The Quick Paint Art Auction

Last weekend I was able to get away from Park City and visit the final weekend of the Jackson Hole Fall Ats Festival. This is one of my favorite arts events of the year.

Saturday morning 30 artists from across the west huddled under tents and umbrellas for the Quick Paint– they had just an hour to paint or sculpt a new piece. As you can imagine, with hundreds of art lovers wandering through the maze of tents, these artists have to work doubly hard to produce their pieces in time. We did our best to distract each one, asking questions, taking photos, and in my case nearly stepping on Greg Woodard’s sculpture model: his raptor bird! Seeing the artists work up close is a fantastic opportunity.

At the end of the hour the pieces were auctioned off with proceeds benefiting the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce. I was very pleased with the auction results. Most paintings went for well above retail price and a few double their usual retail price! One of my favorites, a tonalist landscape by Shanna Kunz, produced exciting bidding. As did Jackson’s own Amy Ringholz, who is a favorite every year. She’s got her Quick Paint style down pat: she wears headphones while she paints to avoid distraction, leaving a sign for collectors and friends: “I’ll be happy to chat with you after 11:00 am!!” Her strategy worked well; the piece she produced was vibrant, well completed and full of energy, and excited bidders.

Shanna Kunz at the Quick Paint

The rest of the weekend was a blur of art galleries, meetings with artists, Cowboy Bar saddles, delicious food, and the beautiful Jackson landscape. Highlights? In a sparkling new location, Deihl Galleries (formerly Meyer-Milagros Gallery) featured the work of Tim Cherry. Their new contemporary spin on western art is not to be missed. Those ladies know how to throw a great art party! And local journalist Kevin Wittig showed me a hike to Phelps Lake that I highly recommend. The fall colors were truly amazing. On Sunday a farewell brunch stroll throughout the galleries ended the Fall Arts Festival with the perfect note: mimosas and bagels. I’ll be back next year…

Warren Neary “Winter Eve” Oil

• “Children’s Spookin’ Art Show” - October 31st, 2008

Young Artists up to age 13 are invited to join Gallery MAR in presenting our Spookin’ Art Show. Stop by the gallery beginning October 1st to receive your blank canvas. Using the Halloween theme, paint or decorate your piece in a “Spookin’” fashion and deliver your work back to the gallery by October 20th. $10 entry fee. Proceeds benefit Arts Kids.

The Spookin’ Art Show and sale runs October 24th through November 3rd. Reception for the artists is on Friday, October 31st from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Costumes encouraged. Call 435-649-3001 for more information.

• “Winter Grand Opening and Miniature Show”

Utah artists - December 26th, 2008. Local Utah artists present new miniature works for this holiday season, in all styles and media, for all art lovers and their unique tastes. Artists include Ryan S. Brown, Debbie Fowler, Shirley McKay, Aaron Memmott, Penelope Moore, Jan Perkins, Kathleen Peterson, and Brooks Yates. Contact the gallery for a private preview of the artworks.

The Winter Grand Opening and reception for the artists will be Friday, December 26th from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. All are welcome to join us for delicious eats and artful conversation. This exhibition runs from December 19th through January 4th.

Our Winter Grand Opening will be followed by a lineup of exciting artist receptions, all of which will start at Gallery MAR at 6 p.m. and include gourmet eats, beverages and illuminating chats with the artists.

• “As Nature Unfolds”

New works by Brooks Yates and Sharon Jackman - January 30th, 2009. This exhibition runs from January 26th through February 9th.

• “Alternate Reality”

New works by Ginger Bowen and Fred Calleri - February 27th, 2009. This exhibition runs from February 23rd through March 9th.

• “A Conscious Balance”

Brad Stroman and Lisa Lamoreaux - March 27th, 2009. This exhibition runs from March 23rd through April 13th.

Opportunity drawing for an original painting by Brad Stroman to benefit the Swaner Eco Center. A portion of sales from “A Conscious Balance” will benefit the Swaner Nature Preserve and Eco Center, which proudly protects 1,200 acres of high-altitude wetland, stream corridor, and upland habitat for wildlife, water quality, and recreation in Park City, Utah.

Shawna Moore, Montana artist

The soothing scent of beeswax is floating through the gallery and a new abstract artist’s work hangs on our walls. Welcome to encaustic artist Shawna Moore, Gallery MAR’s newest artist. An ancient art, which is believed to have been originally used in Ancient Egyptian tombs, encaustic utilizes beeswax mixed with resins and varnishes in layered effects on board or canvas. Moore paints up to 20 or even 30 layers on her boards. The wax is heated, planed and scratched, and reworked to create intriguing depth.

She is currently exploring the idea of “line”– what makes a mark, and how that is related to the past and our landscape. For Moore, making art is a quest to make sense of the world, both materially and conceptually, though the observance of nature, line, and color, and how they entwine with the flow of thought and creativity. View more of Shawna Moore’s artwork.

Paul Havas, “Inlet” Oil,

An Art and Culture Podcast.

Pinpoint SLC, a division of Utah Free Media,  picks the sweetest fruit from the blossoming Salt Lake City art and culture scene and delivers it directly to your ears in weekly delectable doses. Each week Salt Lake notables tell firsthand tales of the city’s creative side. This podcast covers local bands, classical music, theater and the local arts showcasing the best events of the coming week, which of course means each and every Gallery MAR event.

SLC notables include: Angela Brown (SLUG Magazine), Jerry Rapier (Plan-B Theatre Company), Jamie Gadette and Bill Frost (City Weekly), Crystal Young-Otterstrom (Utah Symphony) among others. Their unique perspective on local arts and culture can be heard at www.utahfm.org or subscribe via iTunes to integrate Salt Lake happenings into your weekly Thursdays.

Kathleen Peterson “A Wait for Sun” Oil

Coming up next weekend, don’t miss the Spring City Arts Plein Air Competition. The plein air painters will be out and about in Spring City from the 17th to the 19th, and the Competition Art Show and Sale is on the 20th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visitors are encouraged to walk around the historic town and watch the artists paint their own chosen scenes. All of the paintings in the plein air competition will be on display and available for sale on the 20th. Artists who want to participate can even sign up at the event. The Spring City Arts website has more information.

Spring City is in Sanpete County; it’s remote but also full of fantastic artistic energy and some of your favorites live there: Kathleen Peterson, Michael Workman, Sharron Evans, Lee Udall Benion, Douglas Fryer, and more. Get together a group of friends and carpool down to the event.

The University of Utah Fine Art Museum’s (UMFA) “Money to Picasso” exhibit runs for only a few more days: September 21st is the last day to visit this extraordinary exhibit. The collection is thanks to the Cleveland Museum of Art, which chose four museums across the country to show their collection as they undergo renovations.

From the UMFA website: “Masterworks by artists Renoir, Degas, Monet, van Gogh, Dalí, Picasso and Matisse grace the walls of the Museum’s first floor galleries. Monet to Picasso will allow you the rare opportunity to see an extraordinary gathering of work up close by some of the most important European modern masters of the last two centuries.” I’ve been twice and I’m sure I could use a third.

Ron Russon “Two Watched by Three” Oil

Ron Russon was born and raised in a rural area outside of Salt Lake City and continues to live and work on a farm.  He is surrounded by the Wasatch Mountains, many farms, and acres of cultivated ground. As a youngster, he never took art too seriously, or considered it as a viable career. But when he attended Utah Valley Community College, and took a basic drawing class, and something about it felt right.  He was accepted into the Illustration Design program at Brigham Young University and, as he puts it, “didn’t get fired, so I kept going.” In addition to the dairy farm, Russon maintained two other jobs to pay for his schooling.

Russon became a freelance illustrator and gained several clients. His commercial art career was cut short after painting an acrylic Uncle Sam wrapping a smiling house in red tape; the editor’s “art consciousness” was problematic and Russon’s internal struggle to paint creatively pushed him back to his rural roots of farms and wildlife. Now, Russon paints what he wants to: his life pursuits and hobbies are portrayed on canvas. Listening to bluegrass or space-pop, he paints in oil employing a loose brush and pallet knife to varied scenes, from a serene resting tractor in a wind rowed field of hay to a cacophony of geometric colors creating luminescent bison.  Through both abstraction and realism, his art reflects his relationship with nature and his communication with the outdoors.

Russon’s work is exhibited all over the West and each year he participates in many local and national exhibitions. This year he was chosen for the 2008 Hogel Zoo poster. Visit the Hogle Zoo site to see his painting and purchse a poster. Stop by the gallery to view the new works by Ron Russon. You’ll find his textures and color captivating.

Kirk Tatom “The Wake of Day II,” Oil

It is my belief that collectors naturally gravitate towards, and should only buy, what they truly love. That said, there are always great buys and steals in the emerging art market on both local and national levels. As well, there are many investment opportunities in the high-end contemporary sector, but most of those are out of the average collector’s reach and beyond their art educations. As there is a continued demand for both contemporary and historically important works, fine art can now be treated as an alternate asset class and a way to diversify wealth. If you can afford to research the markets and buy and sell with the appropriate tides, by all means forge ahead!

For those of us with a little less dough to invest in stratospherically-priced contemporary art, there are other ways invest. The Mei Moses Annual Art Index shows that art delivered an annual compounded return of 12.06 percent between 1953 and 2003. The indexes are based on databases of more than 12,000 artworks bought and sold at auction more than once. These indexes are then compared to the S&P 500, government bonds, and gold to decipher relative performance. My advice? Start small, set annual amounts for art investment, and talk to galleries about their top emerging artists. If you start your collection in 2008 with a $1500 investment, and you invest 25% more in your art collection each year for 20 years, in 2028 you will have a $37,500 art collection. Match that to return of the Mei Moses index and you’ll have a $42,022 art collection!

Another art investment idea that fascinates me is the art hedge fund. Both the Fine Art Fund (FAF) and the Art Trading Fund (ATF) are based on the idea that private collectors don’t rely on credit (and thus are not affected by the credit crunch). The FAF and the ATF have differing ideas of where and when to invest, with the ATF (born in 2007) trading on average every 4 months. Investors in both hedge funds aren’t necessarily art lovers; they just know a good fund when they see one. The ATF website says that they use, “an objective investment process the Fund essentially monetizes the substantial margins of a gallery and art dealing business - without the high fixed cost base of either - and passes that ‘alpha’ on to the end investor. The investment managers add additional value through asset allocation and via a synthetic hedge that provides downside protection.” They primarily focus on living young, upcoming artists’ works for quick sell back. Charles Saatchi, the British advertising magnate, art collector, and gallery owner is an adviser.

Another obvious connection of hedge funds to the art world: many of the hedge fund managers like Steven Cohen of SAC Capital (and owner of a tiger shark in formaldehyde, a work by the artist Damien Hirst) and Citadel Investment Group’s Kenneth Griffin, are among the top art collectors in the world. According to a 2007 article in Financial Week, a survey last year by consulting firm Prince & Associates, which polled almost 300 hedge fund managers with a median net worth of more than $60 million, found the average manger spent nearly $4 million on fine art in 2005. So are these funds an example on conflict of interest? For another take on the investment in fine art and fine art hedge funds, take a look at this article in Portfolio Magazine. Like every investment opportunity, there are two sides to the story.