Staycation Success

To sum up: I kept very busy the first several days of this third Pete Retreat, but then I took it easy on the last day. After all, time off is supposed to be a mental break!

On Wednesday, I went into the city and had fun. Went shopping at an independent record store and spent an hour exploring the dusty shelves of a used book dealer. Then took the el to River North for gallery hopping. Gretchen joined me here. Unfortunately, the artist whose work I went to view turned out to be much less impressive 'in the flesh'. I often find that photos of art often do not accurately represent them. There is always some distortion. Perhaps an impasto technique the camera can't capture or the colors are faded compared to the actual piece. There's always something.

In this case, the artist in question uses metallic paint sparingly on his canvases. This did not show up in the photos I had seen. Personal taste: I dislike metallic paints, as I it makes a work look glitzy in a cheap way (sort of on a par with black velvet art). There was another artist at the gallery whose work I liked, but it doesn't fit with my sense of what I want to buy. So there seems little point in doing more than just appreciating it.

We ended up going to another gallery, that was about 'crafts' rather than painting. Here I found some really exciting work. In fact, there were five artists that jumped out at me and none of them were painters. One worked in fiber/paper, while the others worked in ceramics to fashion vessels, vases, and wall decorations. Although they had very different approaches, what they had in common was an element of nature as basic inspiration yet, despite this starting point, they abstract the inspiration rather than directly reproduce it.

Positively, it wasn't until after I had homed in on which works I liked on a gut level that I realized it was all part of the same aesthetic I respond to when I look at paintings. Also positive was that this aesthetic spoke to me in forms of art beyond painting. This taught me that I can have a much more varied and rich collection by including pieces from multiple traditions. I'm definitely figuring things out!

After gallery hopping, Gretchen and I sat outside and drank too much while people watching. We also got a chance to talk tons and peruse the free Chicago art scene magazines we had picked up. It was a beautiful day, and we just relaxed until it was time to head up north for dinner with Gretchen's partner Camilo. Then Gretchen gave me the tour of the commune she lives in, providing encouraging feedback on my vase picture, and showed me her reel. A long, busy, and fun day.

After all this activity, I decided to have a slowed down kind of day yesterday. I did a 22 mile bike ride (see prior post), practiced piano, did a little writing, and shopped for art supplies and music. At the art supply store, I got extra oil pastels. I never knew this, but the crayons also come in a large size, and I realized these would be useful for the same reason I bought extra large tubes of white and black oils when I was painting. You know you're going to use it, so buying the small tubes is just inefficient. So, now, I'm equipped for more work!

I had lunch with my friend Paul, but he had to beat the rush hour so I wasn't able to get him to sit for me. (Maybe the fact I told him I had no idea whether the output was going to be any good scared him off!). Then Jimmy returned and we went out for dinner to celebrate his homecoming. I got to show him the photos I took of the works I was interested in.

All in all, I feel rested but also that I accomplished something meaningful in this time off. Best part is...I still have three more days to play!

What Do I Want to Collect?

some of Greta Garbo's amazing collection
photo: Billy Cunningham, Architectural Digest

So now that I've decided to be an art collector, the question is what do I want to collect and why?

These are not academic questions. The world of art is vast, and it's important to understand what I want and even more important to be able to talk about why I purchased it. To just randomly buy whatever strikes my fancy at a given moment means that I will end up with a pile of unrelated paintings rather than a collection.

Of course, at bottom, my purchases would always have one thing in common: I liked them. This is bound to provide some sense of unity, but I feel it would only be a very loose sense of unity. It would be like going clothes shopping and just buying whatever looked good. When I go to get dressed, I'd find I have too many blue shirts (because I like blue) or that I can't pair up enough items into good outfits.

So the downside of 'flying blind' in my collecting is that I'm not really being intelligent about my purchases. I would never know if I was buying a painting for a good reason or just because something in the painting struck my whim or was a hot fad. And, as we sometimes learn the hard way in clothes shopping, today's whim/fad is tomorrow's 'what was I thinking?'

Developing a conscious aesthetic or strategy in my purchases has positive side effects beyond avoiding buyer's remorse. For example, as I have begun to think this through, I feel as though it brings me more in touch with my reactions to art in general, especially when I don't like something. Knowing what my cup of tea is helps me check myself to make sure my negative reaction to a work isn't limited to the fact that the piece has a different 'flavor' that what I prefer. This keeps me open.

Mark Rothko painting
photo: Karmic Voyager blog

An example of how this works is when I found an artist whose works I really liked but from whom I must never, ever buy anything. This artist does abstract paintings featuring several large shapes (usually rectangles) in different colors floating against a background using a third color. I liked the artist's work a great deal but will never, ever buy it. Why not?

The works I just described were painted within the last several years, but they strongly resemble the work of Mark Rothko (the picture of his work here was lifted from a post on the blog Karmic Voyager). Now, if I want to buy a work of this kind, why would I buy anything other than an actual Rothko? (Practically speaking, the answer to that question is that I'll never in my wildest dreams be able to afford it...but I digress).

All artists stand on the shoulders of someone (or several someones). However, I distinguish between someone standing on the shoulders of Mark Rothko and reaching for something beyond him or adding something of their own to translate his legacy into something new...versus a person who is regurgitating his vision and style. The latter is not good art (at least not good beyond the decorative sense). If I'm only responding to the work from a decorative standpoint, then I do not need to be paying fine art prices to get something that serves that need.

This is somewhat random smattering of thoughts on this subject, but deciding what I collect and why is necessary both to be a responsible buyer and to truly get the most out of my experience with what I buy (and out of art in general). Going to galleries and museums will help me evolve my thinking.

More on this as I start figuring things out...

The First Acquisition

Buying 'Summer' and 'Fall' at the Timmel Collection, Saugatuck, MI

Jim and I spent the past weekend celebrating our 16th anniversary in Saugatuck, Michigan. We hadn't been there in over a decade, I believe, so it was a good time to go back for a short getaway. We had a very nice stay, but what the most memorable part of the trip will be that - after a good deal of reading up on art collecting and consideration about actually doing it - I finally took the plunge and made my first purchase!

Or I should say 'purchases'!  I picked up two paintings by Chicago-area artist Darren Jones. I hadn't planned on buying anything of this kind during this trip. I'd just figured I was going to bum around the shops and have a nice anniversary weekend. Although we were planning to gallery hop, I figured I would do my usual lurker routine: walking around, salivating over a few items, but not daring to buy anything.

Of course, I'd been giving collecting serious thought after it occurred to me that I would be interested in it as a...passion ('hobby' seems like such a poor word for this). I'd also done a good bit of reading on the subject, as well as getting back into learning about what was going on in contemporary art. How do people collect? What things do you keep in mind in choosing a piece? A big part of this was reading interviews with major fine art collectors and hearing them relate how they got started and what drives them. Still, each time I considered making a purchase, there was this hesitation and I'd walk away empty-handed. Art is not cheap, and I feared a painful bout of buyer's remorse if I regretted my purchase later.

This time, however, things were different. Of course I really liked the work by Darren Jones that I saw at the Timmel Collection in downtown Saugatuck, but I'd liked a lot of other things too and not pulled the trigger. The difference was that, after we left the gallery the first time and I had not bought, I was filled by a sense of futility and frustration. Like a diver at the end of the springboard, afraid to take the plunge. We've been in our house 14 years and there are a lot of walls with no artwork or artwork that I'm not all that crazy about. Why was I allowing this? What was I waiting for?

Spring, 2010 Darren Jones Mixed medium, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24”

While Jim and I were at lunch I talked the whole thing through with him. One: I had done a quick web investigation and checked out Jones' website and artist statement. Liked what I read. Check.  Two: I'm not being a flake about this. I have a god deal of art education, and I know what I like (and, far more importantly, why I like it), so I'm not going to buy something dreadful. Check. Three: All the collectors I read about emphasized you have to start with what you like, even as they each evolved their collections into something with a (sometimes very tight) focus. These paintings definitely fit with what I like about and respond to in art. Check. Four: I was not buying these paintings as an investment or with the dream of making a fortune when Jones became the next Big Artist, died, and all his works soared into the six-figure range for auction estimates. I was buying them to have something in my home that I enjoy, that has personal meaning for me, and that I think are beautiful. Check. Five: I could think of several places in the house the paintings could go, so there was a definite functional aspect to this purchase. Check. Six: The idea of two pieces of a similar style and yet with the sharp color contrast these two works have adds to the appeal. Check. Lots of good reasons.

Done. Went in, made the purchase, and I have to say I had such a rush afterwards! Buying a painting may not seem like a big deal but, if you love art and are serious about what you are buying, I assure you it is a very big deal! I made the artist working at the gallery who helped us with the purchase (he's not Darren Jones) get into the picture above with me. Yes, I geeked out. But this is a first step into a larger world, so I had no desire to restrain myself from geeking out. I've made a life-long passion into something concrete, and that makes me very happy.


Fall, 2010 Darren Jones
Mixed medium, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24”