Dear Colleagues:

Art is an esoteric undertaking. My photographs, your paintings, his sculptures and her batiks all appeal to a select crowd of people. Some lucky artists are more popular at appealing to the masses, but for the most part, artwork is intended to elicit response from the few. We are lucky if the many like it, but we know inherently that only a small percent of any population will ever be interested in what we have to say. Even many of the historic greats only found fame long after they had passed away, unable to find an audience during their lifetimes.

So it always is a blow to our collective egos when places where we are welcome, places where we are popular, places where our works are understood go away. Recently, as you know, our community lost several galleries; Margo, Marcus and Space Available just to name a few, closed or announced they will close soon. It appears, at least in the press, that the El Paso art scene is at the lowest point in some time. I would beg to differ.

Galleries are like friends; some stay around for a long time like Adair Margo and Hal Marcus, and some are new acquaintances, like SpAG. But also like friends, they can move on, change directions and of course, eventually die.

We shouldn’t mourn them because they are gone, but rather be glad we had a chance to know them to begin with and that they gave us a chance to show at all.

Margo’s gallery really didn’t cater to us anyway. Hers was focused on mostly out-of-town buyers and a few select local artists. It worked for her and her clients, and more power to her. After a good run over many years, she decided to move on. Remember, friends come and go. Margo stayed a long time, and actually will still be in the community, just not as visible as in the past.

Marcus’ gallery was personality driven, a name brand so to speak. When he sold it to his underlings, the reason for its existence ceased to exist as well. Recently he returned, I think knowing that the Hal Marcus Gallery probably should have Hal Marcus in it somewhere besides on the street sign. So it really didn’t close at all, just reorganized.

SpAG was a concept gallery that not many of us were familiar with: Rent the wall you want to display on. As close to a true democratic gallery as El Paso has ever seen, if you had the rent and something to show you could show. Good, bad, and lots of in-between hung on the walls of SpAG, but I think that the concept was a bit ahead of its time for our artistic community. I suspect we will see a SpAG-like gallery arise from the ashes again. The idea was too good to die.

Glancing through the May 2008 El Paso Scene one would be hard pressed to say that we are lacking wall space or galleries in our city. We might say that we are showing in places that we wouldn’t normally show, like coffee houses or restaurants or even our own homes, but to even think we are without walls in our city would be misleading. We may be without walls that we are familiar with, but the walls are still there.

However, if we really think we are in an artistic crisis in El Paso, might I suggest that we as an art community begin to rethink how we approach art in El Paso? Here are some suggestions that I think would go a long way to helping us help our fellow El Pasoans understand art:

First, we need to do a better job educating the community. El Paso isn’t the kind of place where folks typically run down to the corner gallery to see the latest in Impressionism or plein air watercolors. Art is not and has never been a cultural priority in our city as it is in others. Someone wrote recently that people in El Paso have to choose between food and art. I refuse to believe that. If we can afford to keep Starbucks running, we can afford to buy some art. The trouble is, El Paso as a whole does not seem to understand the importance of art, and I think it is incumbent on us to educate the community.

If someone came up to one of us and asked why value a piece of art, why that sculpture, why that photograph was important enough to buy, what would we say? Could we give a really good reason? (Go ahead, fill in the blank: The last piece of art that I made is important to you, the potential buyer, because_______.)

I know we know the answer, but can we explain it enough to a potential buyer? If we can’t easily explain it to ourselves, then we cant expect others to understand.

Could we answer these questions if a fellow El Pasoan asked us about a piece of art that we are trying to sell:

Why do I need this?

Why are you considered a good artist?

Why is this considered art and not craft?

Why should I pay for it?

I think if we all started doing a better job educating people about the need for art, we would see more galleries opening than closing and we would start selling more of our work. In school, we are pretty good at showing kids how to do art, but we rarely ever tell them why to do art. Maybe if we start with our young people, we can raise a generation that would actually appreciate art and stay in the city at the same time.

Secondly, we need to get rid of our “Field of Dreams” attitude. Build it and they will come? We need to stop listening to voices from elsewhere and start listening to the voices down the street or at the dinner table instead; they are El Paso. We need to stop self-congratulating each other and start asking people that are not artistically inclined about what they think of our artwork. They are the ones who know what is going on here. (If those outside voices were correct, we would be selling more work by now.) Just because we create something doesn’t mean people will come and buy it. (I recently gave a show on the colors of cemeteries and asked a gentleman at the opening which one of my photos he liked the best? “None” was the response. Instead of being insulted, I asked why he didn’t like the work. He explained his reasons, and was actually quite happy that I had asked his opinion. After a few minutes of explaining what I was trying to show, he warmed up to the concept of the show, and actually mentioned that now, he might come back and buy a piece. Education.)

When was the last time any one of us supported an artist that we didn’t know? Do we have any local art hanging in our houses that wasn’t a gift? What was the last piece of art from a local artist that any of us bought at full price in a gallery? We need to walk the talk if we want others to do the same.

We can build it, paint it, sculpt it, click it all we want, but unless we let people know about it, let them understand it, and promote ourselves, no one will come.

Thirdly, we need to get together and decide that we as a collective are more powerful than any one of us alone. Other cities have great cooperative art projects for struggling and new artists who mentor each other. We don’t see that a lot in El Paso. There are a few places where there are the embryonic beginnings of it, such as some web-based collaborations, but for the most part, we keep to ourselves, and that is not healthy or helpful.

Sadly, this creative group doesn’t talk to that creative group, this age group doesn’t talk to that age group, and this side of town doesn’t understand the struggles on the other side of town. We need to get over it, grow up, and start working together as a unified artistic group: a community. We have the creativity. We need the drive. Lets show El Paso how working together improves life in our city. Working together only makes all of us stronger. Embracing all types of work can only stir creativity, it can never dampen it.

Finally, we need to stop pricing ourselves out of the local market. I think it would be better to get our names out there in more houses and in more offices, and the way to do that is to start selling low. As our names get better known, we can raise our prices. I once had someone tell me that if I priced my work too low, no one would take me seriously. I listened, and for the first few shows I did, I didn’t sell a thing. Maybe because it was so serious, no one could afford me. When I started offering photos that El Pasoans could actually afford, I immediately found that I could sell them. Now, I actually have a few people that I regularly sell to. Imagine that: I have patrons.

So, arts colleagues, there are some ideas that should get us going. Additionally, we should move on from there and begin to think about making El Paso the national center for Hispanic and Chicano art. We could have a series of free shows in which any artist in town can offer work. Forget juries. Let the market be the jury. We could make it a big event at Cohen Stadium like the Armory Show in New York, but for our community and not as high priced.

How about turning Mc Kelligon Canyon into an artist zone where any artist can exhibit for free each weekend, kind of like the Indian Market in Santa Fe, but where everyone is welcome and it goes for months at a time?

We could make greater use of our museums to teach our little ones and their parents the “why of art,” instead of just showing them the “who of art.”

All we have to do is use a little imagination and our recent downturn in art can be easily turned around. Then, instead of reading about the weekly gallery closing, we can be celebrating the weekly gallery opening.