by Jeaane Beck
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Reprinted with permission from Owl Light News | Copyright 2018

  ​   To some people, the words “collector” or “art collection” seem like they describe those with great wealth who pay thousands and thousands of dollars to purchase art. But that’s much like thinking everyone who enjoys a game of basketball at the YMCA is an NBA player.

   Anyone can develop an interest in and appreciation for original works and start to build a collection slowly, over time.

​ Lauren Behelfer is definitely one who fits that category. A third generation jeweler in the family-owned Crown Jewelers in Downtown Canandaigua, Lauren works daily with color and design. In addition, she has always appreciated the visual arts, from the art classes she took in high school to her ongoing interest in photography.

   About 15 years ago she visited the Waterfront Art Festival, where she purchased a lithograph print. Lauren says. “It was a framed, signed and numbered print of a tree and I love trees.”

   However, with a busy life and career, Lauren didn’t purchase any other art works for a long time. “I’m not a person who goes to galleries or art openings,” Lauren explains.

   Then three years ago Crown Jewelers displayed works by one of the participating artist competitors in Canandaigua’s Plein Arts Competition & Festival. When she went to that first Preview Party & Awards Ceremony, she fell in love with a painting by Elena Babak. The artist had painted a scene of cows in a pasture with the sun rising behind them.  “The light and the scene spoke to me.  Plus I loved how the parts looked a little blurry close up but when you backed away the images truly started to look realistic.”

   Lauren returned to the festival for the second time last year. She decided she would only purchase a painting if it truly felt special to her.  And sure enough, a painting by Beth Bathe of a “creepy old house” in Naples, reputed to be haunted, captured her imagination. She bought it immediately. “I only buy when something really moves me and I am certain I will want to look at it for a long period of time.”

   This year, Lauren returned a third time to the 7th Annual Plein Air Festival Preview Party & Awards ceremony. Waiting in the long buffet line, she had the opportunity to chat with two artists. She talked to them about how the competition went for them this year as well as about the scenes they chose to paint.

   One of the artists was Yung Hong Zong, a watercolorist from Portland, Oregon. This was his third year attending the Plein Arts Competition & Festival.  She loved his painting of Grimes Glen and found out during their conversation that he had wanted to paint the scene the prior year, but ran out of time. This year he made sure he went to the creek early enough in the week to complete the painting. Lauren bought it right away.

   Lauren enjoys talking with artists before she makes a purchase.  Three years in a row the artists have told her the paintings she has felt most drawn to are their favorites as well.  She acts quickly when she sees one that feels special to her. She saw people walking around the festival display making notes in their catalogues but she took the “he who hesitates, loses” approach and made her decisions quickly.

   She will go to next year’s Plein Air Festival again. “These artists have such amazing talent. I may not call myself a collector, but I do appreciate beauty.”

   Even though Lauren doesn’t spend all her time searching out art works to purchase, she is building a growing collection of original art works that are meaningful to her. It gives her great happiness to look at them.  “I can see and enjoy all three every night because they’re all in my living room.”

   Even if Lauren never decides to consider herself a collector, she is purchasing original works of art, supporting the work and creativity of others – and filling that need we all have inside for beauty.

​ Jeanne Beck is a mixed media artist and owner of Jeanne Beck Art Gallery & Studio, 154 Mill St., Canandaigua, NY. The gallery features periodic regional guest artists, classes and workshops as well as original works. Open Wed 12-4:30, Thurs-Sat., 10-4:30. 585-704-6419.

   Rochester Art Collectors and the Memorial Art Gallery collaborated for several months on a program that took place last night at the MAG: "Lure Of The Local."  ​ The panel discussed the local/regional art market; characteristics and trends found in our area; and the resources available to collectors interested in buying art made in and around Rochester. 

​   Panelists included: Roslyn Baskt Goldman, a longstanding art adviser and art appraiser; Jessica Marten, Curator in Charge/Curator of American Art at the Memorial Art Gallery; Alex Gruttadaro, owner of Makers Gallery and working artist; and Rome Celli, representing Rochester Art Collectors. This was the second presentation in The Collecting Series at the Memorial Art Gallery. 

​by Jeaane Beck
​
Reprinted with permission from Owl Light News | Copyright 2018

   ​​No matter how small or large your income is, you can become an art collector!

   Many art collectors say their first purchase happened almost without thought or planning.  They just saw a work they loved and bought it. Their pleasure in that piece led them to explore and add another piece…and then another one.

   Make it a goal to pick a work you love this month and find out all you can about the processes and medium the artist uses – and perhaps other artists working in a similar medium. If possible, purchase one piece by that artist, bring it home and place it somewhere you can see it and engage with it every day.

   Try getting to know more about an artist you really like. Visit their websites online to see their other works and artist statements.  You might even consider contacting them and setting up an appointment for a studio visit. You will enjoy it and learn so much; most regional artists are interesting and approachable people.

   ​This week I bought a new artwork called “Out with the Old,” by printmaker Pat Bacon. I was drawn to her images the minute I walked in the door of Main Street Arts in Clifton Springs on Saturday. The gallery director, Bradley Butler, was extremely helpful, explaining the photogravure process the artist uses to make her prints. The work I loved best was already sold, but Bradley showed me other pieces there just weren’t room for in the main gallery show.  I bought it and was able to bring it home the same day!

   Jeanne Beck is a mixed media artist and owner of Jeanne Beck Art Gallery & Studio, 154 Mill St., Canandaigua, NY. The gallery features periodic regional guest artists, classes and workshops as well as original works. Open Wed 12-4:30, Thurs-Sat., 10-4:30. 585-704-6419.

   Rochester Art Collectors is pleased to team up with The Print Club of Rochester and the Bevier Gallery at RIT for a fun event around prints and printmaking all in the context of the Print Club's annual juried exhibition, The presentation is titled: "A Primer On Printmaking: Understanding & Collecting Fine Art Prints"

   This presentation is ideal for someone who wants to learn the basics of printmaking from a collector's point of view and wants to see a wide ranging exhibition of fine art prints as well.

​   Location: Bevier Gallery
   James E. Booth Hall 7A
   73 Lomb Memorial Drive
   Rochester, New York, 14623
   Visitor parking available in lots E and F (Map below.)

   6:00pm until 6:30pm - Fun Social Mixer! Hang out in the wonderful Bevier Gallery at RIT. Take in The Print Club of Rochester's annual juried exhibition of fine art prints made by artists from around the region and around the world: "Political Impressions."  Work in this show will be for sale. Details about the show are below.

   6:30pm until 7:30pm - Here's what you will learn from the presentation:

• A listing and description of the various types of printmaking processes
• A descrtption of how prints are made using the various techniques
• Tips and tricks when buying/collecting prints

   Presenters:  Elizabeth Durand and Barb McPhail

   This event is free and open to the public.  There will be a special reserved seating section for those members of Rochester Art Collectors and The Print Club of Rochester who register for this event in advance.

                          CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT AT THIS PRESENTATION

   Looking to printmaking’s long history as a vehicle for contentious dialog, Political Impressions will add another chapter in the tradition of artists such as William Hogarth, Thomas Nast, and Jean-Jacques Grandville who taught us ways to say what could not be said. This juried exhibition invites participants to examine current social and political issues through the use of symbolism and satire, wit and whimsy while avoiding anything too “on the nose.” Open to all printmaking methods and political persuasions this exhibition will be a diverse, playful, and thought-provoking experience of laughing through the tears in our turbulent world.

   Juror: Miranda K. Metcalf is the Director of Contemporary Prints and Drawings at Davidson Galleries in Seattle, WA. Davidson Galleries maintains the largest inventory of fine, original prints in the Northwest. In addition to holding of nearly 20,000 prints and works on paper ranging from the 15th to the 21st century, they hang new exhibits every month.

   Awards: Best in Show: $300, 2 Jurors Choice Awards: $100

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Thank yous...

​   Thanks to our presenters! Thanks as well to the Gallery Coordinator, Shane Durgee, and the staff at the Bevier Gallery. And, of course, thanks to the board of Directors of The Rochester Print Club and, in particular, Melissa Huang, who was the Rochester Print Club liaison with Rochester Art Collectors.

​   I came across this catalog while visiting with my friend, Warren Phillips, recently. Warren is a deeply knowledgeable person on topics related to local art. He's a talker and when he talks I listen and I learn. When he handed the catalog to me he told me he had seen the exhibition and considered it the single most important factor in becoming a collector. Naturally, I was piqued. "1980. I don't recall this show. Where the hell was I?" I asked myself out loud. I was in college at the time and missed the show.  To be honest, I'm not sure the 19 year old me would have appreciated the show or even visited. It wasn't until after college that I developed a greater appreciation for the arts. As soon as I picked up the dogeared third or fourth generation photocopy of the catalog I knew I had to take it home for a close reading. Once I had read it I knew I had to share it with you.

   It was the greatest survey of influential Rochester artists ever presented to the public or so they intended. None have dared attempt a similar effort since. The exhibit would probably never have been imagined were it not for a local collector, Bruce W. Chambers. Approximately one quarter of the works on exhibit came from private collections. The remarkable size & scope of the exhibition would not have been possible without including work on loan from private individuals thereby demonstrating the essential role local art collectors play in preserving Rochester's story.

   Sometime in 1976 Chambers and a small band of collectors (referred to as "lenders" in the catalog) began plotting and planning with staff at the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG) to mount a massive retrospective featuring a survey of "important" Rochester artists from the period 1880 through 1950. It took them nearly four years to pull it all together. The exhibition opened on August 1, 1980 and ran for approximately seven weeks until September 21st.

​   Brett Waller was Director of the MAG at the time of the exhibition. He described himself as "a newcomer" in his Foreword to the catalog and conceded "...no survey can hope to be complete or definitive..." He goes on later in the paragraph, "...Rochester long has been a city where art and artists have flourished." Flourished indeed.

​   Volunteers Gertrude Herdle Moore and Isabel C. Herdle had the monumental task of organizing the exhibition and co-writing the catalog's Introduction (which was a treat to read for this local art collector). They were identified as "Director Emeritus" and "Curator Emeritus" respectively having left the gallery before the exhibition was organized. There are sections, like the one in Waller's Foreword describing the Herdle family's many decades of contributions to the MAG, that remind one of passages from a Henry James' novel. This was clearly a effort that drew deeply from Rochester's arts and cultural society from that period.

​   Of the thirty-eight artists and more than 124 works that were exhibited in the show approximately twenty-five pieces were created by fewer than ten women.

The exhibition included (in alphabetical order)::

1. Ralph Avery (1906-1976)
2. Claude Bragdon (1866-1946)
3. Charles Llivingston Bull (1874-1932)
4. Alling Clements (1891-1957)
5. Colin Campbell Cooper (1856-1937)
6. Emma Lampert Cooper (1860-1920)
7. Kathleen McEnery Cunningham (1885-1971)
8. Rev. James Hogarth Dennis (1839-1914)
9. Rufus Dryer (1880-1937)
10. William Ehrich (1897-1960)
11. Harvey Ellis (1852-1904)
12. Douglas Gorsline (1913-????)*
13. Charles P. Gruppe (1860-1950)
14. E. Landseer Harris (????-1901)
15. George M> Haushalter (1862-1943)
16. James D. Havens (1900-1960)
17. George Herdle (1868-1922)
18. Milton W. Holm (1903-????)*
19. Whitney F. Hoyt (1910-1980)
20. John J. Ingilis (1867-1946)
21. Seth C. Jones (1853-1929)
22. Ada Howe Kent (1858-1942)
23. Winifred Lansing (1911-????)*
24. Robert Lee MacCameron (1866-1912)
25. Roy Mason (1886-1972)
26. John Menihan (1908-????)*
27. J. Guernsey Mitchell (1854-1921)
28. Cathal O'Toole (1904-????)*
29. Carol W. Peters (15897-1980)
30. Ella E. See (????-1926)
31. Edward Siebert (1856-1944)
32. James Somerville (1849-1905)
33. M. Louise Stowell (1861-1930)
34. Fritz Trautman (1882-1971)
35. Clifford Ulp (1885-1958)
36. Horatio Walker (1858-1938)
37. John C. Wenrich (1894-1970)
38. Blanca Will (1881-1977)
39. Zoute (a.k.a, Leon Salter) (1903-1976)

   Below each artist's name in the catalog is a descriptive paragraph that comprises a sort of distilled curriculum vitae for each artist justifying their inclusion. As you would expect, each entry is also accompanied by a listing of works by that artist and the source of the work. Most of the work is credited to the MAG's own collection with a fair number of pieces on loan from what was then known as the "Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum." The Rochester Historical Society also contributed a number of pieces.

   If I have any luck, Part II of this series will include  information about the local collectors who helped organize the show as well as those who contributed work to the exhibition. I'm also hoping for some first hand accounts. I believe there are a number of people I can contact who were either close at hand to the exhibition (maybe they worked on it?) or who visited the exhibition.  I know of one source who credits this exhibition with becoming an avid collector: my friend, Warren.

   I hope you have as much fun pouring over the catalog it as I did!

*This artist was alive at the time of the show. I assume all have died over the intervening 38 years. I hope to identify the date of their passing in a future post.

   Rochester Art Collectors will collaborate with Rochester Brainery on an series of five public presentations aimed at encouraging new collectors of local art. The series will be titled: "Living With Art". Each talk will focus on a different aspect of buying art created by local artists.

   The presentations will be scheduled on a bi-monthly basis on Fridays beginning on March 2nd from 6:00 pm until 7:00 pm and coordinated with the Rochester Brainery's First Fridays activities.  Future dates will be May 4th, July 6th, September 7th and November 2nd.  Rome Celli from Rochester Art Collectors invite a special guest collector/artist to co-present each topic. The $5.00/pp suggested donation for this presentation will be used to support art exhibitions at the Rochester Brainery.
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   Here's what we know so far about the presentation on March 2nd:

   A friend of Rochester Art Collectors  has agreed to underwrite up to 10 tickets to the first presentation. The first ten people who sign up using the link below or who sign up for the event on eventbrite.com will get in free!

                CLICK HERE TO CLAIM A FREE TICKET TO THE PRESENTATION ON MARCH 2, 2018

   ​There's a big difference between buying art and collecting art. Buying art is more of a random activity based on likes, preferences or attractions at any given moment, while collecting art is more of a purposeful directed longterm commitment. In both cases, you buy what you like, but if your goal is to collect art and do it right, you have to master two additional skills. The first is being able to effectively research, evaluate and decide whether or not to buy whatever works of art attract you. The second is being able to choose each individual work in such a way as to form a meaningful grouping aka a collection.

   If you're like most people, you know how to buy art on a piece-by-piece basis, but may not be all that accomplished at formulating a plan for making multiple acquisitions over time, or in other words, building a collection. You can find art you like just about anywhere you look and in a seemingly endless array of subject matters, mediums and price ranges, but sifting through it all in a systematic manner can be overwhelming and even intimidating. So how do decide where to focus and what direction to go in? How do you relate one purchase to the next? How do you organize or group your art together in ways that make sense? How do you present it? And most importantly, how do you do all these things well? This is what collecting is all about; it's the ultimate case of controlled purposeful buying.

   What makes a great collector great is his or her ability to separate out specific works of art from the scrillions of pieces already in existence and assemble them in such a way as to increase or advance our understanding of that art in particular or of the history and evolution of art in general. In any mature collection, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts, the collector comes to be accepted as a respected authority and in exceptional cases, goes on to set the standards, determine tastes, trends and influence the future of collecting for all.

   Regarding the art that does make it into your collection, most novice collectors will tell you they buy what they like. That's definitely the best way to buy, but as you gain experience, the reasons why you buy what you like should become increasingly more conscious, detailed, sophisticated and purposeful. For example, you might hear an advanced collector say something like, "Not only do I love this sculpture, but it's also a prime example of the artist's best subject matter from his most productive time period and it fills a major gap in my collection."

   What an experienced collector essentially does is pose a problem and then illustrate the solution to that problem by piecing together a collection. That way, everything fits and it all makes sense according to the master plan. Take this problem for instance:
   What is the history of abstract painting in Southern California? The solution is an art collection consisting of abstract paintings by Southern California artists that date from the early days right on up to the present (or from whatever time period the collector is focusing on).

Ask questions like:

* Why do I like the kinds of art I'm buying?
* What about it satisfies me?
* Do I like it for the subject matters, what it represents, what it communicates, its originality, the techniques, the colors, the historical aspects, the regions where it's made, the lives of the artists?
* Does it make me think about things I've never thought about before?
* Does it make me feel a certain way or see things in a different way?
* Do I admire its technical qualities the most?
* Do I like it for the concepts, ideas, themes or philosophies it embodies, communicates or stands for?
* Does it alter or inform my perspective on some aspect of life?
* Does it portray or present things in ways they've never been presented before?
* Is it that it's old, new, local, foreign, big, small, round, square, whatever?

​   Once you begin to identify the common threads, you can refine your buying to zero in on additional pieces that share those characteristics. It's almost like putting together a mission statement or clearly and specifically defining your goals...

  The good news is you can begin documenting at any time and even from a standing stop. Write down everything you can about the art you own, either from memory or by contacting the original sellers. Include information like the following:

* Any stories the sellers tell you specifically relating to the art.
* Details about the purchases including any memorable moments about making them.
* What the art means or what its significance is, either according to the artist or to whomever sold it to you.
* Biographical and career information about the artists.
* How or why or any other information about how the art was made.
* When the art dates from.
* Whether any pieces have ever been exhibited in public, at galleries, written about or featured or discussed in any other way.

   Another distinguishing feature of a superior collection is that it's organized. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end-- just like any good museum exhibition. This goes back to posing the problem and then using the collection to map out the solution. Take the previous example of the "history of abstract painting in Southern California." This collection can be organized in many ways including by date, by artist, by style, or by location. Or you can get even more specific. Within a topic as narrow as this, there are all kinds of subtopics:

* Abstract painting in Los Angeles organized by date.
* Abstract painting in Southern California between 1950 and 1970.
* Geometric abstract painting in Southern California.
* Abstract painting in Southern California by immigrant artists.
* Abstract paintings in Southern California that are no larger than 12 by 16 inches.

  This increases not only their enjoyment, but it also reinforces your chosen direction and your future buying. Additional benefits to organizing your collection are that you can see where you've been, where you're going, where you have duplication, where you're weak, what you're missing, what no longer makes the grade, and what you have to do to resolve any problems. It's not much different from your kids putting together all the baseball cards of their favorite teams to complete their collections.

   The worst possible outcome for a collection occurs when the owner passes away leaving no information about the art, how much it's worth, how to care for it, or how to sell or donate it. Countless works of art have been resold for pennies on the dollar, given away, or even thrown in the trash because the owners kept little or no records and left no instructions on what to do with it.
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