I live in Dutchess County, New York, a rural area about 90 miles north of New York City. The downturn in the economy has forced gallery owners around here to let artists go and impose a moratorium on accepting new artists. It seems that in troubled financial times, art is a luxury expense and people are more hesitant to buy. I have a finished collection ready to show, but have decided to put it off till 2009 when things will hopefully be more favorable.
I just had a solo show at GoNorth Gallery in Beacon, NY in February. I showed twenty seven pinhole photography images and did not sell a print. It is important to just do the show and have work out there. But the show cost about $1000.00 and I did not get anything back. The gallery director said that he thought that it was the economy also. The gallery has a web page so you can see a small sample of the gallery in "past shows" and the "album": http://www.gonorthgallery.com
-------------------------------------------------------------- Dan McCormack - Pinhole Camera photographer
Wow, that's disheartening. The work is lovely, too. I checked it out on their site. I shouldn't mix politics with art, but I'm hoping that a change in November might help us artist types. Molly
Why not mix Politics and Art? If you subscribe to what Shelley once said that Poets are UNACKNOWLEDGED legislators of the world it would follow that people in a forum on "The Butt" should take it as an obligation, if not a duty, to point out the failings of our elected officials.
IMHO, our best chances to improve ourselves and the commonweal come from those moments when we consciously strive to sort out the facts from the propaganda. Let's keep the dialogue going and try to do something constructive in the form of well reasoned opinions, instead of doing nothing and hoping for the best.
I used to travel to Poughkeepsie on business (before moving to Tennessee to do photography fulltime) and had great fun taking images in Dutchess County.The Morse and Vanderbilt mansion grounds both provided for some great photographic opportunities.
I haven’t seen the economy impact my sales – however the economic slowdown is not nationwide and some areas are still doing very well.In addition, I have done a number of things to increase options for sales such as creating multiple price points by offering images on tiles, framed and non-framed etc.I have also been contacting galleries up to 250 miles away if I think they would be a fit for my work.Jack White’s series of books also have great ideas on how to deal with the ups and downs of the economy.
The restaurant parking lots are still packed in my area.Therefore, I guess the trick is to get them to spend their disposable income on art instead of food, ha ha.
