DoNArTNeWs

This year DoN got to know Dr. Deb Miller of the Da Vinci Art Alliance; Miller is a driving force behind the production of themed art shows for the gallery at the Da Vinci Art Alliance, Smile Gallery, Bartram’s Garden Gallery, the Black Box Gallery @ The Lantern Theater and more.  This year art exhibits included Envisioning Hamlet, Darwin & Carnivorous Plants, Windows on the World, Heroines & Harlots.. collaborations with The Lantern Theater, Bartrams Garden, Smile Gallery & more.  As a result of these concept shows DoN won more awards for art this year than in all previous years of entering shows.  Dr. Deb always takes an extra moment to praise the artist when presenting awards, tells an anecdote about the work, shares tidbits about her life in Andy Warhol’s circle and makes sure all the artists even though they may not win anything, feel special, that it’s worth all the time & effort to produce art.  Twice, Dr. Deb has whispered in DoN’s ear during award ceremonies that she thought he should have won first prize instead of honorable mention - DoN bets Dr. Debbie says that to all the boys.

On the move - Dr. Miller makes sure the audience moves through the gallery and presents awards by the art work instead of from a fixed spot as many other juried shows do.  Her gregarious banter and knowledgeable comments always are educational, informative and frank.

Dr. Deb Miller @ Bartram’s Garden Gallery.

DoN in awe of Dr. Deb’s comments on his “Botanical Print” @ Bartram’s Garden Gallery.  Actually, Dr. Deb always makes sure DoN say a few words about his work and she always gets jurors to speak about their decisions.

Dr. Debra Miller, Liz Niklus, Alden Cole, David Foss & Ona Kalstein @ Da Vinci Art Alliance.  The board at the Da Vinci Art Alliance performs an essential function in the Philly art community, providing a creative outlet, a great social network and a vibrant array of shows, lectures and parties.

Dr. Deb Miller presenting DoN with an award for his digital photograph called, Denmark, for the Envisioning Hamlet Show @ The Black Box Gallery in the Lantern Theater.  DoN recently eves-dropped David Foss and heard there will be continuing collaborations with the Lantern Theater and the International Opera Theater - coolness!

Dr. Debra Miller gives a great lecture about Andy Warhol, here she’s presenting her talk @ The Fleisher Art Memorial.

Philly Art Stars @ the Windows on the World opening @ Smile Gallery.  That’s the back of Liz Niklus‘ head, Dr. Deb, Lilliana Didovic & Betsy Alexander, that was a great show, in fact the three winners are having their show at the gallery next month.

Photographer Jon Naar with Dr. Debra @ Photosynthesis 2008 @ Da Vinci Art Alliance.

Thanks to Dr. Debra Miller and the entire board of the Da Vinci Art Alliance for providing such an outstanding platform for artists to exercise their creative muscles.  DoN can’t wait to see what 2010 has in store at the venerable art alliance.

Bruce Gast @ The Dumpster Divers Gallery on South Street.

Like some alien tribal mask collection, Bruce Gast’s found object constructions tell the story of an art collector from a galaxy far, far away who loves to capture and mount the heads of his trophies from space safaris.  Each piece has a personality from another dimension, tapping into race memory and cell consciousness like some wacko Venus of Willendorf on a moon of Jupiter.

Bruce Gast @ The Dumpster Divers on South Street.

Shoshka, Alden & DoN have had many spirited conversations about how to sell art.  DoN’s background is business-to-business sales and many of the sales techniques don’t translate to the world of art sales which blends from faceless to face-to-face to artist worship.  DoN finds it frustrating that several of the “free art galleries” on South Street have disappeared, is it because of poor sales effort or lack of interest from the public?  DoN thinks it’s a little of both; as a Sales Manager, DoN assigned quotas for selling particular services - is it enough to simply gallery sit and let visitors come & go?  Or should the artist, who already is struggling with identity crises, be responsible for “selling” the work, too?  Suppose the gallery sitter had a sales quota?  Or a lead generation goal?  A little sales training would go a long way:

Sales Stages

The foundations of most modern sales techniques lie in five stages of action. These began in the 1950’s and include:

1. Attention: You have to get the attention of your prospect through some advertising or prospecting method.
2. Interest: Build their interest by using an emotional appeal such as how good they will look to their boss when they make this deal that will save the company thousands of dollars!
3. Desire: Build their desire for your product by showing them its features and letting them sample or test-drive it.
4. Conviction: Increase their desire for your product by statistically proving the worth of your product. Compare it to its competitors. Use testimonials from happy customers.
5. Action: Encourage the prospect to act. This is your closing. Ask for the order. If they object, address their objections. There are then many variations of closing techniques that can help get the business.

There is a plethora of closing techniques that range from hard sell to soft sell and everything in-between. Some of these include:

• A Direct Close - Simply ask for the order when you are sure your prospect is ready.
• A Deal/Concession Close - Using this closing technique gives the prospect the feeling that they are making a smart choice and saving money (or getting more value). Use it with phrases like “Order today and I can add this other module for only 10 percent more.”
• A Time-Driven Close - This one works well with statements like, “prices are going up next week, so you should go ahead a let me place your order today.”
• Trial Offer - You can let the prospect use the product at no risk for a trial period. This works well if you’re selling products that make people’s lives easier. They aren’t likely to want to give it back if it has saved them a lot of time and effort during the trial period. On the other hand, if they haven’t had the experience with the product you told them they would then you probably won’t get another chance

Many of these sales techniques found at HowStuffWorks.com translate to selling art, if one can change the sales-persons emotional connection to the art into a quantifiable commodity that can be expressed to potential buyers then maybe more art would sell and sustain art businesses.

DoN currently has 25 photographs that are for sale in several venues in the Philadelphia area.  This weekend (12/27/09) is the closing of the Da Vinci Art Alliance’s Under $200.00 show; DoN created three new images for the show which are priced under $130.00, to encourage sales, DoN is offering any one of the three framed prints for $95.00, the gallery receives a 15% commission

DoN Brewer, Urban Glyph, digital photograph, inkjet print @ DaVinci Art Alliance, Winter 2009.

DoN Brewer, Red Zone, digital photograph, inkjet print   This is one of DoN’s favorites, the framed print has a silver liner mat which works great with the chrome of the image.

DoN Brewer, Autumn, digital photograph, framed inkjet print, 16×20″ available @ Da Vinci Art Alliance’s Under $200.00 show.

DoN Brewer, Urban Glyph & Red Zone, digital photographs, inkjet print, 16 x 20″, framed @ Da Vinci Art Alliance Under $200.00 Show - special end of show reduced sale price $95.00!  The gallery gets a 15% commission.

Da Vinci Art Alliance

Urban Glyph $95.00 Red Zone $95.00 Autumn $95.00

The November issue of Philadelphia Magazine had an article called “Five Artists Who Will Make You Rich” by curator extraordinaire Eileen Tognini.  What a task?  DoN is familiar with four of the five artists the esteemed curator gleaned and couldn’t agree more but it made him wonder who he might choose if he could only pick five.

Karl Olsen with model/artist Arthur Ostroff @ the MCGOPA show last Fall.  Olsen is driven to achieve a level of technique, style, originality that is fiercely determined, tenacious yet warmly accessible - everyone loves impressionism but Olsen’s squishy brushwork has a darker undercurrent of emotion like a 21st Century Otto Dix, Olsen exposes the hurt, apprehension & fear of life during war-time preserving a moment of great change in our history.  Photo courtesy of Karl Olsen.

Brooke Hine was one of Tognini’s picks to make you rich.  DoN finds that just spending time with Brooke makes him feel richer; Hine is warm, empathic, vivacious, sharing, curious and extraordinarily creative - some of her ceramic sculpture incorporate cat whiskers, so poetic.  Her ancient/future ceramic concoctions ooze a dystopian narrative of archeological digs in our own future world or some inter-planetary find by an ancient space visitor.  Bones, spines, claws, spikes, hairs, curves and swirls all meld into interchangeable narratives - spooky yet fun.

Bob Jackson’s ball point pen figure studies on typing paper are like finding the perfect seashell on the beach or a crystal you want to keep while rock-hounding or that great antique find at a Paris flea market.  Jackson’s drawings are expressive and technically precise yet his use of lowly materials raises up ordinary paper to a higher plain because of the lines of ink Bob streams across the page with abandon, lyricism and grace.  Jackson is President of the Plastic Club where you can buy his drawings for around 20 bucks.

Karen McDonnell & Tony Cortosi collaborate on each of their hand-drawn, hand-cut stencil spray-paint paintings skewering modern icons, historic figures and art world figure-heads with equal levels or irony, respect, sarcasm, awe and cultural awareness from punk, pop & hip-hop to Shakespeare to Foxy Brown.  Their mash-ups are a comment on our time bringing a skate-punk anarchistic rock mentality to the gallery setting without giving up on street-cred integrity.

Eileen Tognini picked Rachel Constantine because she personifies the quintessential PAFA school of atmospheric realism presenting realistic, emotionally charged, technically accomplished paintings and deservedly so, Rachel’s work is absolute perfection.  But, DoN would include Paul DuSold in his time capsule of 21st Century art investment; DuSold’s paintings are ripe with vivid life brought into the realm of the sublime.  A simple wrapped loaf conveys a story deep with realness, a flower lives only for the moment before fading to obscurity, the portrait a glimpse into a model’s inner thoughts or the patron’s aspirations - Paul DuSold is a modern painter working with techniques passed down through the ages.

Alan J. Klawans, Rope and DoN Brewer, View from Finger Span Bridge @ Philadelphia Society of Photography exhibit and sale in Bonte’s Cafe, 9th & Walnut.  It’s really cool when the photographers descend on Bonte’s at 6:00 PM on a Friday night and switch out the photos in the ongoing exhibit, the vibe is so interesting since photographers come from all walks of life, photography is a very democratic art form.  But, the work that the Society shows is always above par, adventurous, experimental, thoughtful and professional.

DoN Brewer Photography

View from Finger Span Bridge

Ed Snyder, Lost at Sea.  Snyder’s Angels always offer hope, inspiration and introspection, the stone icons emote messages that will take eons to expire.

 Amy E. McCormick, Will the Hard Way and John Wernega, Adorned in Gold.

Eileen Eckstein, Coachem Castle Window and Mina Smith-Segal, Rollerbladers @ PSoP in Bonte’s 9th & Walnut.  Eileen is the Society President and Mina leads a drawing workshop @ The Philadelphia Sketch Club.

Morris Klein is the Vice President of The Photographic Society of Philadelphia managing the ongoing exhibit of member works in bi-monthly rotation as well as overseeing the one-person shows at Bonte’s on 17th Street.  Morris’ photographs are often dreamy and languid like an impressionist painting as in this view of the city from the Schuykill River.

Eileen Eckstein, Balloons, photograph, DoN Brewer, light being (Mama Cass), photograph, Laura Pritchard, Portrait, mixed media, Dorothy Roschen, Red, White and Green, relief tiles and Alan Klawans, Milan, archival pigment print @ The Plastic Club’s Red, White and Green exhibit.

DoN Brewer Photography

light being (Mama Cass) $150.00 light being (Kurt Cobain) $150.00

Michael Guinn, 12th Street Still Life, oil.

3rd Honorable Mention Lois Schlachter, My Brother’s Keeper, acrylic, Alden Cole, Good Vibrations, mixed media and Honorable Mention Morris Klein, Love Park, photograph.  Juror Rich Harrington has a great eye and excellent taste considering that the theme was ambiguous in that the three title colors had to be used but not exclusively; Harrington chose works who fully met the criteria such as Dorothy Roschen’s wall sculpture in blatant red, white and green squares for 2nd prize and Peter Petraglia’s trippy undersea fantasy in a subtle palette for First Prize to Lois Schlachter’s wildly imaginative abstraction with what seems like millions of colors.

Tracy Landman, Reflections on Stewart, oil, Patricia Wilson-Schmid, Catching the Light, and Lucy Roehm, Radish Trio, color pencil @ The Plastic Club’s Red White & Green exhibit.

The theme is Red, White & Green which one would think should conjure Holiday Cheer but @ The Plastic Club the art is edgy, sarcastic, goth, even scary like Hunter Thompson meets Charles Addams meets Salvador Dali.  Some of the work is literal and literate like Roehm’s Radish Trio and some is out and out transcendental like Jake Smith’s Merry Fish Mess.  Above: Anders Hansen, Shiva, ink, graphite & charcoal, First Prize Peter Petraglia, Tubulars, pen & ink, Marie Davis Samohod, Funerary Portrait, mixed media and Karen Frank, Totem and Taboo, Acrylic.

DoN is honored to be exhibited along with such wonderful artists as those in the Plastic Club, their shows are always challenging, pushing the envelop, breaking rules yet there’s no stress, the only expectation is making art.  And when the art is all hanging together it feels really good to be an artist rubbing shoulders with some of the best in town.  A cool thing about writing this blog is that when DoN took the photos he didn’t know that he was shooting the work of some of his best friends, the Plastic Club uses a number system for labeling, it’s kind of like doing your own blind jury-ing and then finding out you picked only your friends such as Lois, Pat, Mike, Alan, Alden, Eileen, Dorothy, Morris, Anders…

Jake Smith, Merry Fish Mess, acrylic and Theodore J. Amick, Untitled, oil.

Merry Fish Mess, everybody!

Crocheted abstractions from Rachel Udell @ The Various & Sundry Group Exhibit in the Skybox Gallery, 2424 York Street.

Hana Cho, photography @ The Skybox.

The group show at the Skybox had a carnival air as 50 artists and their friends mingled in the huge space called the Skybox Gallery, part of a new artist studio complex at 2424 York Street.  Some of the work was a bit on the creepy/grotesque side with nods to horror flicks, HR Giger and Manga but a lot of the work by the young artists was thoughtful and hopeful.

As the 2424 website states, “Located in Fishtown at the corner of York and Gaul streets, right off of I-95, and convenient to public transportation, 2424 Studios consists of over 100 work studios and/or office suites that range from 350 to over 6,000 square feet. The rents start at $399 per month and units are now available! Also located within 2424 Studios is the “Skybox,” an unparalleled and climate controlled event space of over 6,200 feet that is for tenants’ use, for community use and for rent to the public. 2424 Studios is now open to the public so please feel free to come by any time to take a look. If you are interested in leasing options, please contact Jessica at 215-284-8804.

It’s interesting how the arts community moves into neighborhoods, transforming them into desirable destinations to visit and live; it’s almost become cliche to take a downtrodden district like Fishtown and restore the area to a creative, affordable, vibrant place to live and work.  2424 York Street is anchoring new development, drawing a younger crowd and offering affordable studio/office space for artists as they get pushed out of neighborhoods they helped to revive - think Manyunk, Old City, South Street, Northern Liberties even Walnut Street used to be lined with galleries.  The neighborhood where 2424 York Street is situated also has other art galleries such as High Wireand Proximity, it’s definitely worth the trip to Fishtown to check out the fringe of the Philadelphia art scene.

Bob Makoid @ Nouns: people places things

In November, the Da Vinci Art Alliance hosted a group show called  NOUNS: people places things, including the work of 6 artists - black and white photography by Carolyn Harper Cohen, watercolors by Diane Lachman, acrylics by Sandi Neiman Lovitz, pastels by Bob Makoid, photography by Ligia Richter and pastels by Liora Seltzer. The exhibit, curated by Bobbie Adams, member of Da Vinci Art Alliance, is organized by Linda Dubin Garfield, president of smART business consulting and member of Da Vinci Art Alliance.

DoN only saw the show on the closing day - time flies! - but the show is memorable still for the variety and quality of art which Bobbie Adams gathered together, creating groupings of each artist so that the art work really shined.  DoN could tell Bob (who was gallery sitting) was happy with the show even though artists (like DoN) were delivering work for the next/current show.

Bob Makoid, pastel @ Da Vinci Art Alliance

DoN recognized Bob from the evening drawing workshops at the Plastic Club, it was a nice surprise to get to spend some face time with him in the gallery @ Da Vinci Art Alliance where he exhibited several pastels in a group show.  Makoid’s loose style captures the vacation vibe of a lakeside cabin, the sunny aura of a palm tree or the scale of a high mountain cliff in clear color, simple shapes and spare composition - less is more and more color is better.

Pastels by Bob Makoid @ Da Vinci Art Alliance’s Nouns: people places things.

Bob Makoid @ Da Vinci Art Alliance.

Alden Cole @ Galleria Deptford - Deptford Municipal Building, 1011 Cooper Street, Woodbury NJ.

While Alden installed his fantastical display of luminaries he was constantly stopped by the flow of visitors to the lobby of the Deptford Municipal Building, everyone wants to know what they are or they have a story about one of the components or their grandmother had a lamp just like that.  Cole takes memories, shakes them up in his mind, recombining the pieces into objects with the logic of dreams; people are drawn to the glowing objects, filled with little stories, overflowing with light and love.  And people are drawn towards him to find out how he figures this out and if he wants their grandmothers old lamps or why didn’t they think of that?  Alden has a story for each luminary and a moment for each admirer.

Stars Stairway, in Alden Cole’s gallery/studio in South Philly.

Starlings Under Glass #4, oil on glass, Alden Cole @ The Plastic Club, Red White & Green Show.

Memento Mori #1, marker, Alden Cole @ Conscious World of Art.  Alden is influenced by Nicholas Roerich and Mati Klarwein - Roerich was the first artist to win a Nobel Peace Prize and Klarwein created the famous Santana album cover.  Alden Cole’s art brings people together, his art works the room like a good conversation, creating a buzz, upping the voltage with voodoo god-heads & peaceful warriors.  Alden’s Starlings series taps into a deeply seated symbol pattern recognition with his sprightly characters playing out human emotions and exhibitionism in a playful accessible way.  James Warhola just acquired one of Alden Cole’s pieces at the Da Vinci Art Alliance’s current show.

Starlings #2 & Delicious, shown here @ The Plastic Club, now available @ Dumpster Divers Gallery, 734 South Street.  Don’t worry, be happy.  Alden Cole currently has work available at the Deptford Municipal Building Galleria Deptford (psst…really great prices, big selection), The Plastic Club’s Red, White & Green show, the Da Vinci Art Alliance Under $200, SOTA on Pine Street, Home & Planet in Bethlehem, the Dumpster Divers Gallery on South Street and @ The Conscious World Art of Alden Cole Gallery/Museum.

DoN LoVeS this photo with Alden Cole’s Light Beings and DoN’s “light being (Rick Selvin)” @ Galleria Deptford.