Did you Support Your Local Art Workers?

Galway city was magical during that December-time madness when everyone empties their pockets into the luxury goods market.

Glorious

Did artists in Galway take advantage of this money-catching frenzy? Why yes, yes they did.

I took a wander through the city centre on the 18th of December to take stock of the most obvious efforts of Galway craft-makers to sell to the seasonal shoppers. From a market-perspective this is totally relevant to my art business-critiqueing study. Think of it as a art-market-permeability and accessibility assessment and as a chance to showcase my super vintage fun times with Pixel-o-matic.

First off, the Christmas Market:

Hip border, vintage and sparkles makes every lame camera-phone photo better.

I remember a lot of bobbly scarves, wood carvings and soap.

My favourite part of the Market were the cute illustrations of various market sponsers - hotels, restaurants, etc, - on the Christmas Market barriers. So simple and so charming.

Generic Galway Cornerstone Merchant

 I have no idea who did them but I'm going to go ahead and imagine it was Proof for now, seeing as how go-to they are for all manner of grandiose design work in Galway. 

 The Saturday market down by St Nicolas's was operating during weekdays on the run up to Christmas. To my delight it was bursting with artist stalls. Galway city's 70,000+ population was simply spoilt for choice. Diana Piavorova and Chris Murray were the two that enraptured me the most.

Peter McManus the Framer and artist-promoter can be found at the market promoting the vivid expressionist  landscapey work of several artists in postcard, print and framed form. He has a gallery known as Blow-in Galleries that is currently...websiteless..sigh.

Some properly mad fine art for unsuspecting shop street shoppers.

The most visible artist in Galway city has to be the one who has their own spot on Shop Street. The only time of the year that Bryan BAM Chisholm seems to share this en plein air gallery space (acquired after about 8 years of determined art squatting) is during the Arts Festival, where caricaturists, facepainters and hair-bead-braiders perch beside his permanent easel display. During the season, he was breaking out the abstract, the surreal and the ever-popular Samuel Beckett portraiture to strike gold and lure more Galwegians into art patronage. Because it's really really in vogue to be "working on" a website rather than to actually have one, here is a nice biographical video made about BAM and his work, and here are the photos from one of his indoor exhibitions (where I got to part ways with 20 euros for an earth-toned still-life).

I was proud of the smattering of private art galleries that had their doors wide open this end-of-December. For the Vanda Art Gallery I feel the most protective of and emotionally invested in, being a permanent gallery business run and stocked by one artist - yes, an artist - in one of the most expensive areas in Galway to rent. I also love how commerial Vanda Luddy has made her "Ronseal" art - iconic Galway postcard scenery picturing everywhere from the university to the Claddagh, in a clear, uncomplicated style that indicates yes you are definitely buying an artwork, you can even see the pencil lines and brush strokes, but you are not going to be challenged or art-elitist-ed out of the room in any way. Simply can't get more accessible than this.

Another artist who runs the Galway Art Classes (well done of your super high SEO for "Galway, art"), Jim Kavanagh, rented out another unit in super-rent-street for a few weeks to sell his very Irish, very likeable and ultimately sellable dramatic landscapes. All boxes ticked for a good Christmas art gift - lets hope his work now appears in everyone's auntie's sitting room.

I have to say I am the most proud of this instagram-ing. I swear to the muses I am talented.

Here are two galleries in Galway I've had my eye on for a thorough nosey adventure and a hearty bit of gallery-owner interviewing: Obsolete Gallery in the Eyre Square Shopping Centre and Galway Bay Galleries off the illustrous Dominic Street. Both were in full swing for the Christmas season:

Showcasing their Day of the Dead exhibtion earlier this year. Photo nicked from their expertly-utilised Facebook page.

Galleries with massive graffitti art influences does things to me. Speaking of which Finbar247 had an admirable and highly successful Christmas effort to rake in the dollars.

 Also a word in for Funky Fairtrade in the Bridge Mills. A notable amount of Galway-based craftspeople sell their absolutley gorgeous, squeee-inducing work in this year-old enterprise. Again their Facebook page does more justice to their product display than my camera phone ever could.

Photo also acquired from Facebook page.

 Also it was here that I did my part to Support Your Local Craft Workers this Christmas, an economic cause close to my heart.

Pendant featuring my favourite High Cross by Jack Roberts - Bandia Jewelery (weirdest link to an artist's contact details yet).

What did you do?

The List: Art Workers in Galway

First of all; Brilliant reaction to the last entry. Thanks for all the reads, the favouriting, and subscribes! Before I've even began SEO-ing my blog properly and making it not look like crap. Just wow.

Before I went off to Poland for an awesome free holiday in Krakow, where I gawked at a lot of architecture and pro-human-interaction town-planning and went to a student art exhibtion (lol), I added two new tabs to my page. I am launching a list of Art Workers on one tab and a list of Art Peoples - everyone else related to the visual art market on the second. As part of my overarching project to study artists in Galway and find ways to maximise their development and earning potential (including my own), I want to create a finally definitive art-yellow pages for Galway City. That US study on the art market in various cities - Investing in Creativity - that I raved about on my last post really blew my mind.

When I began with this list it was all on one tab. I quickly saw how huge this list was going to be and so now  all the art workers I can find get their own blog tab and categories (for now, until I can afford a super awesome website). This is also a much less lonely and neglected place for my collection of artist pages than my sprawling bookmarks folder.

This is the ultimate labour of love and rampant obliging the categorisation-obsessive Monica Geller in me. I still want to write about other things like run-of-the-mill art reviews, comics and illustration, urban art and make my own art (all my materials are still in Donegal, sob) and upskill, as well as work two friggin part time jobs for a few months to emerge from the murky stomach-clenching, nightmare-ish world of post-student debt. However, whilst the austerity economy threatens to topple and crush the Irish Artist who lives off grants, dole and no currernt and reliable understanding of the market that they're trying to sell their work in, that is without a doubt the most important thing to write about. Before I start to generally gush about local artists. Especially after Arts Council funding has just been cut by 4% as of yesterday and artists are being shouted at to become entrepreneurs and leaders of their own income streams.

Time for the artist's wage methinks.

When I have either more people to write for this blog or better time management, I will do proper heavy interviewing of Galway artists to turn this pleasing exericse in categorisation into a valid art-market framework for artists that is specific to Irish norms of art business, based on the Urban Institute study's framework, which began with interviews. All these intended interviews with my fellow artists would aim to correlate all their bickering, opining and long weaving rhetorics about the Galweigan art bubble into something substantial, productive and progressive. In the absense of a proper market analysis for Irish artists (although I looking for pre-existing art market reports for this country here, here and here) I will collect more kinds of data to create a proper market analysis (if the art market here can actually be tied down into a market category, see my hesitation about that in my last post). If my business education is to turn up anything useful for my art goals, I want to apply it to create real business models in the arts sector that can help artists.

Art Workers

I have my own criteria for adding artsy people to this list -

• they must have a website/facebook page/tumblr that they regularly update with their progress and their completed work. An artist who is serious about expanding their money-making potential and who doesn't have an online presence or never updates is not worth the time it takes for me to type their name (if you are established and have your own carefully constructed ear-to-mouth network of buyers who only ever contact you by landline then grand, good for you. Go read my other awesome blog posts.);
• I promise to not be a horrible corruption monster and only add my friends/people I think are seriously cool and am trying to suck up to (of which, I assure you, there are many). Most of the artists will be Irish connected and mostly Galwegian for now. I must profess; there will be a lot of Societies people. That is where my artistic base and beginnings in Galway began, and there are a legion of Societies people who are jaw-droppingly talented and hard-working and who I'd love nothing more than to see succeed;
  
  

  Generic photo of super happy societies students being creative and hardworking together. I do believe this was the very first Muscailt Arts Festival I was involved in - back in 2008. Ah those formative years.

•  I will endeavour to keep my very particular tastes for art out of selecting and deselecting artists. Whilst I naturally lean towards comic book illustration, very expressionist and figurative art, surreal art, stuff with buildings and cityscapes in 'em, and graphic vector work, I will always be proud of you if you genuinely work to make a success of your art, even if I think you bore the brains out of me (and not in a good way);
• I'm giving priority to visual artists and designers. Other fields in the arts should really find their own obsessives to build them big bloggy databases. Writers and performers that are supplementary to visual artists I want to include, e.g. comicbook writers, actors who collaberate with designers, models, lighting designers, etc. I feel that the specific field of musicians and the live music in Galway scene is a bit too far outside of my tendrils and personal interests in write about properly, but sure, we'll see how easy it is to guide them under my massive blanket definition. I am generally a sucker for any kind of start up business from young Irish people, so I will probably find a way to include a lot of businesses and individuals who are just really super cool.

Art Peoples

This collection of everyone else who make up the art market will include:

1. Artistic Groups and Collectives
2. Artistic Industries
3. Artist “Producers”
4. Art Commentators, Magazines and Advocates/Activists  




1. Artistic Groups and Collectives
Basically collaberative groups that, whilst they're not employing anyone, are directly assisting artists to improve their ability to self-employ and self-manage, without selling their work. Balancing the fantastical bohemian lifestyle with a good splash of business reality.



Love this. Source: Image from Diary of an Arts Pastor, very informative and interesting article about the "Artist-Prophet" phenomenon. Worth a peruse.



2. Artistic Industries
These would in theory “employ” the visual artist - give the artist a commerical outlet. Whether my inquisitive wee study ends up revealing that these loosely defined "industries" in Galway only ever seek “employees” within their own super incestous network of ass-lickers OR that Galway artistic industries are unbearable bureacratically fair and regulated in terms of recruitment, I shall list them all. Include graphic design studios, art galleries and auction houses, animation studios, art auction houses, theatres, etc. Also I will give preference to galleries that show off local artists first and foremost.


3. Artist “Producers”
These are the producers of artists, not the producers of artistic products. I still believe that the best kind of artist is the self-taught artist, but I will list the art colleges and institutions that run art training courses for Galwegians and have at the very least an undeniable networking role in the art world. Is a lack of training really a barrier to entry? Or is it a barrier to entry within itself? Ho hum.





<3 <3 Art School Confidential fuck yeeeh <3 <3



4.   Art Commentators, Magazines and Advocates/Activists 
Artzines (which have absolutely expoded in the past two years or so, absolutely love the entrepreneurialism and hopefulness of them all), particuarly notable art tumblrs,websites, art critics, etc etc, that focus on Ireland and more.


 Obviously there will be overlap and general blurring in some of these groups, e.g. an artist collective with their own cop-op art gallery, an artist who runs their own gallery and sometimes feels generous enough to sell other people's stuff on some commission, etc., etc.


Again, these categories are very broad and aren't designed to adhere to anyone else's definition and understanding of the overall playing field but my own. For big official economic stats there are just-barely definitions of artists as cultural economic agents within a broader economy by the almighty Fás: see Fás National Skills Bulletin and their many related publications on job sector supply and demand (which is really informative and eye-opening anyway). If I ever got together the resources to draw up a proper theoretical framework I would love to completely Porter's Five Forces the hell out of this city. This is of course Galway-focused, but I would love to later apply this fantasy theoretical framework to other artsy cities like Cork and Dublin and then the greater island of Ireland.

Comments on all this are totally welcome, also let me know if you want to be included in the list, should include someone/something and/or have terrifying Galway art market secrets for me.