York gallerist and meet with him, and over a handshake he agrees to put you in a group show and tells you that his commission is 60% - You are not sure if you are “represented” in the sense of the word as you understand it, but shake on it and prepare for your first appearance in a New York City gallery and invite all of your family and friends...

And more congrats!

FY15 Grant Awardees - City Arts Projects - Individuals

Name	Ward	Award Amount
Andrene Taylor	5	$8,000
Christylez Bacon	1	$10,000
Cory Oberndorfer	3	$7,000
Daniel Singh	4	$8,000
Denaise Seals	4	$4,050
Dwayne Lawson-Brown	8	$7,350
Edward Daniels	1	$8,000
Holly Bass	1	$10,000
Jack Gordon	5	$7,200
John Johnson	8	$7,000
Joy Jones	5	$6,850
Kim Roberts	1	$4,000
Maud Arnold	3	$10,000
Mia Choumenkovitch	2	$10,000
Monica Bose	1	$10,000
Regie Cabico	1	$5,600
Rex Weil	3	$8,000
Robert Bettmann	4	$5,950
Ruth Stenstrom	1	$10,000
Sandra Johnson	5	$8,000
Shawn Short	7	$7,500
Stanice Anderson	8	$4,500
Stephen Spotswood	6	$8,000
Will Stephens	2	$10,000

Congrats!

FY15 DCCAH Grant Awardees

Artist Fellowship Program

Name	Ward	Award Amount
Adam Davies	3	$10,000
Allison Stockman	2	$7,500
Anna Davis	4	$7,500
Anne Bouie	1	$5,000
Assane Konte	5	$3,800
Carmen Torruella-Quander	5	$5,000
Cecilia Cackley	6	$5,000
Cheryl Edwards	6	$5,000
Chloe Arnold	3	$5,100
Christopher Dolan	3	$7,500
Christylez Bacon	1	$7,500
Cory Oberndorfer	3	$5,000
Dana Flor	3	$7,500
Daniel Singh	4	$6,500
Daniel Vera	5	$7,500
Danielle Mohlman	6	$10,000
Davey Yarborough	4	$5,000
Dawne Langford	1	$7,500
Edmund Baker	1	$5,000
Elizabeth Acevedo	6	$10,000
Ellington Robinson	1	$7,500
Emiliano Ruprah	4	$5,000
Evangeline Montgomery	4	$7,500
Farah Harris	6	$10,000
Fawna Xiao	6	$5,000
Frederic Yonnet	6	$10,000
Gediyon Kifle	2	$7,500
Holly Bass	1	$6,500
Ian Jehle	1	$5,000
James Byers	7	$5,000
Jane Remick	1	$7,500
Jared Davis	4	$10,000
Jarvis Grant	1	$5,000
Jennifer Clements	3	$7,000
Jennifer Nelson	5	$10,000
Jessica Beels	1	$10,000
John Copenhaver	6	$7,500
Jonathan Monaghan	5	$10,000
Joyce Wellman	1	$5,000
Joyce Winslow	3	$9,000
Juan Mayer	2	$5,000
Kathryn McDonnell	3	$5,000
Kea Taylor	1	$5,000
Khanh Le	5	$7,500
Kim Roberts	1	$7,000
Lance Kramer	1	$5,000
Laura Zam	1	$10,000
Linn Meyers	4	$10,000
Lynn Welters	4	$3,800
Margot Greenlee	6	$6,500
Marion (Rik) Freeman	7	$10,000
Marjuan Canady	4	$5,000
Marta Perez Garcia	5	$5,000
Martine Workman	6	$10,000
Mary Early	6	$7,500
Mary Hanley	4	$5,000
Mary Kay Zuravleff	3	$9,000
Maryam Foye	7	$10,000
Maureen Andary	4	$5,000
Michael Janis	5	$10,000
Michael Sirvet	2	$10,000
Mickey Terry	7	$7,500
Mike Osborne	3	$10,000
Molly Springfield	1	$10,000
Monica Bose	1	$5,100
Nathaniel Lewis	1	$5,000
Nekisha Durrett	4	$10,000
Nicole Lee	2	$9,000
Niki Herd	4	$5,000
Noah Getz	3	$10,000
Paul Gordon Emerson	1	$5,100
Rachel Grossman	4	$10,000
Rachel Kerwin	5	$5,000
Rachel Louise Snyder	3	$5,000
Rania Hassan	5	$5,000
Regie Cabico	1	$10,000
Rex Weil	3	$5,000
Richard Cytowic	4	$10,000
Samuel Miranda	4	$5,000
Sara Curtin	1	$5,000
Sarah Browning	3	$9,000
Sarah Ewing	6	$3,800
Shahin Shikhaliyev	3	$5,000
Sondra Arkin	2	$5,000
Tamela Aldridge	4	$5,000
Tatyana Safronova	3	$5,000
Taurus Broadhurst	5	$3,800
Tessa Moran	6	$10,000
Thomas Beveridge	3	$5,000
Thomas Colohan	1	$10,000
Tim Tate	2	$10,000
Timothy Johnson	2	$7,500

Studio space in Bethesda

There are two studio vacancies in the studio spaces located at St. Elmo Street in Bethesda, MD. It is convenient to the Metro and there is a large parking garage across the street. The monthly rent is not exorbitant.

Please contact Jane, Joan or Sheryl via email at  jrostov@verizon.net; 315field@gmail.com; brent7906@aol.com

Go to an artist talk tomorrow!

Artist talk October 18 from 1:00 -3:00PM

Artist talk with Christopher Romer
 

CHARMERS

39th Street Gallery, Gateway Arts Center

3901 Rhode Island Ave. (second floor, 39th Street Gallery)

Brentwood, MD 20722

 www.39thstreetgallery.org

Please join the 39th Street Gallery and Christopher Romer for an artist talk on his current exhibition, CHARMERS. 

The CHARMERS are a group of variously sized and treated pieces, inspired originally by the quintessential American artifact: the wooden decoy, and specifically the fish decoy.

Also on exhibit in the 39th Street Corridor, Paintings by Jay Hendrick and Kathryn McDonnell.

This is the last day for the exhibitions. This event is free to the public, and light refreshments will be served.