Isalos Fine Art

On Thursday we drove down to New York to see the AAF Contemporary Art Fair. Last year we went when it was called the “Affordable Art Fair,” which meant the artwork needed to be priced under $5000. This year “affordable” means less than ten grand, and the focus seems to be more on the contemporary angle.

Let me say first that yes, we are yokels. We choose to live and sell art in the hinterlands, on an island roughly the size of Manhattan (bigger if you count  all the peninsulas) but populated by only a couple thousand residents. I sometimes go for months without crossing the bridge to the mainland, and when I do, the strip malls of small Maine cities provide me with about all the hub-bub I want. When I return to the island, it is with a sigh of relief.    

 
So before we even set foot into the art fair, our senses were overwhelmed. We notice people are beginning to look more and more like those guys in The Matrix with shiny suits and wires coming out of their ears. They walk around having conversations with people we can’t see, and they drive like they’re playing a video game, in luxury cars that all look essentially the same, differentiated only by the emblem on the grille.

We spent five hours at the  art fair, trying to absorb as much as we could. I guess I should admit that our primary goal was to check it out as a possible place for our gallery to exhibit work. Of course, it is competetive. This year over 140 galleries from all over the world exhibited their most contemporary work.  (My instinct was not to admit my purpose, since we may not be accepted... but hey, if we don’t get in, we don’t get in).

I suppose the art world in general is greatly influenced by trends. As much as we want to believe that artists are responding to impulses that come from some sacred place deep within, it is probably more often influenced by fashion and the desire to be part of the newest trendy thing. Last year we saw a lot of money (mostly dollar bills) incorporated into the art. This year we saw only one artwork made out of money. It seemed that paintings with a high gloss finish must be in, since we saw a number of paintings with thick, resin coatings. Aluminum seems to be the up and coming material, whether the medium is oil or photography. There were few landscapes.

At lunch, we spoke with a New York gallery owner. He told us that most of the work he shows is not very commercial, that he particularly likes performance art, and his clients are very select, particular people. He seemed unsure about selling work at the art fair. When we told him we had a gallery in Maine, which is essentially regional, he patiently explained that people will buy art while visiting Maine as a reminder of their time there, but would not buy the same thing if they saw it in New York.

I explained that, sure, Maine has its share of galleries selling obvious landscapes as souvenirs, and that much of the art we see in Maine is an organic response to our place. But it also attempts to be universal; about the work itself rather than the place. I also explained that we sell to a lot of people from New York who find our art refreshing and honest compared to what they see in New York. He seemed to accept this and shrugged. “Maybe you will do well,” he said. “It’s a tricky market. Very expensive to have a gallery here.”

By the same token, in all of our looking, I saw nothing that looked  like the work we sell. One could take this as either encouraging, because we have original work, or discouraging, because we might not fit-in.

Vaino Kola, Rock Forms, High Tide, oil/canvas, 52" x 44" 

Somehow, it made me feel good about our work, that it comes from an honest place, rather than trying to distinguish itself through sensationalism, or being the new thing that everyone is talking about.

 
We were there for the first day open to the general public. On the previous evening, guests could pay $100 to take part in a preview, and we saw a few  red dots obviously from that first evening. During  the first hours, we  witnessed a few sales, but not the stampede of customers and the feeding frenzy we’d hoped we might see. The traffic was never terribly dense, and one could go from booth to booth without elbowing for a spot. Most gallerists seemed eager to start the sales process with anyone who lingered. I saw no one waving around wads of cash to get first dibs on anything.

During a coffee break, we overheard someone ask a friend if they’d bought anything yet. “We like to see everything first,” the friend replied. “But by the end of the day we’re seen so much art and we’re too tired to trust  our judgement.” I felt the same way. We saw both ends of the show first, then discovered that the day was nearly over and we had hardly seen the middle. We finished the day by taking a more cursory stroll through the middle booths. It is an  enormous amount of art to process, and by day’s end, I’d had enough, welcoming the inevitable traffic jam on I-95 and the long drive home.


A few things caught my eye, among them:

Martha Winter at London’s Byard Art  Winter is a land artist whose large outdoor constructions have been documented with aerial photography, but has developed a smaller-scale appoach in her studio using natural materials such as pebbles, soil and sand to create geometric pieces that hang  on the wall.

Thomas Allen at Foley Gallery  Allen takes old pulp novels, often with cowboys and blazing six-guns on their covers, cuts the figures from the books and positions them into three-dimensional scenes, which he photographs using a narrow focus, so that the characters seem to pop-out at us.
    

While driving to Ellsworth the other day, we passed a hillside of blueberry bushes that had turned a brilliant red, much like the red in Barbara Southworth’s Blueberries/Granite photograph that so often elicits the “are these colors enhanced” question.

 

I couldn’t resist. I pointed and said “Are those  colors enhanced?”

That’s what I want to show people who ask me that question about any of the photographs. “Just look,” I want to say. “It’s amazing. Enhance? Who needs it? Just look.” Truth though, is stranger than fiction. For some reason, if some people haven’t witnessed it personally, they seem to want to assure themselves that it’s all computer hocus-pocus.

Instead, of course, I say something to the effect that, once you take an image from life, there’s no such thing as not enhancing; it will never be the same as the  original subject. Do they use Photoshop? Yes, but the goal is to create accurate colors, etc, etc...

Admittedly though, our fall colors have been a bit subdued. Of course, we haven’t had much sunshine to really make those colors pop out. Friday night we had our first frost, and since last night the wind and rain have been howling through. I’m guessing there won’t be leaves on the trees much longer.

This degree of foliage color is serious business in a place where people are constantly trying to judge the quality of the economy and life in general by such quantifiable indicators (that everyone lies about) like the lobster catch, the vacancy rate in hotels, and art sales.

We’re still open though, with our neon open sign beckoning, and despite putting out coffee and cookies for bait, we’ve only had a few visitors to the gallery today. This lack of activity has given me time to use my enhancer on a leaf that blew in through the door. On the left is the dreary original. On the right is the way I know it’s supposed to look. In the interest of preserving the local economy, I’m going to head out now and enhance the rest of the leaves.

With our First Annual Holiday Small Works show coming up next month, I've been putting a lot of thought into getting more small or easily affordable pieces into the gallery. It's not as easy as one might think. Established artists balk at creating pieces that don't easily pay the rent. Some people just don't work small, or it just isn't worth their while; after all, each piece of art requires an idea, and that idea gets used-up whether the result is big or small: whether it pays the bills or not. 

Rebecca Daugherty, Shore Trees, oil on paper, 5" x 5" 

To the collector though, small works can be a lot of fun. You don't have to wonder about where it's going to go, and the price is often comparable to a restaurant bill or a night at a hotel. Not only that, but when the season of obligatory gift giving comes around, most of us would rather give or receive something that feels more substantial or significant than this year's version of Billy the singing Bass. And isn't it funny how, when  you get one little piece by an artist, and you live with it for awhile and it just grows and grows on you, that you find yourself wanting another little piece by that artist to keep the first one company. Before you know it, you're a collector.

For this reason, some artists have started taking small pieces more seriously. In a previous blog I mentioned Duane Keiser, who does a daily "postcard painting". For a couple of years he offered them on his website for $100 each, and sold nearly every one. Now he auctions one on ebay every day, and the average price has more than doubled, so he makes a good living from these small pieces alone.

This isn't always welcome news to artists. After all, we've gone to museums to stand in awe of huge works of art, and it seems that, to be taken seriously, artists need to work big. Art students, needing to make an impact, start with a big canvas to ensure that it  gets noticed. This concept is great for the canvas and stretcher bar companies, and perhaps for owners of storage facilities where young artists have set aside their great, unsalable early works. Size might be a likely way to get attention, but some artists are capable of making a big impact in a small space.

Vaino Kola, Roots, etching, 9" x 12" 

Granted, my last blog concerned big, incredible paintings that take months to execute, but it's worth noting that the painter has done plenty of smaller work over the years, which has given him the skill and confidence required to undertake such paintings. As much as I lust after those big paintings, some of my favorite pieces in our personal collection are some of his small etchings.

Of course there's a whole subculture of artists and collectors who focus on miniature art, in which much of the point of the art is that it is small and precious. Different miniature societies impose restrictions on size and scale, and at least part of our sense of wonder is derived from the delicate nature of the work: the tiny brushes, the need for a magnifier to execute certain details.

That's not really what I'm after for our small works show, but I'm open to suggestion. My only guideline is that the work fit easily into average constraints of budget or wall space. I expect we'll have some studies and sketches, some etchings  and other prints, as well as some small maquettes for sculptures. We'll also have fine craft, including pottery, jewelry and turned wood. I will post some of the work here as it arrives in the gallery.

 
Oh, and to those of you who have given me singing fish as gifts: that was just an example. I will cherish those fish forever. 

Late Afternoon, Late August  oil/canvas, 30" x 72"  (private collection)

If you've been in the gallery during the past two seasons, you've noticed the paintings by Vaino Kola. The ones that leave the biggest impression on people tend to be, well... the biggest paintings. I like to hang at least one in a place that is visible from the sidewalk, because it acts as a magnet, drawing the people in, almost subconsciously. They see that image, bigger than any photograph they've seen, and they have to investigate further and find out just what it is. Sometimes it's all they look at. Curiousity satisfied, they leave, telling their friends "it's not a picture- it's a painting".

 Passage oil/canvas, 44" x 54" (private collection)

Of course, when you get close, the realistic quality dissolves into zillions of tiny blobs of paint, intricately applied. In one, each stone on a beach of countless stones is rendered individually. In another, the snow on the branches of a tree is piled on as though flake by flake, so that it feels if you bump the painting the snow might come tumbling onto the floor.

Kola works for months and months on these paintings with little thought to the staggering amount of labor he puts into each one; he works on it until it's done, which is sometimes seven or eight months after he began. This is why it's a big event when he finishes a new one. He recently finished the one above. Unfortunately for his collectors, this one isn't for sale; he'll be saving it for his family. If you happen to be in Michigan, it will be shown next month in an exhibition of his work at Finlandia University.

This one, though, is new to the gallery. We are fortunate to have it.

 Late Afternoon, Late May  oil/canvas 52" x 62" (sold)

Last year we had a show of his work from Deer Isle and Iceland- our only one-person show of the year. Filling the gallery was easy; the difficult part was choosing which paintings. We tried to alternate from Deer Isle to Iceland, so as you walked through the gallery, it became obvious that he appropriates from the landscape, creating his own compositions from a composite of place and imagination.