Life has many goodbyes in it . . .
This leads me to a goodbye of a sort which is happening in my life right now . . .
I have enjoyed six years in the fine company of the artists whose work animates the galleries of Lincoln Street.
I have loved being part of this unique community and I will miss it …
The final gallery I was part of is run by a business and marketing specialist. He generously offered to take on the position of sole proprietor and be responsible for the lease and operations. We all felt his knowledge and expertise would benefit our small group.
Life is funny sometimes . . . we brought in our artwork and he brought in print on demand photographs and commercially made reproductions on various sized “contemporary surfaces”. This is referred to as “merch” in todays marketplace which means something is reproduced as many times and in as many ways (wall art, mugs, t-shirts, pillows, cards, posters etc) as it can be sold. This is the smart business of today, and proved successful. His merchandise is created from his photographs and geared to an ever changing tourist market looking for affordable memories and gifts. This is not my kind of thing or way of thinking about what can be called art or an art gallery.
Years ago I created licensed replicas of my figures for the gift market and for the famous Cirque du Soleil. The experience was a good education for me. Feeling that it made my work accessible to people who could not afford my originals I went into the process excited to reach a larger audience and deliver more pleasure to others. I was also hoping it would provide some stability for my income. In the end the producers desire to make costs less (and therefore sacrifice quality) to add profit soured my experience. My royalty was a very tiny amount based on the cost of goods produced so they also lowered my insignificant earnings and my reputation while adding to profits. Hard stuff for a naive artist to learn and admittedly comes with some personal shame … which in the long run I hope adds something more to my art.
The process of being once again in the midst of all of this has been unnerving, unsettling and un me, and raises a question : is it time to update my surfaces ? ? ?
a little story . . .
The Curious Deep (one of my larger pieces) was set on a table where I was directed to place my work. It sat amongst piles of small composite marble tiles meant to be drink coasters with reproduced photos commercially printed on them.
This strange combination somehow humoured me and I felt it was something for visitors to observe and consider. The tiles in piles priced at ‘buy four and get a deal’ surrounding my original one of a kind piece seemed an interesting conceptual installation. It held a bit of an artistic twist: all those tiles with my original work floating inside them … something to notice? think about?
Perhaps the decision for this display and the contrast was intended to make the mass produced tiles more desirable . . . passive income or passive aggressive . . . and on the opposite side of this perhaps I was hoping to expose something we may not recognize, to demonstrate a level of honesty I feel we are losing as our world becomes more and more digitally reproduced and commercially superficial (and whenever suitable, labelled incorrectly).
I always hope to create a thoughtful art object. Even when subjected to floating among clever merchandise, I attempted to use my ‘creative deep’ to make something to think about …
In the end I was critiqued and dismissed by the owner and have begun a deep questioning of why I choose to do what I do and have done my whole life.
… perhaps this is just my rant as I say goodbye to a lovely unique street filled with friends who believe in making art . . .
and here’s to never regretting a good goodbye . . . .
KATE CHURCH 
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