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ArtMatters!  The Inside Story of Marketing
the Art of Chuck Jones with Robert Patrick  

There is often additional information on the recording that is not in this written interview.  Inspire yourself and listen while you make art.

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My primary goal in these interviews is to inspire you with stories of people who make a living helping artists make a living making art and who consider it a real job. The art professionals I interview here have valuable tales to tell you about how to work with them.

The Inside Story of Marketing the Art of Chuck Jones with Robert Patrick

 
www.LJE.com
Chuck Redux
With his background in French, English Literature and studies at the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago, it seemed only natural that a career in the arts would suit Robert Patrick's creative temperament.  
Living in the arts community of Pilsen East on Chicago's near south side gave Patrick his first opportunity to work closely with young artists, bringing their work to the art marketplace through gallery, showroom and collector placement.  During this time he managed the showroom of famed Chicago interior designer, Hudson Brown, where he cut his teeth merchandising and designing window displays for this noted Chicago celebrity decorator.

Patrick lives along the southern coast of Orange County with his life-partner of 29 years and two dogs, Billy and Joey, where he can be found indulging his passions for photography, writing and gardening.

I met Robert through LinkedIn and contacted him because of his compelling profile. Robert's career is a study in art marketing from many angles. Then I discovered the connection with Chuck Jones and my Saturday mornings watching the Roadrunner came right back to me.

Note: We had such a wonderfully wide-ranging conversation that we talked for 90 minutes. Here is Part One. We'll bring you Part Two in April's issue of ArtMatters!

     
A.C.T.: What prompted you to start your professional arts career? Please give us an idea of the various stages of your career, the highlights and lowlights, and what lead to each transition.

Robert: The assistant designer at an interior design showroom I managed bet me $5.00 that if I answered an ad from a gallery seeking an art consultant that they would hire me.  I thought she was nuts, but it turned out she was right. The night before my interview, I read a Horizons magazine issue that was devoted to prints, without knowing how useful that would be.  I took the $5.00 and the job with the largest print maker in the country. That was thirty-one years ago.

When I started selling art, I had no idea what I was doing, so I followed the lead of the gallery director who seemed to just talk to clients about this and that and somehow managed to get a check at the end of their discussion.  My background was in the arts (theater, dance, and the visual arts) and many of my friends at the time were recent graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago - so I was able to draw on a vocabulary and a way of looking at a work of art that worked well with my style of personal engagement.

Shortly after I began working at the gallery, I was promoted to assistant director and I held that position for the next few years.  I worked for Circle Fine Art, at the time the largest publisher and representative of artists in the country, with over thirty galleries and hundreds of artists in their collection.  It turned out to be a great training ground for anyone who wanted a career in an art gallery.   About five years after being hired the director moved and I was promoted to Gallery Director.  

During the eleven years I worked at Circle Gallery (Chicago, Maui, Orange County) I received two prestigious company awards, one for merchandising and the one that meant the most to me, the Madison Avenue Award - given to a gallery director who created an experience of taste, knowledge and sophistication for collectors.  I wrote guidelines for display that were used company-wide and audio taped presentations on select artists that were used as the standard for all of the galleries.  Throughout my tenure with the company, I traveled to other Circle galleries assisting with exhibitions, sales training and human resource issues.  One summer I spent a month in New York as guest director for the company's unique Jack Gallery in SoHo.  

I left Circle Fine Art to work for Linda Jones, the founder of the eponymous company, publisher and representative of her father, the legendary animation creator, director, and a four-time Oscar recipient, Chuck Jones.  At the time, they were beginning to move into retail with the opening of the Chuck Jones Showroom in Newport Beach.  I'd met the Jones's during my time with Circle on several occasions and had always admired the way they conducted their business, and besides, who doesn't love Chuck Jones?  To me, as much today as it was nearly 20 years ago when I began with them, he is the epitome of an artist.  Classically trained in figure drawing at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (now CalArts in Valencia), Chuck was a master of multiple media, including oil and watercolor.  He always said that he was amazed that he found a job where they actually paid him to draw.

There's a wonderful quote from Robert Frost about vocation and avocation: "My object in living is to unite my avocation and my vocation as my two eyes make one in sight." There are not many artists who can claim that - and Chuck Jones accomplished this combination in his lifetime!

I spent several years working as a consultant in the showroom and then was tapped to head-up a new division of their wholesale business that was devoted to fine art and photography.  My background served me well in that capacity and even after the company focused again on its core business, animation, I continue to draw on my background in the arts, whether it's working with our dealers, marketing the business, assisting with retail growth and development, art direction, or blogging, all of it seems to be a part of who I am.

Select highlights include art directing, co-editing and publishing in one month the coffee table art book "Stroke of Genius: A Collection of Paintings and Musings on Life, Love and Art," organizing the Linda Jones Enterprises 30th Anniversary exhibit at International Art Expo, and organizing and planning the touring exhibit of photographer Phil Borges's "Enduring Spirit" to multiple galleries and venues nationally and internationally.  

I've been lucky and it's unusual to have had only three jobs in my career. It's been my good fortune to be where I needed to be when the next job was ready. If you do something well, enjoy and get what you need from it - economically, socially and philosophically there's no reason to move around.

A.C.T.:  What are the best shows you saw recently? What made it best?      

Robert: One exhibit that has resonated with me since 2010 is the John Baldessari retrospective, "Pure Beauty" at LACMA. I think Baldessari is a genius. His quirky sense of humor, his irreverence, his depth of knowledge fascinate me, as well as his way of seeing the world and ability to offer that to the viewer simply and elegantly. His way of showing you what you should have been looking at is without peer in a contemporary artist. There is a touch of tragedy running through his work that makes it deeper than it might first appear.

We just had the grand opening for the Chuck Jones Experience in Las Vegas at Circus Circus followed shortly thereafter by the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity's (a non-profit) grand-opening and fund-raiser at our new 8000 square foot facility in Costa Mesa, California. There's something to be said about being in a room filled with people celebrating the joy of art. Every once in a while you have to pinch yourself and wonder at this many people being in the same room at the same time for this one reason.

Linda Jones Enterprises is still the publisher and representative of the art of Chuck Jones.  We are in our 34th year, a very long time in the art world and I just celebrated my 19th anniversary with them.  We occasionally work with other artists and this being Chuck's centennial year we are beginning an homage series of interpretative works by a variety of other artists, all focused on the art and films of Jones.

A.C.T.: What do you collect?  Where do you like to see art?       

Robert: I have very "catholic" tastes and being a friend of artists for years hasn't been bad for my collection either. I collect mostly figurative imagery, but only because I can't afford the abstract art I would like to own, such as Rauschenberg, Motherwell and Still.  I try to find art that speaks to me in much the same way. I have many landscapes and like to be able to imagine myself inside the painting, walking and dreaming in it to be transported somewhere. My home is hung floor-to-ceiling with paintings, drawings, watercolors, prints, and photography by a variety of artists.

I follow the advice I've given collectors throughout the years, "buy what you love and what you can afford, trust your instincts, accept guidance when it's given, but always make up your own mind."  What matters is that you've found something that creates a connection, brings you joy, or intellectual stimulation. I pity the person who doesn't like to look in people's windows at night and see what kind of art they have on the walls. I can't imagine what it might be like to live without art as visual stimulation.

I always try to buy something when I'm traveling; it's a much better 'picture' of the trip than a snapshot of me standing in front of the ______.  

And in answer to the second question: I see art everywhere I go.


Chuck Jones by Wile E Coyote
Chuck Jones by Wile E Coyote � Warner Bros.
� Photo by Karsh


A.C.T.: What projects are you working on now?  

Robert: I've curated several Chuck Jones exhibits, including one at the Port of Portland; another at the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus, Ohio; and a major exhibition of his work at the Chuck Jones Experience, an interactive museum of creativity in Las Vegas at Circus Circus that opened in January, 2012.  

The museum exhibit is a little like walking around in Chuck Jones' head. It's a little goofy, very intellectual if you want it to be, fun and funny. Chuck always felt that no matter who you are, you are a creative person. Often as children grow up, creativity gets tamped down. They may get "overly praised" or get no praise - either one kills the joy of creativity. Chucks' thoughts about creativity are all about nurturing and gentle guidance.

Aside from the exhibit, there's a learning center that's free. The plan is to have full time artists there. We are reaching out to schools in the area to bring tours.

For the opening we had a big "boom" in the form of a big bouquet of Acme TNT. We thought that was better than cutting a ribbon with scissors.

We worked with a talented design team who did theme parks and parade floats. John Ramirez, the head designer had worked with Chuck in the early nineties. The project began 3 years ago with our thoughts about what the exhibit would look like. I started digging around in the Chuck Jones archives of art, telegrams, clippings, and photographs and started seeing connections. Other threads were telling stories through Chuck's oil paintings; his art about his daughter - and one thing led to another. We wanted to tell the story of how to draw, why you include certain things and how you put them together, what's funny and what's not.

A.C.T.: How does writing fit into your personal and professional life?      

Robert: Some form of self-expression has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  I like making things and I consider writing making something.  It satisfies that urge to get whatever is inside out.  

Of course, now with blogging and the like, it's kind of wonderful to have an audience and get feedback (or not, which happens too).  Professionally, I write the blog, and all marketing material, including press releases for the company.  I often provide structure to written material being produced by other people in our organization.  I know them so well that I can express in their voice.

I got some great advice from a collector friend who said to make sure to use every character and space to tell your story in your profile on LinkedIn. It changed the way LinkedIn works for me - and it's how we met!

A.C.T.: What makes an artist professional enough for you to represent them in the homage project? What mistakes do artists make and how could they overcome them?      

Robert: Every artist should be proud of his or her work but ego sometimes gets in the way. They have to temper that with how they present themselves. Be open to suggestion. Be sensible about where you fit in, what your skills level is, and what you are saying with your work. The most common mistake artists make, that I have observed in my career, is not following submission guidelines.   

We only work with artists who have a proven track record of sales, a history of multiple exhibits and/or they have attained a certain level of success in the art of the animated film as a director or animator of significant sequences and films. Their art must make cross-over sense, i.e. how are they going to interpret the work of Chuck Jones and does it fit in with what we're hearing people want and are buying. We have a circle of artist friends and now we are tapping them.

A.C.T.: Please describe a typical day and a typical month so readers can understand how you manage your time, money and energy.      

Robert: The best way to do that I've found is to make a quick list the night before of what you need to accomplish the next day. Of course the art business changes daily and other thing will come up.  It doesn't have to be a complete list, but a general outline and priorities seems to make the day a lot easier to navigate.

Before I leave for work, I try, not always successfully, to take a moment to visualize my day and what I want to accomplish.  When I lived in Chicago, it was easy to do this while I rode the subway or the bus to work, but now that I drive I've found I have to squeeze that "quiet" time into my early morning.  

At Chouinard Arts Institute, now Cal Institute for the Arts, Chuck was told "You birds have 10,000 bad drawings in you. Start getting rid of them now and we'll all be the better for it." I almost always try to get rid of the most noxious tasks first thing so I don't have to worry about them all day long.  If you keep pushing them off they weigh heavily on your mind and affect the things you do for the rest of the day. The more you get rid of the bad things the better you will be at the rest.

I try to move forward, not backward or sideways. Things completed make sense to me and feel good. I asked Judith Bledsoe, an artist friend who lives in Paris "How do you know when you're done with a painting?" She answered: "You don't but at some point you have to decide if it's mature enough to let it go."

As boring as it sounds, I try to be as methodical as possible, completing tasks, checking them off a list (virtual or real).  I absolutely am a committed list maker, with occasional flurries of post-it notes attached for decoration (!)  Usually those are a result of new tasks, unexpected tasks resulting from impromptu meetings or doorway chats, although I try to avoid the unexpected by planning, planning, planning, but in the art business the unexpected is often the best part of the day, is it not?  

Because many of my tasks come from different departments, I am usually working on projects at least a month in advance.  Although some of the details may change, usually our goals will remain the same.  

A.C.T.: What peak moments have you had as an art professional?

Robert: There have been several peak moments:  

  • In the eighties I did three art events in six weeks - one every two weeks. Big deals, expensive artists. It was the most successful series of shows I have ever done until the Chuck Jones experience.  I think it was because there was no room for error because there was so much to be done. This was all before computers and faxes had just started to be used so we were trying to figure out how that worked into selling art. We hand addressed envelopes to 2000 people for each show. Timing, the installation, and handling the artists were all important to staying focused on the shows and sales.
  • I had the great fortune to curate and install a major museum collection of California plein-air artists in the collector's home.  The project extended over several days, but every moment, each decision and the final results were very satisfying.
  • Watching Chuck Jones receive his Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1996, was awesome, and although not "art" related, well, you know I worked for him, he rode in my car, I had been to his house and had dinner with him.  That personal connection made his achievement that much more touching and significant.  
  • The one thing that is always a peak moment for me, and one that I never tire of experiencing, is when someone acquires a work of art and the joy they exude when they take it in their hands or watch it installed in their home.  It's a pretty wonderful moment, isn't it? Artists should think about the fact that the transfer of yourself to another person can be a very intimate and meaningful experience and one that should not be taken lightly. Art is such a powerful and positive force in our world that living without it seems inconceivable to me.   
A.C.T.: How you feel artists can benefit from the types of programs, services and products we offer at Artist Career Training and The Art Business Library?

Robert: Listen up, artists!  You can't have enough help. Let someone help you become the sales person you need to be. Aletta knows her stuff and she is that person.  And I'm not just saying that to curry favor with her.  

What if I told you that you could have a successful career as an artist, but you'd have to give me your first-born?  In most cases, you'd refuse, wouldn't you?  What I'm saying is: there are no trade-offs on the way to success, you cannot wait for luck or fate or fortune to fall into your lap; you have to make it happen for yourself. You're going to have to work for it and if that's the case then you should find the most efficient approach to that success.  

Aletta can help you create a plan so that you can focus more of your attention on creating.  Who wouldn't want that?  Her approach is simple, but not juvenile.  Her programs play to your strengths, but do not ignore your weaknesses.  Her plan, well, the fact is Aletta has a plan and there's no one I know who can't benefit from a well thought-out life/career plan. 

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We'll bring you Part 2 in the April issue of ArtMatters!


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