Art Markets?

Rio Grande Fair 2010

At what I considered the height of my art business I was doing eight big fairs in New Mexico and other cities in the west. One even in San Francisco with masks before transitioning to paintings. It wasn't easy getting in those touted markets. There was a jury process which in the age before transition to digital required slides which had to be prepared and mailed.

The Rio Grande Fair in 2010 was one of my last. I was seldom turned down for any fair I applied for.  I had all the professional equipment at no small investment. But when my Astro van, the required conveyance for all that equipment and inventory, blew a connecting rod I sat down to an agonizing reappraisal of costs versus profits and quit.

Fairs at the time were going through a downturn. The middle class was vanishing with their disposable income. They went to fairs with their smart phones and took photos and ate at the food booths and more and more bought from the vendors selling Chinese products pretending to be originals. And digital technology made the ink jet (Giclee in French) ridiculously cheep. The first year after I quit I received calls from those running fairs I had tried so hard to get into at one time. "We have eleven booths open. Say yes and I will halve the booth fee."

Now I do only one little local fair. No travel costs. No hotels. No Chinese with their smart phones. No vendors from everywhere but here. And I have my studio. And our arts group does the studio tour every fall. Art does not have to be packed up and moved until it is sold or displayed at a local venue.

One Studio wall 2019

The Angel Fire Holiday Market December 7 and 8 this year is the one fair I do. I no longer have all that fancy professional booth furniture in the top photo. I have to be very creative on displaying my wares. And this year I have decided to concentrate on little arts. The big paintings stay in the studio which is open three afternoons a week.

Little Original Watercolors in Small Frames and on note cards

The walls of my studio are full but as a painter I must paint. So I went back to the basics; tiny watercolors on note cards and in frames for gift giving.

Shelf Paintings and Little Gem Ornaments waiting to be packed.

And since I was printing out photographs for note cards I produced some Giclee prints, matted and put them in frames of various sizes. My big Giclee's on canvas are hanging on the walls of Enchanted Circle Brewing Company in Angel Fire.  Or my studio. The great thing about photography is its versatility.  Want it a different size? Or on canvas? Just order it.

Thicke holding space open in the bin of matted and framed photographs

This holiday season stop by the Brewery, the Market at the Community Center, or my studio. Or Binford-Bell Studio here or on Facebook.

Where Are All the Flowers?

Red Rose

Last blog was about winter scenes and this is about flowers. When I used to do a photo a day and a weekly post here I had my photographic efforts organized by those blogs. I stopped that in 2018 and so 2019 is a jumble of dated uploads on my hard drive.

Not a problem for me until the time comes around for garden club photographic entries or a friend asks for three flower photographs as a Christmas gift for a mutual friend. Easy, huh? Just go to the summer months. It snowed the 23 of May and nothing bloomed in June because it was too cool. And the lead photo is from a green house, and the last one from my studio in February.

Yellow Banded Bumble Bees in a sunflower

Fall redeemed the season which seemed all too in a rush to bloom and seed and go away before winter returned. Summer 2018 had been a great year for flower photography but all my best flower photos of 2019 seemed to be in chasing the insects in a frenzy to get all the pollen they could while it lasted.

Fly in a Hollyhock

The star of the summer

And oh, the Painted Ladies. They were just everywhere. One of the largest migrations going of these butterflies this summer.  And I never seemed to have passed up an opportunity to attempt a photographic capture from their first appearance on milk thistle through yellow cone flowers.

Danse Pour Deux

Solo Performance

As a gardener disappointed by my hollyhocks, poppies, and sunflowers I found solace in the wonderful return blooms of my orchids in the studio. They are preparing to do it yet again.

Return Performance 

Georgia O'Keeffe is quoted as saying she didn't much like flowers but painted them because they were cheap models. I hardly ever paint time but I love to photograph them.

Winter Scenes

Through the Woods

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village thought;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of Easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And Miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

My father used to hold forth reciting poetry. And he encouraged us to read and memorize poems. Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening was one of the first I learned. Mom had poetry books and this one was short. Because of how the book opened itself to this page I assumed it was a favorite. I first recited it for her on a Christmas Eve, which is otherwise lost in my memory.

Yes, these photographs are not of taken on a dark evening but usually in early hours of morning so the snow isn't messed up with car tracks other than mine. Yes, no little horse either.  But I seldom stop and focus my camera on the snowy scene before me without lines of Mr. Frost's poem repeating in my head.

And these days, since my mother's death on a distant, but not forgotten, Thanksgiving not without tears.

The Fence Line

Through the Woods

Mother was a big believer in written correspondence. And picking out Hallmark cards to send for every occasion. I was expected by my Uncle Ray to take up that mantle of family communicator. And by fits and starts I tried. But I was definitely a disappointment to my mother's brothers.

And when holidays appear on the calendar I am disappointed too. Mother never let one pass without the appropriate Hallmark sentiment and handwritten note. I think of such things as I return, at the gentle urging of a friend, to not just email or personal message on a social platform but write a note with pen and paper and United States Postal Service stamp. And now, as preparations for the holiday market quicken, to make my own note cards.

Some are hand painted with watercolors, and some like those featured here, utilize my photography. I see the labor involved almost as my poor equivalent of a Navajo sand painting, or Tibetan mandala: a prayer or meditation as an apology for the past or wish for the future.

But they are just note cards. These are just a few of my favorite winter scenes.

Fresh Tracks

Picnic Cancelled 

Freezing Pond

May you have treasured memories which withstand the test of time and events.

Keep on Trucking

In a field of Daisies

I love photographing old vehicles. They have character and great shapes and colors other than white and black. I would love to have one in my yard as a lawn ornament. And so I could chronicle it in all weather and seasons. Fortunately I have friends with collections to admire and record.

A great smile

A Jeep and a Ford resting in the same yard.

 This Ford Grill belongs to the truck below. I believe it was used to pull pumps out of wells. A hard live but it worked until the 10 digit phone numbers.

Now serving as storage shed for pieces and parts

 I look at the car below and think of the grand parties it escorted people too. Good times.

The Changing Art Market

Sunlight in the Valley
SOLD print 1/20

I quit being a project control engineer for a major international construction firm and returned to New Mexico with no solid plan on how I was going to support myself beyond an advantageous marriage. I did manage a fairly decent income with freelance writing, and then stumbled into a mask making business because of my association with the costumer for a dance company in the state.

Lunacy Limited was quite successful until I literally fell on my head after being hit by a skier. Up to that point I had broken into all the better fairs, several good galleries around the country and a wholesale market which came too close to feeling like a slave shop. Recovery from the CBT took longer than I wanted and threw me out of step with my "business plan."

Fortunately two therapies I had picked for myself, photography and watercolor painting, opened new opportunities just about the time the economy crashed,  galleries began going belly up, and art fairs became more entertainment that vendor opportunities. By then I had my studio which was open to the public and easily was accepted in just enough fairs to cover costs with my sales.

Now the art market has returned to begging for space on restaurant walls. If you are lucky they ask you. One of my venues is the Enchanted Circle Brewery in Angel Fire, New Mexico. The owner wanted me to hang my photography, which to that point was winning awards in exhibits but I thought second to my painting, which had a higher price point because of where the market had crashed. I resisted doing giclee prints of my original work but photography was different. I fell in love with giclee prints on canvas of select photographs. No broken glass or scratch frames and if the print is damaged just reprint. And if print one of 20 is sold print number two.

The economy seems to be picking up a bit and happily so are sales of giclee prints from the Brewery. Sometimes you just get lucky. At a younger age I might have wanted to be Ansel Adams or Georgia O'Keeffe. Now I am just happy to have local recognition and a market. And to sell a painting now and then because I love to paint.

Big Blue 1
SOLD print 2/20

Clouds' Illusions
For Sale Now

What is Being Printed

Ghost Elk of Santa Clara

Between the blog just before this about my choices of what images to have printed, and decision time I took more photographs on a great trip over the high plains. It is always nice to get off the deck and out with my camera. And being with another photographer always makes me pause and look at the options closer or linger longer. There is always the obvious and the elusive.

Main Street Gone

With Ana McCracken we discovered a surprising past in Wagon Mound and a wonderful old crumbling building in Miami. The array of opportunities was inspiring. And I was once  again amazed at how differently two photographers can record the same reality. We decided to do it again only this time over the Johnson Mesa and into Folsom and the grasslands of New Mexico.

Here, There, and Beyond

As I have mentioned before in this space photography began as a way for me to record my life much like a visual journal. Than it became a tool for me to capture images to translate into paintings in my studio. It is only in the last few years I have become to appreciate photography as an art within itself. And within the last couple of years it has become a profit center.

When I am out and about taking pictures it is the first two purposes which govern. I seldom, if ever, think this is a money shot. The elk on the wall in an abandoned hardware store in old Santa Clara and the window in a crumbling old building in Miami were because I felt driven to record for me. The photograph of the clouds below were for paintings. And because it just seemed such a wow moment in clouds building over the distant mountains.

Clouds Illusions

And the tree below was so wonderful in shape and form it had to be recorded as a possible inspiration for a painting or just an element in a future painting. I was surprised when I posted it on my Back Country Photography  page how popular it was.

A Tree Grows Beside It

And then there are the subjects I just love to record - old trucks. I just love old trucks. And this spring I was down in Ojo with another photographer Terry Atkin Rowe who also loves old trucks. And we were able to take pictures of our two favorite trucks. I also love playing around on photo editing with trucks. I have come to see them as a canvas for pixils. I also turn them into mixed media paintings. But they are the closest to a money shot as I have in my portfolio.  My giclee canvas prints of my old trucks sell. That is why they get selected to be printed but not why they are captured on my camera.  The problem was of all the photos of these two trucks which would I print first.

Big Red Chevy

Big Blue Profile

And, of course no run of giclee prints on canvas is complete without at least one pure landscape of the land I love.

Old Mike from Spyglass

The above will soon be displayed on the walls of Enchanted Circle Brewing. I am grateful for the opportunity to show my images there. I have picked sizes based on what fits. But all these can be printed in the size you want. Or any of the images that did not get picked in this round of what I can afford to have transferred from my camera to my computer to canvas.

What to Print - Choices

Wilted Beauty

 Not every photograph is a winner. But the beauty of photography is it serves so many different levels like memories, internet posts, inspiration for paintings, and some actually get printed and hung on walls. And there is even a level on that last. I do print and hang some of my photography on my own walls because they speak to me.

My photography is showcased in a couple local businesses. Lately Enchanted Circle Brewing as sold several of my photographs off their walls. Which means I have to replace what is sold. Ergo I need to select photos to have printed. And the third annual Angel Fire Studio Tour is in the future; September 29 and 30. My studio walls need new photographs.

Mountain View

The tourists love landscapes of the area they are visiting so what I print has to include a few of those. But all my landscapes are not necessary views of Angel Fire and Black Lake areas. But most are New Mexico. And a few could be any country road inviting you to walk in the quiet.

Country Road

Or hear the distant thunder and smell the rain.

Summer Rain

But always popular are the old trucks.

Blue Chevy

Smile

Big Red

But some decisions on what to print are done based on spaces to fill on my studio walls, the brewery or the walls of the possible owner. I am always looking for an engaging vertical composition.

Tres Amigos

Black Jack's

And in the process of doing this blog I know I have to look for more verticals.

What doesn't get printed large on canvas may become a part of my art note cards. Flowers rival trucks for note card sales.

Dancing Poppy

Night of the Snow Blind Moon Take Two

Night of the Snow Blind Moon
24 x 30 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1650

I have often wondered if Michelangelo ever walked back into the Sistine Chapel and wanted to change anything about the Last Judgement? Or did in pointedly avoid the Chapel after his work was finished? Creative people are often doubters in their own skills and also in their work. Insecure.

So Night of the Snow Blind Moon was declared done by signing it and writing a progress blog. And yet it sat on my easel. Actually two easels because I traded up to another in that expanse of time. So it was deliberately moved from one to the next when the logical thing would be to install the hanging hardware and find a place on my studio walls for it. But it remained on the easel for me to stare at daily. And visitors to my studio, rather more than normal, would walk by it and ask if it was done.

"Yes," I would replay sensing a doubt in my own declaration.

The doubt was the foreground. I wanted simplicity there because I did not want to over-power the elk. And my other paintings in the On the Edge series don't have foregrounds really. I can still defend my previous assumption it was done as shown below.

Night of the Snow Blind Moon before

It is not as if I have not changed other works of art. The digital age makes it really easy to do another take on a photograph of merit. And during college I used to travel home with art supplies to "fix" paintings I have given my folks. They loved them as is but I was embarrassed at perceived flaws.

And since the painting was still on the easel I must have my doubts. And so I got out the oil sticks. It had to be oil sticks. I had already coated the finish so watercolor would not work easily. I have begun to use oil sticks more and more in the foreground of my paintings. And the thought of a total work in oil lingers but it would require big bucks for new brushes. Besides you cannot pour oil paints.

So I think I am now done with this work. If not I will just begin a new on another canvas.

Night of the Snow Blind Moon - Creative Process Blog

Night of the Snow Blind Moon
24 x 30 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1650

One of the wonderful things about not being on the art fair circuit any more is I can paint what I want to paint when I want to paint it.  Or not paint. This winter seemed to be most about not painting. I was knitting. Something you can do wrapped in an afghan in front of the fire. And before that it was little paintings. And note cards and things suitable for a Christmas market.

Rain on the Mesa broke the spell. I was back to my canyons. And it would follow I was back to thinking of a theme for my on-the-edge series. I begin with a drawing. And as I stretch my own canvas the drawing determines size and proportions.

Minimalist sketch for elk of the snow blind moon - working title

Sky and moon floated and elk masked off in preparation of painting the canyon walls

I pour my skies, float my moons and suns. I do it first as it helps determine what colors I use in the rest of the composition. I had an idea of what colors I was going to use but I seldom do a color sketch. And I had no idea how I was going to paint the elk other than they would not be realistic. I was aiming for a petroglyph appearance.

Working from the back to the front

Next layer forward. Masking removed from the elk in front of painted canyons

At this point viewers started seeing a cat jumping over the moon

The canyons were also poured and the foreground. On the lower right you can even see some drips. It is at this stage I start refining the pours, and defining outlines. Still haven't a clue on what color the elk. Painting totally original pieces, not another church, leaves more questions as to where a painting is going. That can be the really fun part because the painting begins to call the shots.

Cat jumping over the moon gone and first layer of color on elk

Tweaking begins. Refined the sky and got rid of the cat.

Time to play around with the details

The on-the-edge series plays around with the mystical. All my canyon paintings do to some extent with spirals around stars in night skies and ravens in the sky in day skies.  This painting uses heart lines on the elk and spirals on their antlers.  And for days I debated the ravens. It was a night painting. When a flight of ravens is in the sky there is always somewhere a raven all alone and away. That detail was inspired by the missing man formations of airplanes. I debated just the lone raven but in the end put a distant flight across the sky.