Just two days after moving here from Washington, D.C. last March, I met a local artist who urged me to attend a meeting of a group called Freeport Creative Artists to be held the next evening. My husband and I did so eagerly, thrilled at the opportunity to meet some of our fellow artists so soon!
When we arrived the meeting was already in progress and we were greeted with silence. Odder still, when we finally blurted out our plans to open an art gallery and asked if there were any interest among the membership, we received only stony stares and a few mumblings along the lines of “No, not really.” We left thinking we had mistakenly stumbled into a meeting of Psychotics Anonymous.
Only later did we learn that the owner of a rival pseudo-gallery just two doors away from my location was the president of that very group, and in attendance at that meeting! Instead of welcoming us and collaborating on a "Friday Night Art Walk," which might have increased business for both of our establishments while enhancing the town’s reputation, she blackballed my gallery and refused even to acknowledge me in public on many occasions. To this day we have never exchanged one word.
As for press coverage, try as I might I could never get a write-up in the local paper, despite the fact that a new gallery opening right on Main Street in downtown Freeport was certainly news worth celebrating by both the art and business communities.
In desperation after many months of slower and slower sales, and after hearing from several other gallery owners that marketing was important to our eventual success, we hired a marketing professional, or so we thought. Our $1,000 check got us nothing more than the suggestion that we “have plenty of paper plates and plastic cups on hand for art openings.” Our hired pro couldn’t figure out how to do an e-mail blast for an upcoming opening, something allegedly included in the fee; eventually we did it ourselves. We also learned that the mailing list she gave us was pirated from another gallery in the very next town! Funny thing is, she quit after our complaining, and kept all the money. (Ouch.)
Finally, last month, we got the newspaper art review we had sought for so long and it was a bad one, poorly written by a freelancer who himself had suffered his own failed art gallery last year. His negative review was the final nail in our coffin. I thought, if this was the "press coverage" we so desperately needed, what could possibly help us now?
And so, because life is short and getting shorter every day, I have decided to stop wasting my husband's hard-earned money and shield myself from the cold hard fact that running an art gallery in Freeport is like throwing a bar mitzvah in Auschwitz: Who's coming?
Instead I plan to spend my days making beautiful art, enjoying the glories of Maine beyond my gallery's four walls, and writing my funny stories. (This isn't one of them, but then I told you that right up front.)
3 comments:
as i've said in other venues, so sorry to see you go, and so sorry that you leave with such a sour taste in your mouth. i hope the summer provides endless inspiration, and that we see you on the greater portland art scene for many years. and thanks so much for your support of my work!
so sorry to hear this news of the gallery closing. I hate passive aggressive people. I like open, interesting, collaborative, forthcoming neighbors. Yuck on the art scene now. pooh on them. meh. you are too good for them.
Go listen to Samuel James and talk about whitey tighty folks, he will cheer you up with some blues. He's a good Maine-iac. It's just like SLC, too messed up for creative people. I love you. and your gallery.
so sorry to read this Andrea. Best wishes to you and your husband in your future creations.
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