GENTILESCHI AEGIS GALLERY ASSOCIATION
 February 2013 

GAGANEWS
IN THIS ISSUE
 
UPDATE ON FLORA AND FAUNA
POETRY INSESSION/PHILLIS LEVIN
CARTOON BUFFOON
UPCOMING NEWS/ HIGH WIRE ARTS
GAGAPRO ELIZABETH WILLIAMS
DEAR GEORGIA
IN THE NEWS

 

 

GAGA STUFF/ Upcoming News

It has already been a busy New Year I am happy to report. GAGA, it would seem, has big plans for this year. The one I am most pleased to announce is an all-member, upcoming exhibition at the High Wire Art Gallery in the Tobin District in San Antonio, TX. 

Cindy Palmer, the director and co-owner, is showing GAGA members during Contemporary Art Month!. This is exciting news as GAGA will have two concurrent exhibitions at major locations in town during March. 

But wait! Not only this, but interest is starting to percolate over the Exquisite Quilt. Looks like it is going to travel. The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is looking to host it after it comes down from AISA, and it appears that the quilt might also going to Lubbock in November!

I am so proud of them all! GO GAGA GO!


Sylvia Benitez, President and Founder/GAGA



THE QUILT UPDATE 
Venus Fly Trap by Kari Roberts-Sackmann
 Kari Roberts -Sackmann

The Flora and Fauna Quilt is up in all of its resplendent glory in the ART INSTITUTE OF SAN ANTONIO's lobby gallery! GAGA artists contributed between one and four examples of their work to complete it. This collaborative installation was created by 33 artists, all of whom live in the surrounding San Antonio Area. 

Many styles and mediums are included in this work. It has examples in oil, acrylic, glass, collage, fiber, watercolor, photography and drawing mediums. Artists' interpretations of the theme were varied and include examples of landscape, figurative, na�ve, abstract, realism, narrative, craft, fiber, and jewelry.

 
POETRY INSESSION
FEATURING
PHILLIS LEVIN

 

  

Memoir

 

Within you will find many holes,

A passage that couldn't bear

To be read, couldn't bear to be

Missing, places torn, blotted out,

Undone by necessity.

 

Instead of a this only that, a naught

Over time increasing, a maturity, a

Burning away, a clearing, so to speak.

Fill it in as you will, it becomes a blind

Imagining, less than a world

 

Whose spiraling grasses and stars

Kept a secret alive, within reach                        

Of all who are kin,

Who increase, over time, this privacy,

Holding a candle to it as it multiplies.

 

On a day without day  

This planet again will be stone,

A cavern without water or flesh, a skull  

Devoid of countenance, anonymous,  

Ready to express anything, including

 

Emptiness, the memento of a god     

Whose eye sockets, once,

Were tunnels of love where someone

Such as yourself dwelled long ago--

I'm passing through one slowly

 

As possible now, there's so much to see

I do not want to reach the other side

(You know what I mean

If you followed me here somehow

With your hands, your eyes).

 

 

An earlier version of this poem (published under the title "Journal") appeared in
Transom, Issue 3.

 

  

 

ABOUT :

 
Phillis Levin is the author of four collections of poetry: Temples and Fields (University of Georgia Press, 1988), The Afterimage (Copper Beech Press, 1995), Mercury (Penguin, 2001), and May Day (Penguin, 2008). She is the editor of The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English (Penguin, 2001). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Grand Street, Poetry, The Nation, The New Republic, Paris Review, Agni, Kenyon Review, and Poetry London, and have been published in many anthologies, including Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (edited by Billy Collins), Poets for Life: 76 Poets Respond to AIDS (edited by Michael Klein), The Best American Poetry(1989, 1998, and 2009 editions), and The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing (edited by Kevin Young).Translations of her poems have been published in Argentina, Peru, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, and Israel.

 

Levin's honors include an Ingram Merrill Grant, the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award, a Fulbright Scholar Award to Slovenia, the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship (which she spent living in Florence and Rome), and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. From 1985 to 1997 she was an editor of Boulevard. She has served as an Elector of the American Poets' Corner of The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York and is co-director (with Vijay Seshadri) of the Campbell Corner Poetry Prize. Currently she is a Council member of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers.

 

Phillis Levin was born in Paterson, New Jersey and educated at Sarah Lawrence College and The Johns Hopkins University. She was a full-time member of the creative writing faculty at the University of Maryland from 1989 to 2001 and has also taught at The Unterberg Poetry Center of the Ninety-Second Street Y and in the graduate creative writing programs of The New School University and New York University. Since 2001 she is a professor of English and the poet-in-residence at Hofstra University.

  

CARTOON BUFFOON

  Anybody know a Helen?.......................... Esben                                           


COMING IN MARCH
 
HIGHWIRED
AN ALL MEMBER EXHIBITION 
 
HOSTED BY HIGH WIRE ARTS GALLERY
CONTEMPORARY ART MONTH, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS 

 

ASTLEFORD

BAZALDUA

BEDENKOP

BENDITZ

BUCKLES

BURTT

CRAIG

DALIO

DELANEY

DRAWFORD

FEDELE

FELIX

FLORES

FRANK

FREEMAN

GREER

KELLER-RIHN

KIRKLEY  

LAMAN

LUKEFAHR

MARMOLEJO

MEDELLIN

MORTON

MULLIGAN

MURAIDA

OVERSTREET

PALMER

PAYNE

PEVETO

PITTMAN

POLNASZEK

PUCKETT  

RAINEY

RANCK

REYES

SACKMANN

SAIDI

SIMON

SPEARS

STOUFFER

VERA

WILLIAMS

WILSON

 

 

 

IN THE NEWS

 

Julie Sasse 
just received the Marshal Foundation Dissertation Award which helps her to finish up her degree.
 
Ruth Mulligan
is incuded in a group exhibition of ten artists at the Weston Centre Lobby on E. Pecan Street. 
 
Jennifer Polnaszek 
is being considered for
Artist of the Year Award
at the Coppini Institute of Art. An exhibition of the five contestants opens on Jan. 20th at the Coppini.
 
Elizabeth Williams 
has a show at Gallery Nord through February.

Quick Links
Our Website
 
FLORA and FAUNA
 THE INSTALL
 
 
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
 
TERRY GAY PUCKETT  
BIBI SAIDI
M. MARMOLEJO
BEATRIZ FEDELE
ANNE BURTT
CHELLE DELANEY
SALLY ASTLEFORD
RUTH MULLIGAN
BONNIE KIRKLEY
ROSA VERA
JEAN LAMAN
KARI SACKMANN
LESTA FRANK
M. MORAWIETZ
LORETTA MEDELLIN
SUSAN MICHAEL
BARBARA FELIX
J. POLNASZEK
V. LUKEFAHR
CAROLE GREER
D. KELLER-RIHN
LOUISE CRAIG
SANDY FREEMAN
ROBERTA BUCKLES
LORI CROCKETT
S. JOB SPEARS
LIGIA BEDENKOP
ELIZABETH PAYNE
MARY OVERSTREET
KATHLEEN PITTMAN
D. BAZALDUA
CAROLINA FLORES
ESBEN


The install dates of Jan. 5th and 6th were busy days for GAGA. 33 artists arrived with their work, 82 pieces in all.
Stefani Spears, Ruth Mulligan, J. Drawford, Bibi Saidi, and Anne Burtt worked around the clock registering work and collecting membership dues.

Then the difficult process of ordering the pieces into cohesive squares of nine works each began. We were amazed at how the work talked to each other, the pieces' overall compatibility, and the superb crafting of each work. 

With the works organized, the next step involved building a lattice trellis (on site) on which to affix the composite pieces.

Hanging the quilts nine larger squares was a relatively easy task once we understood the hanging mechanism provided by AISA. The lighting was adjusted and voil�!  We sat back and looked at our handy work. 

We were very content!
The opening reception is still TBA so stayed tuned!

We look forward to seeing you all there! The exhibition runs through March.











 
DEAR GEORGIA


Dear Georgia:

Should an artist have different prices for work in a gallery versus the studio?

Selling right and left, San Antonio, TX

Dear Selling Right:

        Under normal conditions an artist should sell works out of his or her studio at the retail price established by their gallery agreement. However this gets complicated when collectors seek out an artist, hoping to purchase a work at wholesale cost.  As one cannot really blame a collector for hoping to buy a work of art for half price in today's economy, it is usually up to the artist to stand firm.             Unfortunately most artists need the sale and are eager and giddy at the prospect. So they sell low. They forget that there are two good reasons to maintain retail price:  one, it protects the gallery/ artist relationship and two, it keeps unethical practices from recurring.
      You see, selling low creates a situation where the gallery is under cut. Selling wholesale could actually put the gallery out of business. As the scenario plays out, the collector probably will boast of his or her new acquisition and the low ball price they got. They might even suggest to their friends to do the same thing. This keeps collectors from buying art from the gallery.
     Then with this tip from their friends, wannabe collectors go to the gallery to see the work that now has the societal/ gallery stamp of approval. They   schmooze, see their friends, and drink the gallerist's wine, costing the gallery plenty. Later, after the show comes down, they visit the artist hoping for a real deal. 
     If this happens the artist is actually obligated to sell at retail and split the sale with the gallery.
You see how this practice can lead to a vicious cycle.
Depending on the gallery/artist contract, one has to be careful, ask the collector where he saw the work, if he saw it represented in a gallery, or if he heard about the work through gallery publicity. If any of the above is true the sale has to come through the gallery and receive its cut.
     An artist has a responsibility to protect their dealer as much as the dealer has a responsibility to protect their artist.
      I suggest listening to your conscience or you could end up in a sticky mess and labeled with an unethical artist reputation. You will certainly lose out in the end as other galleries will be sure to find out about your business prectices. If this happens they won't handle your work.
      When in doubt it is best to ask your gallery if you have business questions. They will appreciate your candor.  This should strengthen your relationship with the gallery, making for all-around better business.

Georgia


COMING FEB 14TH
 
ELIZABETH WILLIAMS
IS OUR NEXT GAGAPRO. 
 
CHECK OUT HER EXHIBIT AT 
GALLERY NORD. 
USE THIS GREEN LINK  GALLERY NORD 
 
 THROUGH FEBRUARY
 
 

 
 

      The Gentileschi Aegis Gallery Association is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization