Campello for Christmas

My daughter Elise has been busy recording a Christmas Album by Sony Masterworks and Steinway Artist Andrew T. Miller.

Elise, along with a few other very talented artists, are featured on this album and you should get one today and play it often during Xmas.

Go to www.andrewtmiller.org for more info!

ABMB: The Last Day

And thus came Sunday - which is the art fair day where most ABMB Art fairs end... and there are always a bit of tremors in the minds of gallerists, as the packing out is always a complex chess game of vans, trucks, boxes and packing tape.

Over at Aqua, it was a very busy and well-attended day again, and I managed to sell a few more drawings including the remaining piece with an embedded digital component.

The fact that all the works with embedded digital elements (video or otherwise) sold, does not escape me... more on that later.

In fact, Sunday was the second best day of the fair.

Around closing time, the nightmare scenario (for closing day) began to develop: rain!

But I just took my time and took down the work, wrapped it, boxed it, filled in the holes on the wall, painted the walls, and went down to check out the loading scene on front of the Aqua Hotel.

There was a spot on the small front driveway.

I ran to the parking lot... full speed, both man and van on the return drive... overshot the hotel (yes I did) and had to back down on busy Collins Avenue, but nonetheless, after a lot of birds being flipped at me, managed to sneak the van into a Doris Day parking spot right in front of the door of the hotel.

With the rain pouring down, I grabbed a couple of guys to help (offering them some Samolians) and loaded up... then drove to Wynwood to unload into my shipper's van and by midnight it was all done.

This was my best Miami ever - More next December....

ABMB Day Four

This morning I shifted the Campello headquarters from Hollywood Beach to Little Havana, then started the art morning by delivering four sales from yesterday to the collector's home.

By the time I got back to Aqua, it was past one PM, and the gallery minder had sold not one, but three more Erwin Timmer pieces (he's now sold five pieces at Aqua).

I then sold a couple more drawings, one of Dulce Pinzon's cool photographs and a nice sculpture by Charles Flickinger. I also have the remaining large drawing of mine with an embedded digital element on hold.

Tomorrow is the last day of the fairs and the nightmare known as pack-out begins.

Luba Sterlikova

The art exhibit Innergism by Luba Sterlikova runs at the Parish Gallery in Georgetown, DC, December 7,2011 - January 17, 2012 with the opening reception on December 7, 2011. 6-8 p.m.

This the first exhibit of Luba's abstract art in Washington, but her paintings have already been exhibited and well received by the public in London, Paris, Moscow and Khanty-Mansyisk.

ABMB Day Three

Today the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair (which I hear is asskicking) announced that Alyssa Dennis (Kesting/Ray, New York), Brookhart Jonquil (Dorsch Gallery, Miami), and Larissa Nowicki (Man & Eve, London, UK) had been selected as the finalists for the Miami 2012 PULSE Prize. Selected from the thirteen exhibitors in the solo-artist IMPULSE section of the fair by Director Cornell DeWitt and PULSE Committee members Stefan Roepke (Galerie Stefan Roepke, Cologne / Madrid), Mark Moore (Mark Moore Gallery, Culver City, CA) and Thomas Von Lintel, (Von Lintel Gallery, New York, NY) the three artists "embody the exciting and ambitious works for which the IMPULSE Section was founded."

DCAN sends envious congrats to Baltimore artist Alyssa Dennis! She "creates colored graphite renderings of partial architectural elevations blended with animals and assorted objects, and is a frequent collaborator with noted artist Swoon. A resident of Baltimore, Maryland, she has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and is the recipient of numerous awards, including three selections by the Maryland State Council in the Arts Fellowship."

Today Aqua was humming with a constant flow of visitors. I got there at 11AM as usual, dropped $4.50 for a double cappuccino, tried to catch up with email (over 500 behind - most of them waaay old) and stood by to hawk artwork.

I checked with some of the other DMV galleries, and Heiner Contemporary (they're at Scope) reports that they've been:

"quite pleased with our experience at SCOPE thus far. Foot traffic picked up yesterday and has been increasingly heavy throughout today, which is great to see. We've also had lots of luck with the collector's edition video and Avery's gotten a bit of press (see: here, and here. In addition to the articles above, Avery and the gallery were interviewed for a new website about performance art, which is launching early next year: performanceartist.com. Several museum people and galleries have generally expressed interest Avery’s work, which has been quite exciting as well. Lastly, at SCOPE, I’ve been struck by how strong the DC galleries are… I think they’ve really “brought it” this year and we’re s happy to be a part of the DC gallery group!"

Back to Aqua, today was an excellent day as we started the day with sales of several individual drawings of mine, followed by sales of three of my new series of drawings with embedded videos (Obama Agonistes, Ave Frida and Batman & Robin) and one of Tim Tate's self contained video sculptures.

This was by far the best day so far, and tomorrow, early in the morning, before I head back to Aqua, I got to deliver and install all four pieces.

Yep...

You gotta watch this

ABMB Week Day Two

The celebs are all over town, as apparently "There's a new celebrity collecting frenzy. It's becoming a hot new symbol of status," said Alexander Gilkes, co-founder of online art marketplace Paddle8, a partner in Nada, one of the many satellite fairs that surround ABMB.

I don't know about "new" but whatever...

Anyway, read about the celebs and ABMB here.

The only sighting that was reported to me from the satellite fairs was that apparently Will Smith had dropped $63,000 on a rather patriotic piece that he acquired at Red Dot today.

I'm also hearing that the Pulse Art Fair is absolutely amazing this year. "This is the best Pulse ever," noted a well-known Miami art collector when I asked her about it.

I got to Aqua at 11AM this morning to open up the joint, and by the time I got there, a fully stocked bar was doing brisk business on the ground floor and some big limos were dropping people off busy Collins Avenue.

People trickled by all day, and I cracked the ice mid day with a sale of one of my drawings and later on, the collector who had placed the Cirenaica Moreira piece on hold, came back and bought it.

At exactly the same time, a local glass collector acquired one of Erwin Timmer's glass pieces that he does from glass that he reclaims and recycles from buildings being torn down.

When it rains it pours.

One more sale of one of my drawings follows and then the night is over and I'm heading back to Hollywood, spending the usual 25 minutes to go from 16th Street on Collins to 20th...

Tomorrow the weekend will ramp up, traffic will get worse and more people will be there.

O Yea... I got mentioned in the Nuevo Herald yesterday - read it here.