Overcoming Barriers in a Messed Up System (episode 3)

This is part three of a five-part series I’m writing about how I went went from emerging artist, to founding a residency in New Mexico, to bringing my own work and the work of countless artists to Art Basel Miami and other big art fairs in the US. It may sound like a success story, but it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Want to get them all delivered to your inbox? Sign up at the end of this post!

The system is messed up. There I said it.

How could something so vital be so convoluted?

After searching for a few days, I finally found a satellite fair that curated cutting edge, emerging art – hallelujah – and I ended up meeting the directors of the fair. I introduced myself as the Director of the Starry Night Residency Program and told them what I was looking for.

Come to find out, even reserving a booth at a satellite fair cost thousands of dollars.  Which seemed, well, steep.

I don’t know any emerging artist that just has upwards of $10,000 sitting around to spend on a booth at an art fair. Plus, that’s just the cost to reserve the booth- that doesn’t include any of the transporting, traveling, hotels, installation, promotion, etc.

Have you ever thought about showing your work at a big art fair, and then realized you couldn’t even afford the initial deposit just to reserve the booth, much less pay for the whole thing? Or have you gotten turned down just because you’re not already picked up by a gallery? If this sounds familiar, then you know it hurts.

I immediately understood that MONEY was one of the biggest barriers in the existing system. OF COURSE. WHAT’S NEW?

Money is always a big barrier, for everyone, but especially emerging artists trying to make something of their career. How often do you struggle with money, either making rent each month, or affording the things you know will move your career forward? Sounds like yet another “chicken or egg problem”.

I get it, we’ve all experienced money as a predominant barrier in our lives. But, you know what motivates me the most? Barriers.  Being told I can’t.  I never will.  Just accept it. 

Really? Please, tell me I can’t do it. Go ahead, I DARE YOU.

So, I thought, if money is the barrier between me and a booth at a fair, I’ll find a way around it. Trust me.

I was determined. Do you want to know how I got around this one? Does it involve money growing on trees? Well, no, but I did have to get pretty creative. And it might have involved an excel spreadsheet or two.

The week of Art Basel Miami in 2012 had a lot of ups and downs for me. After going from jealousy to curiosity to the defeated feeling that you get when an exclusive clubs refuses to let you in, I came up with an idea.

So, my idea was this:

Create a program for independent artists to exhibit their work with me and my staff representing them during Art Basel Miami. I could create this as a part of Starry Night, but make it a whole new program that brings the opportunity of exposure to artists just like me. I could apply to satellite fairs like Select Fair and, if they accepted my idea, I’d dedicate a booth to is and put a call out to artists for applications. I would choose the best of the applicants for the show. If there were a handful of artists in the booth, the whole thing would work. With the Starry Night staff, we would be able to represent the artists perfectly, since we know and love our artists like we love our family, and now that we’ve got thousands of followers and contacts, we could effectively promote all of the artists we worked with. Boom.

It really looked like we were in the perfect position to do the job of a gallery without being exclusive jerks, all while making everything transparent so our artists could become better at doing it for themselves along the way. Starry Night could do for artists what a gallery wouldn’t even do for them!

But, I wasn’t 100% confident with it yet. A flurry of worries invaded my mind- were they going to laugh in my face? Were emerging artists even going to want this program?

So, did I end up a laughing stock?  Stay tuned for Episode 4 to find out what happened when I brought my idea to the fair directors.

 

Check out the other posts in this series:

Episode 1: It Started With My Curiosity- And Maybe a Little Jealousy

Episode 2: Which Came First, The Chicken or the Egg?

Episode 3: Overcoming Barriers in a Messed Up System

Episode 4: The Art of Demystifying Success