Friday, October 3, 2014

Let's Take This One At A Time

I want to just say, before I get into this, that the only two IST's  I am is artIST and humanIST.  I believe I have no other IST in me, or I should say - I want to believe I have no other IST in me. 

I believe that what separates us biologically will become invisible one day in the future.  Already it is happening.  Gender becomes more meaningless as the biologically male or female individual feels more free to be "the self" and, while this "self" may be categorized as behaviorally "female" or behaviorally "male" - (still we use gender terms to describe aspects and energy of spirit...which is so very limiting in an of itself) we will all feel accepted as who we are not as what we look like. 

Skin color is a difference that is becoming less of a negative difference...culture...religion...weight even...social ranking - I believe these are separations among our human family that will not exist one day.  I think the glaciers are melting faster than this is happening so I don't expect this to happen any time soon.  Not in my life time.  But I believe - one day - if we manage to survive our own noose...

Oh - what is my point?  Let's just say that, since I brought up the feminist movement in art yesterday by mentioning the !Women Art Revolution movie, that I do not know that bringing attention to differences is the way to overcome them.  But - perhaps that is how it must start. 

Maybe in the beginning, the group getting overlooked and undervalued by another segment of people - because of their differences - must galvanize somehow and say: - "HEY!  Deal with us.  In all the ways that matter we are really the same." 

In the case of women artists - this movement was saying (among other things) - that women are just as capable of creating great art as men and that contribution is worthy of recognition.   So I feel that it is important to explore these artists one at a time.

Today is Judy Chicago day and last July she turned 75 years young.  What I'd like to say myself about Judy, that I very much admire, is that in the early years of her life she said that when we all grow up there will be no labels...she even changed her last name eventually because she didn't want it associated with a man, be it her father or husband. 

She then became part of the feminist art movement and created what is considered today to be her masterpiece, The Dinner Party. 
The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago © Judy Chicago is an icon of feminist art,
which represents 1,038 women in history—39 women are represented
by place settings and another 999 names are inscribed in the
Heritage Floor on which the table rests. This monumental work of art
is comprised of a triangular table divided by three wings, each 48 feet long.
She honors the feminine in her next work, the Birth Project.  This from Wikipedia:
From 1980 until 1985, Chicago created The Birth Project. The piece used images of childbirth to celebrate woman's role as mother. The installation reinterpreted the Genesis creation narrative, which focused on the idea that a male god created a male human, Adam, without the involvement of a woman.  Chicago described the piece as revealing a "primordial female self hidden among the recesses of my soul...the birthing woman is part of the dawn of creation." 150 needle workers from the United States, Canada and New Zealand assisted in the project, working on 100 panels, by quilting, macramé, embroidery and other techniques. The size of the piece means it is rarely displayed in its entirety. The majority of the pieces from The Birth Project are held in the collection of the Albuquerque Museum.
The Creation, from Birth Project-Installation MAD Museum
© Judy Chicago, 1984, Modified Aubusson Tapestry,
42" x 14', Weaving by Audrey Cowan,
Collection: Bob & Audrey Cowan, Santa Monica, CA
While Judy was finishing The Birth Project she started to create a series of monumental works (the largest work is 9' x 22') called Powerplay because she wanted to explore masculinity and re-cast the heroic in a new way.   Specifically exploring, as she herself says in the KUNM interview with Megan Kamerick (for the 2012 Reviewing Powerplay exhibit - shown in Santa Fe at the David Richard Gallery after having not been shown, in its entirety, since 1986) "the way the construct of masculinity affects men."  In the interview, Kamerick says that this body of work seems to be "focusing on men struggling with the feminine within even trying to kill it at times" Chicago's response was:
I think through 'making art' - so I think a lot about my experiences with men and how men act.  And I was able to think my way into an understanding of why they act that way.  So, for an example, there's a painting called Three Faces of Man and there are two public faces on the outside - an angry face and a jocular face - and then in the center, there is the weeping face, the private face.  You know, I started thinking about what it
© Judy Chicago - Three Faces of Man
would be like to be raised not to be able to cry.  What that would do to you?  How much despair you would swallow, internalize?  Internalized despair could easily turn into rage or aggression.  For women it's the opposite - anger turns into depression because it's so unacceptable for women - still - to express anger.  But for men it's the opposite.  It's so unacceptable for them to express weakness, vulnerability.  So 'emotion' has been projected onto the female.  It's the woman who acts out - who expresses.  The stalwart man, the strong silent type...that is a construct that men have been trapped in as women have been trapped in a comparable construct of femininity and what we're 'supposed to be.'  . . . . I think I started out pissed off, you know, I had a lot of really negative experiences with men.  I couldn't stand how men acted in the world . . . . I worked on Powerplay from 1982-1987 and I did think my way out from anger and into empathy.
Ah.  That's some of the magic of art for both the creator and the audience.  A broadening of perspective.

Visit Judy Chicago's website to learn more about this remarkable artist.  Tomorrow I think we'll talk about Miriam Schapiro.

'Til then!

~Alex
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Thursday, October 2, 2014

W.A.R.

!Women Art Revolution is a documentary film having to do with art history...as this is of course Art History Thursday.  If any of you have seen this film, let me know what you thought of it.  I have not seen it yet myself, but I will.  There is a lot of footage with Judy Chicago who painted this painting called The Three Faces of Man.
© Judy Chicago - Three Faces of Man




Unfortunately - today between construction on the ranch and making time to work, that is all I have for us today.  I hope you have been enjoying your day :)

Tomorrow is Friday!

'Til then!

~Alex
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Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Art Gallery Wednesday

It's October.  I love this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on the passage of time.  It's titled A Psalm of Life.  I have paired it in a photo of the progress of "Magical" to date. 

Today will be a big studio day of working on this sculpture.  I have to wait days in between the applications of clay for it to be dry enough to continue.  So far I have used over $100 worth of clay on this sculpture. 

This sculpture will be an expensive original - one reason why I want to have it scanned to make a foam model for casting.  That way the original won't be destroyed and it will be a special original sculpture in it's own right.

In other news - I took you on a tour of artworks of other artists represented by the galleries representing me.  I did not take you to Beijing, China, however.  And so I wanted you to see some of the other artists Frogman Gallery represents.  If you're ever in Beijing, I hope you will stop by this gallery and say "hello" to my sculpture.

Robert Bissell - The Moonlighters


 
John Kotsis - Ying Yang
Michael Parks - book cover

Rosetta - The Leap
So that's the scoop for this Wednesday.  I hope you visit the Frogman Gallery virtually and experience what my artist profile sounds like translated from Chinese into English with Bing Translator...pretty humorous.  And I hope you have a terrific day today!

'Til tomorrow!

~Alex
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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Art Marketing Tuesday-Social Media

I realize I have been reposting things of late.  I do research in the mornings for my own career and have been coming across some very good information that I want to share.  Research for me for you too, not too bad!  I hope you find it useful.

Today I have for you 7 Social Media Marketing Tips and, although I haven't done all of these things, I would like to hear from you what you have tried and what has worked for you.  Everyone else reading this would like to know too - so share in the comments section of this blog, if you will, not just in Facebook.

This information, posted on Mashable, is a bit dated too, having been written in 2012.

By Leyl Master Black  
 This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

According to market research firm First Research, there are about 5,000 art dealers and galleries in the U.S. with combined annual revenue of about $6 billion, and Art Market Monitor estimates the size of the overall global art market to be around $15 billion annually. There are also more than 200,000 fine artists working in the U.S., according to recent research by the National Endowment for the Arts.
But while fine art is big business, there is often a wide chasm between the creative process that makes a great artist or a sophisticated gallery owner, and the marketing process that drives branding and sales.
“For the majority of artists, success will ultimately come down to their effectiveness in marketing,” says Darius Himes, Assistant Director of fine art photography gallery Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. “Artists need to embrace the fact that both their work, and they themselves as artists, are brands that must be marketed.”
So whether you’re an aspiring artist who wants to build an initial following, or a veteran art dealer looking to expand awareness of your brand, it pays to get savvy to new social marketing techniques to help you achieve your objectives. The following are seven strategies for more effective social marketing.

1. Optimize Your Website


A website is now a cost of doing business, and it’s essential for artists to have at least a minimal web presence. But even established artists and galleries with robust websites should consider a refresh, particularly to ensure that the site is optimized for search and mobile.
Himes notes that Fraenkel Gallery recently undertook a full overhaul of its website to incorporate more social, search and web marketing best practices.
“In addition to making a number of aesthetic and navigational enhancements, we also eliminated all of the Flash-based elements that weren’t searchable and that reduced the mobile functionality,” says Himes. “We also made sure that the new website was scalable to any mobile device, and that all pages had unique web addresses which would be easy to feed into social media.”

2. Get Busy Blogging


Blogging is one of the best ways to get your art or gallery found by the search engines and provides excellent content to fuel your other social marketing activities.
“Blogging is close to necessary at this point when it comes to both SEO and the building of a fan base,” says Greg Heller-LaBelle of web marketing firm DAY Vision Marketing. “The main thing we try to instill in clients is to start thinking of themselves as creators and syndicators of content.”
In addition to posting new work or promoting new shows or openings, your blog can also be a place to offer a behind-the-scenes look at your creative process, share pictures from relevant art events or chronicle your time at a prestigious art auction.
“As an artist myself and owner of a creative company, I'd say my number one tip is to pull back the curtain and show the behind-the-scenes work that takes place,” says Mark Ley, Managing Director at Copper Blue Creative. “Showing how a piece is made, or the location you are shooting photography, all help the fan to feel as if they are a part of the creation.”

3. Maximize Your Facebook Presence


Having a Facebook business page for your artist brand or gallery should be a no-brainer: it’s free, it’s simple to use and it gives you access to more than 1 billion people.
To use Facebook as a vehicle for promotion and awareness-building, first set up your Facebook business page and invite your friends and colleagues to “like” the page and share with their network … then start posting! Many of the same content strategies for your blog also apply to your Facebook page, but make sure to also spend a little bit of time each day engaging with your fans.
“The main reason why artists fail with social media is that they are not providing a value to their connections with any helpful, interesting and relevant content in their comments and posts,” writes John R. Math of Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery. “As artist participants we need to be active, engaged and consistently provide some kind of value.”

4. Be Active on Twitter


Twitter is a great tool for building a following and promoting your art or gallery. The best way to get started is by looking for relevant people or businesses to follow; try digging around a site like Listorious to search for other people's lists by topic. For example, a gallery owner could use Listorious to search on "art” to find lists of prominent tweeters in the art world. Then start tweeting — at a minimum, tweet out all the content that appears on your blog and other relevant news about your art or events. Don’t forget to use hashtags with your tweets to boost the searchability of your content.
You can also follow keywords and hashtags to easily find relevant content to share and people to follow. Set up a running search or column in your social media tool (TweetDeck and HootSuite are great options) on particular terms and hashtags so you can quickly scan for interesting content to retweet and people to engage with.

5. Take Advantage of Pinterest


Use of the visually oriented social site Pinterest has exploded over the past year, and many artists are using Pinterest to share their work beyond Facebook and Twitter.
To get started on Pinterest, first set up a profile that includes keywords and your website address, then start pinning. When you pin your art, don’t forget to add a watermark to protect the image, as well as keywords: Pinterest is searchable, so make sure you describe your pin clearly. You should also customize the link to point back to your website or whatever other page you’re promoting.
You can also get more exposure for your images by including a price for the item into your description. This simple trick will add your pin to the “Gifts” section on Pinterest and will display the price across the front of the image throughout the site.

6. Experiment With Facebook Ads


Many artists and galleries are also using Facebook Ads as a low-cost way to promote upcoming shows and events.
Artlog, a social platform allowing people to connect with the international art scene, uses Facebook Ads to promote events and sell tickets to art events like exhibitions, tours and discussions. For example, 10 days before its Chelsea Art Crawl & Party last summer, Artlog began running Facebook Ads to promote the event and direct people to Artlog’s website in order to purchase tickets. For every $75 Artlog spent on Facebook, it saw $200 in ticket sales.
Facebook also allows you to target different campaigns or events to different people.
“There are specific galleries and museums that we will use in our Likes and Interests targeting because we know that if people are engaging with those galleries, they are more likely to be the right audience,” says Manish Vora, co-founder of Artlog.

7. Use Press Releases for Search


While galleries typically develop and share press releases about upcoming shows with relevant media, they often neglect to distribute their release over the wire, and thus miss out on one of the best low-cost ways to propagate their brand across the internet and drive search results. You can use a low-cost service such as PRWeb to distribute your release for under $100.
To optimize your press release for search, start by making a list of the keywords and phrases that are most relevant to your company, and then cross-check these terms using Google’s keyword tool to assess monthly search volume. Once you have your list of keywords, use them in the headline and subhead of your release as well as throughout the body of the announcement. Avoid repetition by using secondary and tertiary keywords.
For example, if you’re a San Francisco fine art gallery looking to boost your search results on the phrases “fine art photography” and “San Francisco art galleries” — as well as around a particular photographer’s work — you might include the phrase “fine art photography” in the headline, subhead and first paragraph of the release, along with the artist’s name, while including the term “San Francisco art gallery” elsewhere in the release.
Make sure that you attach any hyperlinks back to your website or blog to these keyword phrases rather than your name or generic terms like “art opening.”
You should also consider adding images or video to your press releases: Releases that include an image or a video get shared three times more than text-only releases — and viewers spend up to thirty seconds more with this content.
How are you promoting your art or gallery using social media? Tell us in the comments.

Hope this gives you some great ideas for promoting your art and that you are enjoying your Tuesday, this last day of September.  See you in October!

'Til tomorrow!

~Alex
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Monday, September 29, 2014

Fearless Creating

On the Empty Easel website there is a write up about a book that I'm going to get ahold of and read, it's called Fearless Creating: A Step-by-Step Guide To Starting and Completing Your Work of Art by Eric Maisel, Ph.D.
Almond Blossoms by Niki Hilsabeck
Here is a reprint of what I read about this book on Empty Easel, written by Niki Hilsabeck:
     As you can probably guess from some of my other articles, I have a passion for reading about the connections between psychology and creativity.
     One of the books I picked up (early on, as a beginning artist) was Fearless Creating by Eric Maisel. It’s a book I’ve hung on to over the years because it contains useful theories, inspiring quotes, and thought-provoking exercises that help me renew my focus on creativity.
     Fearless Creating takes readers through the entire creative process, from the conception and nurturing of an idea to the completion and publication or display of the finished product. Throughout the book, Maisel references the stories of creative people through the ages, both famous and not well-known, sharing the struggles and joys of their artistic careers.
     Maisel takes a proactive approach to the concerns and pitfalls many artists face, including creative anxiety, a need for meaning in their art, going against the grain of society, and self-sabotage. The author has extensive experience working with creative patients, and provides exercises to re-route the reader’s thoughts so they can become part of the creative process.
     I’ll admit that I didn’t stop and try each exercise as I read (spoiler alert—one of them involves throwing a hot potato) but I did use many of the written exercises, and still refer back to them if I’m having trouble at a particular stage of creating.
     One of the things I enjoyed most about the book was the abundance of sidebar quotes from creative personalities of all disciplines. Even when pressed for time, I often find a quick bit of inspiration just by opening Maisel’s book and reading a quote.
     Reading through the theories, completing the exercises, and digesting the sidebar quotes, I come away with a sense of creative community. The struggle to bring creative ideas to fruition is often misunderstood by the community at large, so it’s reassuring to read a book that affirms the value of artists and their work.
     Fearless Creating encourages artists to embrace their unique qualities. Themes such as “wildness” and “tameness,” “fifteen active qualities of the artist,” and “appropriate clarity” highlight the need to know and express your authentic self as an artist.
     The beginning of the book, in which Maisel describes the idea of “Hushing and Holding” an idea, was most useful for me as a visual artist. I used to just throw myself into painting projects without giving ideas much time to develop; hushing and holding gives me the opportunity to be more selective and nurture an idea before I begin a painting.
     The author devotes the last chapter to showing and even selling your work, and includes a twenty page appendix with strategies to manage anxiety at the end (this appendix alone makes the book worth hanging on to, in my opinion).
If you spend long hours on your own and could use a quick pep-talk, Maisel’s book is definitely a handy one to keep in the studio.
     Fearless Creating is probably not a book you’d want to read in one sitting. However, I would suggest reading it through in chronological order at least once, as the book is designed to help the reader break down and analyze the creative process from beginning to end.
     There’s a lot to digest throughout the book, and because it’s psychology-based, you’re more than likely to come away with new ideas about yourself and your work habits—all of which will take time for your brain to process and utilize.
     One caveat is that the book can be a bit didactic at times (“you must” and “you will” are phrases that make frequent appearances). Being a free-thinking, creative artist you probably don’t like being told what to do—but then again, who does??
     However, if you can accept the occasional forceful language in the spirit of personal growth, you might find yourself returning again and again to Fearless Creating for its wisdom as you grow and change as an artist. Just keep a pencil handy as you read it!
Doesn't it sound like a really helpful to us artists book?  What is your most helpful to you book for keeping motivated and inspired?

Hope you are enjoying your start to the week this Monday.  I know I am.

'Til tomorrow!
~Alex
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Sunday, September 28, 2014

Today, I am going to share quotes with you from my Artist to Artist book from the sections:  The Language of Art and Mysticism, Magic, & Spirituality.  As I have said before, I hope you are touched by these quotes and it helps to know that throughout time artists have felt the same things while creating that you do every day ...know you are not alone when you go out there and create.
They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements.  I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph. ~Pierre Auguste Renoir 1841-1919.
At one time the earth was supposed to be flat . . . yet the probability is that life, too, is spherical and much more extensive and capacious than the hemisphere we know. ~ Vincent Van Gogh 1853-1890
The mystical will always be with us. . . . A whole mass of things that cannot be rationalized - new born thoughts that are still not properly formed. ~ Edvard Munch 1863-1944
A work of art is finished, from the point of view of the artists, when feeling and perception have resulted in a spiritual synthesis. ~ Hans Hofmann 1880-1966
I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say in any other way - thing that I had no words for. ~ Georgia O'Keeffe 1887-1986
Everything has two aspects:  the current aspect, which we see nearly always and which ordinary men see, and the ghostly and metaphysical aspect, which only rare individuals may see in moments of clairvoyance and meta physical abstraction. ~ Giorgio de Chirico 1888-1978
Painting is, in my opinion, a richer language than that of words . . . . Painting is a language much more immediate, and, at the time, much more charged with meaning. ~Jean Dubuffet 1901-1985
The painting is not on a surface, but on a plane which is imagined.  It moves in a mind.  It is not there physically at all.  It is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see. ~ Philip Guston 1913-1980
I would like to express man's relation to the world and to himself - and to some spiritual force outside himself. ~George Tooker 1920-2011
Great art is art that strips you of words, and then allows you to find the new words to describe that experience. ~Eric Fischl  1948-
So that's all for this Sunday's inspiration!  Hope you have been having a great weekend and I'll see what I can come up with for us to talk about tomorrow.

'Til then.

~Alex
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Saturday, September 27, 2014

Selling Art

Today is Selling Art Saturday.

Do you know how the BIG gallery market works?  Since I will continue to be considered an "emerging artist" for quite some time, perhaps for the rest of my life...this is something Mark and I are still learning.

Today I would like to share with you something I read the other day.  It is from a post written by blogger and gallery owner Edward Winkleman.  His blog is well worth reading whether you are an artist or a collector.  And his gallery?  Well.  Here is (in part) the write up on their gallery website:
We have participated in art fairs such as The Armory Show, SEVEN, Pulse, ARCO, Art Chicago, NADA, INDEPENDENT, and Moving Image. Gallery artists have exhibited in some of the world’s most important venues and biennials, including the Venice Biennale, the Vienna Kunsthalle, The Art Institute in Chicago, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Singapore Biennale, the Sharjah Biennial, and the Whitney Biennial.
Impressive, is all I have to say about that.

One of the artists Winkleman Gallery represents is Shane Hope.  Here is one of his 3-D printed artworks:
Shane Hope "Computronium-Cloud Copyllution" 2013
  Anyway.  Here is Ed's post.  Very educational for me and for you too, I hope.
That Primary Gallery Discussion
Of all the negotiations that an artist has with their dealer, few are as treacherous to navigate as the one concerning the "primary gallery" question. The reason it can be trickier than other issues is because each new potential opportunity to work with another gallery can change the entire landscape. If, for example, you have a primary gallery in City X and then a gallery in City Y wants to work with you, whether the City Y gallery is going to be happy to become your "secondary gallery" will depend on how they feel about both the other gallery and that other city.

In general, it's not to any gallery's advantage to be secondary gallery for any of their artists and it's often to their great advantage to be the primary gallery for all their artists. It's to most artists' benefit to have a primary gallery for some situations and not at all for others. Further, a gallery powerful enough to work out primary gallery status for most of their artists is usually one well worth working with.

So what do we mean by "primary gallery" or "secondary gallery" in this context? We've discussed this before, but an email from an artist struggling with these issues suggests we could flesh out the issues a bit more. I've changed some details to protect the artist's anonymity:
I recently graduated and I was picked up by a gallery soon after in City Q. I wanted to get some clarification about other galleries working with other galleries. Is this a common thing? I am not familiar with this and I have been asking anyone with answers about this. I am allowed to get representation in another gallery in another state, however, I was told that I needed to tell that other gallery they need to split their half of the commission with my gallery. Ex: from the 50%, one gallery gets 30% and the other gets 20%. This was not told to me at the beginning. One, I do not feel comfortable in this position and I don't think it is my duty to do this as the artist. Two, if my gallery is the one to start the relationship, then they can discuss their terms. I have been told it is a rare situation and rarely works out.
Also, are galleries allowed to take a % from every exhibition I participate in? on works that aren't consigned to them? I am a new, young emerging artist and I feel I am being taken advantage of. I feel I am in a situation I don't know how to go about it. If you have any advice/input it would really be helpful.
OK, so let's begin with a frank discussion about why a gallery might insist on this. (And, from what is provided here, I would conclude that this artist is NOT being taken advantage of, but is not being communicated with effectively.)

In the gallery system the term "primary gallery" means an artist's main gallery, or #1 in the pecking order. This is the gallery that maintains his/her master archive, does much of the communications promoting their career (i.e., with institutions planning exhibitions), will work to raise the money to produce most of the work in situations where that's part of the artist's practice, and generally resides in a high-profile market, meaning they get the kind of traffic/critical attention for the artist that other galleries in other locations just can't. In return they may stipulate terms for representation by which their investment in building the markets for their artists is returned to them through commission on sales in other galleries. The thinking here includes the notion that the other galleries (usually in smaller cities) can only command the prices for the work by this artist because of the primary gallery's reputation and hard work in building their market.

Such terms of representation vary widely (including percentages, duration, geographical extent, etc.). Even within most galleries, they are highly negotiable (i.e., Artist G, who is internationally renown and sells work in the 6-digit range, may be able to insist on terms that Artist T, who is fresh out of school and still building a market cannot [nor should, IMHO]).

A "secondary gallery" is any other gallery (within certain geographical restrictions usually, but not necessarily) that an artist who has a primary gallery works with too. You can have many, many secondary galleries, but within any geographical area, you have only one primary gallery. Of course, no gallery would volunteer to be a secondary gallery for their artists, but it's often a small price to pay for the prestige and/or income to be had by working with an artist who already has a strong market built up by another dealer.

Personally, I feel the real "victim" (OK, so it's not truly that dramatic usually) in such situations is the secondary gallery dealer, not the artist, who will still make their 50% of any sale. But I do realize that until all the terms are established, it can be highly uncomfortable for any artist wishing to have other galleries in addition to their primary gallery, so I empathize with this artist.

Having said that, however, discussing---in depth---how any gallery you're considering signing up with works with other galleries is Representation 101. All the anxiety expressed by the artist above can be eliminated through a simple conversation before the fact. Questions I suggest you ask if your potential new (potentially primary) gallery doesn't offer such information upfront include:
  1. Will you see yourself as my "primary gallery"? And if so, what does that mean with regards to services you provide and expectations of working with other galleries?
  2. Do any commissions you expect of secondary galleries expire after a certain period of my working with them?
  3. Where do these terms apply? Are you my primary gallery only in this city/state/country/continent ?
  4. How should I discuss this with a gallery in another city that wants to work with me, but doesn't want to pay commission? Should I ask them to talk with you about it?
  5. Can this be put in writing?
Question 4 is your real tool here to alleviate any frustration/anxiety. Make the galleries duke it out (they will compromise to your benefit usually). Just be aware up front what your first gallery expects before agreeing to representation. The devil truly lurks in the details of this issue. Personalities, grudges, greed...they can all come into play when dealers talk to each other. If you, as the artist, understand the terms up front though, you don't have to suffer through any of that. Nor should you have to. You may need to make some tough decisions at times, but no one can spare you from those, so....
If you are experiencing a growth spurt with gallery representation, I hope you find this useful information.  I know I did.  Hope you are having a great weekend.

'Til tomorrow -

~Alex
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