Look ma, I'm a star!

As a blossoming art student in the hills of West Virginia, one of my dreams was to own a gallery. I imagined myself surrounded by new and exciting art in a crisp, clean gallery...on a beach in Maine. I've never really even been to Maine except for a random trip to Canada in which we drove through as fast as possible but ne'er stepped foot on a rocky shore. I didn't imagine my gallery in DC or the Big Apple and I especially didn't imagine it in Santa Fe. Mostly because I had never heard of Santa Fe. I wonder now if my high school social studies class ever even touched on the fact that New Mexico was part of the USA. To be fair...not all westerners have heard of West Virginia either.

Wherever I ended up, I had never seen myself in a museum setting. While I enjoy art history now, I prefer to be amongst art made by living people. Where we've been doesn't interest me so much as where we're going. The idea of a big, sterile, no touching, memorial to art just seemed so depressing. Not to mention, without an art history degree, museums wouldn't care much for me either. A gallery was the place to be...so bohemian, so alive!

When I tell classmates and old teachers back east where I am now and that I work in a gallery, they are ecstatic that I'm still involved in art. An MFA will only get you so far if you're not going to teach. So far, seven years of schooling aren't all for naught. Most people just facebook me (yes, that is a verb in my world) about how exotic it is to live so far from Steeler country. And to be honest, it's still pretty exotic to me, too. I've never lived somewhere so inundated with the arts. Surprise of all surprises, West Virginia is not an art mecca.

Here I work in a gallery. I am surrounded by art and artists every day and I am quickly learning the business of the artworld. If I ever go back to teaching, my first change in curriculum will be to add a class on marketability. How to sell, what to sell, where to sell, etc. In school, we were taught to be conceptual and to create instead of sleep. Buy paint instead of food. You'll never get paid, but maybe you'll end up in New York City! For now, I'll sell art in my little gallery on Canyon Road in the 2nd biggest art market in the US.

~sara