WALL SPACE: Finding a place for local art.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

By Brigid Mander

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Ten years ago, Michele Walters moved to Jackson Hole from Northern California, intent on making it as a professional artist.  With a painting under each arm, as she tells it, she approached the local galleries, only to be unceremoniously shut down at one after the next.  She looked around for recourse and support, and didn’t see much at all.

Fast forward to 2009, and the local art scene is thriving in an unprecedented way.  Two-year waiting lists of artists vie for the clogged wall space in coffee shops and restaurants, galleries and co-ops have opened that cater almost exclusively to locally produced artwork, local art fairs, and groups of artists host their own successful, one-night joint shows together.

Entities like the Center for the Arts and the Art Association of Jackson Hole have dramatically expanded their presence in the community and its support for local talent through a variety of events. Places like Teton Art Lab and Rocky Vertone’s Full Circle Frameworks, to name a couple, are continually out there pushing the spotlight onto local artwork. 

The number of serious local artists has kept pace with developments to promote local art, and the pressure, although somewhat relieved through recent efforts, is still on at galleries and businesses to support talented community artists.  The fight by local artists for a place in the community and respect for local work has culminated in just that, with resounding success. 

But still, only so many places can cater to this scene.  Unlike art communities in larger and more centrally located towns and cities, there aren’t any other major nearby markets.  There hardly seems to be enough available wall space to contain even a portion of it, and the wall space that does exist is in high demand.  And unfortunately, artists are sometimes automatically discounted by gallery owners precisely because of their ‘local’ branding, which is a tough and discouraging obstacle for Teton County’s most talented.
 
Enter Art Vibe
It is precisely this effect that has inspired the latest in the line of innovative efforts to promote local art. Art Vibe, the brainchild of three local entrepreneurs, plans to launch its Web site and hold its first events this week, less than six months after its conception.

Last winter, friends and Jackson natives David Dahlin, Ben Morley and Arte Huhn decided to start a business that had a high potential to give back to the community at large.  Multiple brainstorming sessions later, held in various valley coffee shops, they realized the answer had been hanging over them the whole time. 

“We kept looking around at the walls, with all this great art, and we realized that there was this huge demand to get local artwork out there,” Dahlin said. “So we started working towards that concept, with the whole goal being to market all this art that is hardly seen, bring revenue to the artists, and make it easier to buy for interested parties.” 

A central Web site where local artwork is displayed by artists will be supplemented by shows at local businesses, such as Elevated Grounds Coffeehouse and Jackson Hole Flower Company.  The trio also plan to implement a leasing program that will allow businesses and homeowners to rent art for a period of time, with the option to buy any of the works on the site.  Critically, they plan to supply insurance for the artwork, and artists will receive some of the lease money when their pieces are chosen in addition to profits from any sales.

It’s not so surprising that an idea such as this would come up in a place like Jackson.  The walls of local businesses have been a great place for lesser-known artists to get a start, and not just here in this corner of Western Wyoming.  In resort destinations from the Hamptons on Long Island to Aspen, Colo. and beyond, art for sale hangs, enticing homeowners and tourists to capture an enduring piece of the local flavor-and just maybe, an-up-and-coming name in the art world.
Artists, in general, are a notoriously low-budget bunch, long and humorously associated with the word “starving,” but when combined with other pursuits like “skier/climber/boater” that multiplies to levels of abject, self-inflicted poverty, not easily understood by the general population. 

The finances of self-exposure are a major obstacle that can discourage local artists from continuously showing work, from galleries that charge a fee for wall space, or the cost of putting up a show without certain returns, all on top of the initial costs in materials and time to create the works in the first place.  

Art Vibe’s founders have made it a central tenet of the business to find a way to make their idea a free service for the artist, with a nominal membership fee for buyers who are interested in the art-leasing program.  

“We wanted to make it free for the artists, so they can keep working on their art and we will take care of the exposure for them,” Dahlin said.

With big plans to create working relationships with as many businesses as possible, Art Vibe wants to position itself as a bridge between the buyer and the artist, much like a gallery but more flexible, a little more hip and up-and- coming than some of the traditional ways of exhibiting art.  

The project plans, in addition to their central Web site, to throw regular, one-night art openings at area businesses such as Elevated Ground Coffeehouse, where involved artists will each be invited to bring one piece to show.

“This is something we all feel passionate about, and we can also feel like we are giving back to the community,” Dahlin said.  

Starting Out
Trio Fine Art Gallery owner and Jackson Hole art scene veteran September Vhay feels that for artists who are just starting out, something like Art Vibe can be a great thing.  Vhay, a well-known local watercolor artist herself, remembers starting out in much the same way as most artists today:  a nerve-wracking first exhibition on the walls of a local coffee shop, Shades Café.  But she does remember how the pressure was reduced by the low-key, encouraging attitude of owner Lisa Miller, who didn’t even care what Vhay’s work looked like. She was just happy to help provide a spot to show it in.

 “There is a lot of support for artists just starting out, you can hang your art in all kinds of places.  All of these shops that support artists that aren’t well known are important for teaching artists to be more professional,” Vhay said.  “They teach you to create a body of work, to meet a deadline – but you can still have fun with it.  It’s a great thing.” 

Executive director of the Art Association Karen Stewart is also glad to see another enterprise that could help take the pressure off existing outlets, with a new way to promote and encourage local artists. 

“We try to accommodate as much local art as we can, but so many artists can’t get their work into the local galleries,” Stewart said. “There is a very real need for something like Art Vibe, and it could potentially benefit a lot of artists.  Any way an artist can get their work out there and get it sold is something we totally support.”  
Most artists who have been in the valley for 10 or more years can agree that there have been major changes in local support. When Vhay first began painting, the Center for the Arts was in a tiny building, and didn’t have much to offer a local artist.

But now, it is completely different.  Although the foundation of support was there, Vhay, like Walters, concedes that such entities were not as helpful in a practical sense to the artist as they are today. 

“To have a community that can get behind something like the Center for the Arts, that tells you something,” Walters said. “ There are a lot of people here who really love the arts.”

Even with these developments, there is still a push for even more structure to promote works.  The massive amounts of tourist traffic, in proportion to those who actually live in the area helps to prevent complete oversaturation, and even in the current, less than vibrant economy, many local artists report relatively brisk sales.
Rachel Kunkle Hartz, a local artist who also works full-time with the National Park Service in the summer and Jackson Hole Ski Patrol in the winters, knows firsthand that even with talent, there is a lot of work that goes in to getting work into the public eye and sold.  

“You have to get a network, for me that has been coffee shops, you have a deadline and you have to get it done,” Kunkle said.  “Even with the Art Association, or places like Teton Art Lab, it takes a lot of work – it is hard here.”

Although Kunkle’s work has seen relative success and her unique style is making her a name despite her full-time jobs, she won’t be giving them up just yet.  
 “We are in an economic crisis right now, and art is an extra,” she said.  “That is why Art Vibe can be especially cool right now.”   

Focusing on local art
Artists like Walters, who, after having exhausted the available options, opened the artists’ co-op Ciao Gallery three years ago, to sell her own art as well as other local works, welcomes the idea, “with open arms,” she said.  “I’m the only one doing this [focusing solely on promoting local art] so far, so anything that helps, I’m all for it.”  
Ciao has worked its way into the town of Jackson after stints in Victor and Wilson. With a stable of about 25 local artists, the gallery tries to represent all genres and styles.

“Tourists love being able to buy local art, and especially during this economy, we have really reasonable prices for original works,” Walters said. 

With close to 600,000 visitors to the Jackson Hole area in July of last year alone, according to the Chamber of Commerce, there is a large pool of potential buyers.  Walters also said she has a series of regular collectors that come to Ciao specifically because they know they can find something different, and they look to local art for that. 

Some of the other traditional galleries have come in and shown a lot of support for Ciao, according to Walters.  The local focus of her gallery helps take the pressure off them as far as people from the community who continually come into other galleries that don’t intend to focus on or want to hang locally created work.   
“There is more than enough room here for all of us, this is a huge artists’ community,” she said.

The new town location for Ciao has proven to be a good move for the gallery.  Their influence is expanding as well, from just hanging art to holding juried monthly shows. Not everyone can pay the $100 monthly fee to be a member in the co-operative, so new ventures like the juried shows and sales are proving to be an excellent method to get even more artists putting their stuff out and at $35 a pop, easier on the starving artist wallet.

As far as free exhibitions, it still doesn’t seem though, that there are enough businesses willing to put up art and be conducive to sales, or local galleries to contain it in this area.

Stacey Cash, co-owner of Elevated Grounds Coffeehouse in the Aspens, wasn’t quite expecting the deluge of artists they received after starting their business about seven months ago.  

“When we opened, we just had some people filtering in, leaving their artist contact info, but now we are booked out until 2011,” Cash said. 

The surge of interest once it became known they were hanging art was overwhelming: “We wanted to hang each artist for six weeks, but now we’ve cut it back to a month,” she said.

Show and Sell
Despite the faltering economy, it seems like much of the art community is ready for Art Vibe, and excited to see what kind of an impact it can make promoting local art in Jackson. 

Abby Paffrath, an artist and teacher who actively works with nonprofits and several local schools sees this as a great opportunity to have work in a professional setting, and to have it displayed in someone’s home. 

“It makes it more real that way,” she said.

Compared to other art communities that Paffrath has lived in, she said Jackson is still the most vibrant.  Whether because of or in spite of the isolation of the valley, she pointed out that more and more local artists are appearing on the scene with abstract art, surrealism and other subject matter that is making this small valley into a veritable hotspot of contemporary art.

A veteran of the coffee shop scene and art fairs put on by the CFA and Art Association, Paffrath now gets a lot of commission work, but like everyone else, is aware that art is a luxury and often one of the first things to get the axe in a tough economy.

In schools, it is also often the first thing to go when budgets get tight, and it is sad to see that, she said.  And while it is getting a little easier to show art around Jackson, it isn’t necessarily easier to sell it. 

And that is why many in the community are going to be watching and participating in the Art Vibe venture with the hope that the art lovers who must have their art, want to support the local community, and get some serious bang for their buck, will know just where to turn from now on.  JHW


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