Jane brings her lifelong experience, training, and artistic eye to bear on the selection of artists she represents in the gallery. Her selection process is rigorous: “I seek to present work that is conceptually sound, meaningful, and captures the essence of intellect and creativity. Although each work must be technically accomplished, I look for a quality in the work that reveals ‘the hand of the artist.’” Jane’s significant reputation as artist and gallerist is a draw to artists with established national and international credentials. Over three-quarters of the gallery artists have artworks represented in permanent museum collections. The gallery has placed work in prestigious public spaces, private collections, and respected museums. Throughout her long career, Jane Sauer has been at the forefront in supporting creative artists who are not limited--in their vision or in the materials they use.
Katie Pasquini Masopust: So Jane, you are our first interview for the "what is going on in the industry of the fiber arts". You have this beautiful gallery, Jane Sauer's Thirteen Moons Gallery in Santa Fe on Canyon Rd. How is it going for you in the gallery?
Jane Sauer: It is up and down, a roller coaster. It is not the art, it is the economy. We have a certain impetus to buy art. But the housing market is so bad and the one time that people have the urge to buy new art is when they have a new environment. The only people outside of that are art collectors that aren't looking for something to put on a wall. The collectors just fall in love with something. Two very different approaches to making purchases . A large amount of people that we are selling to are thinking of a specific place. I wish it was otherwise. The demise of the housing and the financial market has had a deep effect. We have lost our middle ground, the buyers who could stretch their budget so they could buy their precious art are rare. We have a handful of people who stretch it out and pay for things very carefully, sometimes over a year or 18 months period. But people are reluctant to put that extra monthly expense on their budget. They don't have it and even if they do the jolt of last year is making them frightened. I encourage artists to make their very best work. When people do spend their money they are looking for the very best that they can find. They are looking for high quality and something they madly fall in love with.
Katiepm: That is good advice for our artist, do your very best.
Jane Sauer: That is what I have been telling my artists, make fewer things and make them better. That is the secret right now. The gallery owners were fishing around this last year trying to figure what should we be doing? What is the new paradigm for running a gallery? We thought to have little things for less money. People will buy them because they have a need to buy art. We found that wasn't true. These little things were passed by, partly because it wasn't the artists best work. They just didn't have their heart in it. I have advised my artists to slow down and make fewer pieces, pieces that you are passionate about.
Katiepm: Wow! I like that advice. That is exciting.
Jane Sauer: It is, I think there will be changes in the whole art industry. There are going to be fewer galleries and fewer things on the market. Artists who had the freedom to make things before might have to get a job. Still their passion is to make things but they might not have the money or the hours to produce a lot of work. I think that what is coming on the market will have to be of the highest quality.
Katiepm: If these hard economic times cause artists to make better, stronger work that would be a good thing. How are the galleries dealing with these issues.
Jane Sauer: Very few galleries are being expansive. You don't read about a gallery that has to double their space or is moving to a new bigger beautiful space. It just isn't happening. We have to face the fact that as important as buying art is, it is not something that you need for subsistence. It is a luxury for anyone. So the gallery businesses have suffered and are in jeopardy as are any luxury related businesses. There is some market, but how decreased is that market and how soon will it increase again? These are questions that nobody knows the answer to. There is reluctance to move forward. I myself have had to have more assurance that when I have a show that it will be a selling show. It can't be educational or just because it is something I love. I have had to reel in my own passion about certain things in favor of making a good business decisions. Of course I am in communication with a lot of other galleries who are saying the same thing. I think the public and the artists don't realize that to put on a show is costly. I have to do advertising. I devote the main section of my gallery to the show. All of our energy in staff goes to promoting the show during that period of time. When times were better I had more freedom. I had a certain obligation actually to try new things, to show work that may not be of commercial value but is of artistic value or educational value. I need to be cautious now.
Katiepm: How can the artists help you?
Jane Sauer: I think that artists need be more studied in what they are producing. It will be higher quality and conceptually more sound. Artists need to be more thoughtful before they begin making the work. There will be more process; there might be more experimentation. I have noticed an interesting trend which I don't know what to make of. We have twice had groups of glass collectors in my gallery. They belong to a glass alliance and they came to Santa Fe as a glass group. I carry glass as well, so they came to my gallery but they purchased fiber. If it only happened once I would say that it was an anomaly but it happened two times in very recent months. The glass people were very taken by fiber. I am looking at it as a trend. I have my fingers crossed. If you show fiber art and people are exposed to it, then you create an attraction. Fiber is something that we are all very familiar with. We have it around us everyday, we sleep under it, we sit on it, we are surrounded by fiber all of the time. Fiber is nurturing and familiar. It feels warm, is so tactile, so colorful, calming, I could go on and on. The techniques are so broad and are still being developed. In some areas we are just embryos. People are just learning about the fiber arts and seeing that it would be good on their walls.
Katiepm: This is what we are trying to do. I am so glad that your gallery is here. Everyone is so familiar with fabric but they don't realize that it can be the art that is on their wall. You are educating the art collectors.
Jane Sauer: I think that when times are hard, and there's no denying last year was a very difficult year for everyone, there is a desire for things that are comfortable and soothing. We've had enough angst in our everyday life that we don't need to come home and look at angst on our walls. The show that I have up now is Geoffrey Gorman. It may be a bit of a stretch to call him a fiber artist but he uses canvas and sticks and cording to create animals that are sculptural and three dimensional. He uses a lot of canvas to wrap around these animals and a lot of fiber applications. Many of his things are pieced together like a quilt, even the sticks that he uses are bound together and pieced together by size and color . His show has been very successful. We have 14 different animals and people say their faces are so sweet. The sweet face is what has drawn them in. I think that symbolic of what people are looking for.
Katiepm: I know a lot of our readers would love to have their work in a gallery. Could you advise our artists as to the best way to go about this?
Jane Sauer: There are a number of things, one is to look and make sure that the gallery you want to get into carries your kind of art. It is very hard to break into a gallery with textiles if they only carry paintings. It is possible but you are making a much harder road for yourself. You need to have the eye and the ear of the owner or decision maker. It helps to have a reputation that is beyond your local community. Present yourself and your work properly.
I don't like to get a lot of information in the mail. I stack it up and only when I have a little bit of time, which is not often, do I go through it all. It is a lot of work. I have to open it, I have to take it out, I have to look at it, think about it, put it all back and mail it back to the artist. I used to send everything back even if the artist did not send a self addressed, stamped envelope until an employee pointed out the time it took and how much the postage was. I get a lot of material!
I prefer that you send me an email with a few images attached and a link to your web site. I can get much more information and better images that way, without all of the other "stuff". I will look at that rather quickly. I can make an immediate, easy response. That is what the artist wants too, an immediate response .If someone has a good web site I will look at their resume and at past and current work. I will only go to the web site if the initial images interest me. Make sure the images that are attached in the email are your strongest ones. Attracting a gallery owners attention is more efficiently done via your web site. You must have a strong web site. Build one web site and you will have it for many years.
Katiepm: What do you like to see on an artist's web site?
Jane Sauer: I want to see your best works. If I see 9 pieces, and five of them are good and four are poorly executed, I wonder, do you edit your work? Can you tell the difference between what is really good and what is not? One or two bad images can spoil it. I don't mean you shouldn't put up your past works to create a history, but you don't need 50 images, be selective and have a separate page for the history. This is where you put work that is no longer available and that you are no longer doing. Keep thinking about how you are positioning yourself. How do you want your work to be viewed. I find it helpful if there is a resume. I want to know what you are doing, where you have been and whether you are trying to be in shows. Or is this your first time out of the gate? None of this would change my mind if I really am drawn to the work but it is good to have on the website. I like to see a picture of the artist. It is just a friendly gesture, again, I never judge anybody by what they look like but it makes me feel more familiar with them .
Katiepm: I hear you. Find galleries that would be comfortable with your work, have a good web site and send an efficient email with your best work.
Jane Sauer: Yes, and if it is possible visit the gallery before beginning this process. You will get a sense of the space. If you make really big work and it is a tiny little gallery you'll know it is not a good fit. If everything in the gallery is very geometric and you are creating very organic works than chances are that is the vision of the person selecting the art and you are not going to fit. You can save a lot of time by visiting the gallery that you are considering. Do some web research . I can tell when someone is sending images to all Santa Fe galleries and has done no research. That tells me something immediately about how it would be to work with this artist. They are not targeting me. They are not being very efficient , they are blanketing, playing roulette, hoping to get something.
I always say, when I am talking to a group of collectors, that I am interested in the end product. I am not interested in how it was made. I restrict myself to how does this work in the end. On the other hand, it is interesting to know how a piece was made. To know how involved it is. What are the impulses, the techniques that went into this? Is it layers of color or one color out of the bottle. All of these things play into it in some way or another. Your web site is also to communicate. I am interested in what is new and what is happening and how it is being made.
Katiepm: Often there is an imbalance in that. I have heard talks or spoken with people about their work and all they tell me is about all the techniques that they used, not their inspiration or what moved them to make the work. I can see what you are saying, we all want to know how they made the work but I want to know their story more.
Jane Sauer: Galleries are definitely interested in more than just the technique. What is the story, what is behind the piece? What is the artist trying to say? I hope that my message can be for artist to go back to the drawing board. Begin with what you want to say. Then gather the techniques that will help you say it in the best way possible. It will be more successful to have a marriage of both technique and narrative. You do have to handle both. Once you know how to handle the techniques you are not so consumed with them, you become yourself, you become looser, you just do it. It flows and you can make some great discoveries too by saying what if? What if I mix this and that? What if?
Katiepm: You know technically where it will take you so you are free to explore. How are you finding the field in general ?
Jane Sauer: I believe there are two paths, one is an artist that stays in one place. If they started out as a weaver, they would never think of being anything but a weaver. They have developed, but in tiny baby steps. The imagery and the outcome or the techniques remain the same. The other is the artist who is making changes and being much more experimental, changing in hops not tiny steps. They tend be the younger generation. I think part of that is our culture, it is the whole TV generation. Things change very quickly, images change rapidly. Technology just gallops ahead. You just learn one program and then they come out with something else, you can blink and you are technologically behind. It is a generational thing. This has caused a flip back. Technology has so taken over our lives that the handmade object is becoming more precious and more valuable. People don't want to see chrome and leather, hard things, they want something softer and that goes back to where fibers are today. Something that has the hand of the artist evident in it. It is not stamped out by machine. It can have flaws; it doesn't have to be perfect. We as human beings are not making perfect things. You want to discover something in the art on your wall.
Katiepm: Who are the strongest artists of the moment in the gallery?
Jane Sauer: I will say that we have had three incredibly successful shows recently. We have been amazed that they were so successful. I had wondered what the reason for the success was. Could it be the price range, were they pretty, were they easy to understand? What was it? Until you asked me this question I hadn't thought about the over arching connection between them. Now I see that they have all been fiber! Charla Kanna who makes the most elaborate, magnificent dolls in the world. Geoffrey Gorman, who is making otherworldly animals, and Carol Shinn with her intricate stitched pieces. They are all fiber shows. These three shows have shocked us. That really says something. I just hadn't thought about it that way. All three artists do superb work, that has a lot to do with the success. It is important to do the best work that you can.
Charla Kanna makes these incredible dolls that hang on the wall. She is an interesting case study as far as an artist having a really deep connection with doing what they love. Charla is a story that keeps unfolding for me. She told me that when she was a young child she had a doll collection of over 40 dolls. She was describing their hair color, their facial features and what they wore. It was fascinating. She knew the brand name of the doll and so forth. 40 dolls is a lot of dolls. She didn't play with them, they were for exhibition in her room. Her parents were away a lot for business to faraway places like Europe and Asia. When her mother was on one of these she sent her a doll from Japan. This was her treasure, all she had from her mom during this period of time. She gave a talk this year in connection with her show. She brought in the Japanese doll that her mother had given her and if you look at the hair on her dolls they have a connection with this Japanese doll. It is perfectly straight, coarse thick hair, and the clothes that her dolls wear are based on kimonos. I had not made that connection. I looked on the clothes as a large playing field on which she could make these little quilts with beading and so forth. When you look at them they are based on the kimono pattern. I don't know that Charla really knew that that was her story.
Carol Shinn's work cuts across many categories in the field of art. She uses the needle in a sewing machine as if it were a pencil or fine paint brush creating a multitude of fine lines on canvas. Continuously changing the colors of thread has become as comfortable as changing to a new colored pencil. From layers upon layers of fine strokes emerge photo realistic images of interiors, landscapes, buildings, and even abondoned cars. Carol's carefully crafted and mysterious scenes are all about fiber although not immediately recognized as such
See Carol Shinn's work in the interview section of this web site
Find out what your story is, you will have a lot more passion then if you pick someone else's story. How amazing is it that a woman can make her livelihood making dolls for over 30 years. She started at the Ann Arbor street fair. Everybody has to start somewhere. Do your best work, know your story and enjoy.
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