2012041501

2012041501
oil on canvas
24″ x 24″

2012040801

2012040801
oil on canvas
24″ x 24″

2012040102

2012040102
oil on canvas
24″ x 24″

2012030501

2012030501
oil on canvas
24″ x 24″

2012030101

2012030101
oil on canvas
24″ x 24″

2012022501

2012022501
oil on canvas
24″ x 24″
2012

Ending Lending?

Painter Mark Kostabi’s slogan sums it up “Ending Lending is Beginning Winning”. Artists have traditionally consigned artwork to galleries. When the artwork sells, the gallery and the artist splits the sale 50/50. When the work does not sell, the artist gets the art back. This is the way the game is played and it is ludicrous. In this scenario, the artist literally loans the gallery collateral at no risk to the gallery and with no interest on the loan. An alternate way of doing things might be to imitate, oh I dunno, how about… the way every other business on earth operates: The gallery should just buy the art from the artist. How hard is that? If the gallery cannot afford it, either they should find an artist who will sell them work for what they can afford or they should get out of the gallery business, which they are not in if they cannot afford to purchase inventory. Of course, this works in the benefit of the gallery too — you can mark up the work 200 percent if you like. Buy 10 paintings for $100 each. Sell them for 20 grand each.

His argument makes perfect business sense. But that’s the problem, see? As soon as you apply traditional business rules to art, you begin to commodify it. What does that mean for artists? Stop taking risks. Make work that you know will sell, because that is the only way to get artwork purchased by a gallery. Galleries, in turn, will only buy work they know will sell.

What does the art world get once art gets commodified? Well, frankly, it gets Thomas Kinkade.

Now, if you are a gallerist, you can probably assume that a suite of Mark Kostabi paintings has a pretty high likelihood of sale. Buying outright from him probably makes great sense. It’s easy for Mark Kostabi to demand up-front payment. But 95% of the work that goes into galleries hasn’t been sanctified by the establishment. The art on the fringes only finds its way into the public eye through this model of shared, modulated risk.

I’ve been with a lovely gallery here in Seattle for over a decade. They have been incredibly patient as I have slowly matured my body of work, as well as when I took a sharp detour into another body of work. They (evidently) believe in what I am doing, and are willing to share a risk with me. My shows with them have been a mixed bag. Some have sold OK, and some have been real stinkers. Yet they soldier on—confident, it seems—that there is a trajectory here that we share.

2012011401

2012011401
oil on canvas
24″ x 24″

2011121001

2011121001
oil on canvas
24″ x 24″

work in progress

Good morning in the studio. Here’s a detail of a work in progress.: