SANDY GARNETT ART BLOG

I spent the weekend in South Norwalk, CT, showing at the Sono Arts Celebrations, an art fair in the backyard of my Connecticut studio.  I roll my box of paintings over with a tent, set it up and do the weekend.  This is the only art fair I have ever done as I mainly sell through word of mouth, my collector base and galleries.  The format is interesting and reminds me of the grind that all artists must walk on coals to make a go at art in life.  A lot of my neighbors at this function do the circuit, fifteen or so shows a year, selling their work on the road.  This is a thrilling but as usual merciless path for painters and craftsmen.  The best in this arena have one strong theme and pick up their collectors along the way like all artists, although the traveling art fair seems more brutal than showing in galleries with pristine environments, strong stables of artists and collectors alike, the matchmaking magic that makes the best galleries impenetrable to a certain extent.  As a self-represented artist with regional collectors I had fun saying hello to my people and making some new collector relationships, and the commute was a five minute roll of one box to my location.  I’m a fool not to participate.

It is here in the broad daylight of raw retail regalia that I contemplate relationships with galleries in New York City.  I have always represented my work and there are advantages to this methodology, although a strong dealer paired with one’s art often can take the art to another place in the market.  There are examples of self-represented artists reaching the pinnacle of their profession, but these are far and few between.  I have supported myself, bought two spaces to work and live out of, I have a studio in the city, but I remain a regional interest in the art game for this reason above all else I suspect.  So I try New York City now that I own, when it is time.  Wherever I go I make new friends, collectors and business relationships, so perhaps this is the logical conclusion I ought to act on after having sorted this out years ago.  Now I finally own property, which makes the transition very much easier.

I am crating and shipping a series of ten paintings, my largest sale.  This has preoccupied me for a week.  Next week I continue on the task and go away for a week after that.  More on the sale later.

I enjoyed the Pepsico Sculpture Garden in Purchase, New York today after visiting the Neuberger Museum at SUNY Purchase, right across the street.  The SUNY Purchase campus is terribly drab and depressing, war like, a place to contain humans.  They have some nice works and the visit is short and sweet.  Group shows in numerous genres are tricky to navigate.  There is a nice Rothko there, and Rothko never wanted his work shown with the works of others.  The problem with pluralism in our era of Reconstruction is that styles don’t often visually mix and match.  It is difficult to walk through a group show and absorb the intensity of every artist when genre hopping with one’s eyes.  I do this in my career but this is different from viewing a group of fifty or a hundred artists.

The Donald Kendall Sculpture Garden is free, friendly, and successful in many ways.  There is a map with a clear path around the Pepsico headquarters building, which is interesting although slightly dated.  Much of the sculpture however is intriguing and timeless, the design of the park flows, the landscape architecture takes the visitor through a myriad of vegetation and flowers, there are beautifully designed pools and the experience was excellent.

I just sold a series of ten paintings to a private collection.  This is unprecedented in my career.  There will be more on this later.

I just completed this new Fingerprint Portrait painting for my collectors.  These are the grandchildren of the gentleman who will be honored soon with this painting.

 

I made a slideshow of half the paintings in my art inventory which I should have done years ago.  This slideshow represents 130 of my 240 paintings in inventory.

Yesterday I built some slideshows for my website www.sandygarnett.com.

I’m working with iphoto, quicktime and quicktime pro.  I need to keep playing with slideshows to make them  a bit larger, modify sound, make a quicktime tool bar so my visitors can pause or play again.  The contact section for example has a slideshow of pr shots which represent some of the important passages of my career.  This is also a perfect format for my song sketches, which never otherwise see the light of day.  I enjoy writing songs and here I can post them with slide shows when I want.

I just picked up web design and suddenly realize that my website is the very best portal into my world for anyone sitting on a couch halfway round the world.  As a one man show I do what I can as fast as possible.  First I had to learn to paint, find collectors, build a studio, buy 2 studios and now I work on reaching more people with my art.

Here is the portrait of Ben I painted several years ago for Elizabeth.  Now on to Nicholas.  He’s always in motion so this is important, he’s one of three and the paintings will hang together, and he has a big smile that best represents him as opposed to Ben’s sweet pensive vibe below.

 

I was commissioned by my friend Elizabeth to paint her second son Nicholas.  I painted her grandmother in 1996 and I’ll post Ben tomorrow.  Elizabeth and her husband Pete are great friends and big supporters of my world.

 

reconstructed man in field