| Four years ago, artists Bill Warren and Pati D’Amico were shopping for a home — a place to live, not a property to develop as a gallery. But D’Amico says that right from the beginning of their search, the shotgun houses they visited struck them as great places to show art, with high ceilings and rooms that open one to the next through wide pocket doors. Good thing they had their eyes open. Within six months of moving into their new double shotgun, the married couple decided to open the Waiting Room Gallery in their home. Warren envisions the Waiting Room as an underground, established venue, a place to show alternative art that is accessible to artists and the public. Some other ideas are cropping up around town with a similar theme: Showcase art in different ways to reach new audiences and promote work that is not likely to show up on the walls of high profile galleries. Located on Pauline Street, the Waiting Room shows work in the heart of Bywater, a stone’s throw from the Industrial Canal and seemingly a world away from the city’s surging gallery scene along Julia, Royal and Magazine streets. People who look us up sometimes knock on the door and ask, ‘Is this a gallery?’ says D’Amico. They expect us to be in a commercial area. Then they’re really surprised when you say half of it is your home. Minimizing overhead expenses, like combining the gallery with the home, allows places like the Waiting Room to show work by little-known artists or work that may not be an easy sell for art collectors. Tireless self-marketing — in leaflets, random conversations or through community radio — is another ingredient to making scenes like this work. Some other successful strategies to get people to openings sound more like the trappings of a tightly budgeted house party, like getting friends in bands to perform, whipping up homemade hors d’oeuvres and having a nose for inexpensive wine to serve patrons. |
Those are some of the trademarks of a young production company called 3 Ring Circus Productions, which has been hosting group art shows in private homes. Its most recent show turned an apartment in the Irish Channel into a fantasy bachelor pad, complete with bunny-eared bartenders shaking martinis, mood music on the stereo and smoking jackets galore. Amid the revelry, there was work from half a dozen artists displayed throughout the apartment, which acted as an ersatz gallery open by appointment for the month between opening and closing parties. The opening party for another 3 Ring Circus show invited the public to come dressed as their favorite superhero and an earlier event posed sculpture and video projects in an Oak Street backyard along with barbecue, basketball and rock bands. The aim is to give people a different way to approach and experience art, says Kirah Haubrich, one of the company’s three founders. It takes art off the podium, she says. Art is about communication. A lot of times when you walk into a gallery you don’t feel that, there’s no warmth or involvement. The productions are also about making money for the artists and the company. 3 Ring Circus takes a cut of the sales from their events, though at a little over 33% it is lower than the 50% commission standard at many galleries. At the bachelor pad event, $1,000 worth of art changed hands. In the year and a half the production company has been in business, Haubrich says they have been breaking even, thanks in part to patrons who donate liquor for their parties and other support. But she and her business partners, Adele Borie and Tracy Kennan, also see opportunities in other types of event planning. They have staged art shows in local shops and restaurants and are now at work producing the Contemporary Arts Center’s SweetArts Ball, a fund-raising event planned for March 31 featuring décor with a New York theme. |
Our ability to turn on a dime is our biggest asset because we’re at the mercy of opportunity. When we see one we have to run with it,? says Haubrich. When it comes to selling art, Warren of the Waiting Room says he considers a Saturday with 10 visitors a good day. But he says the people who make the effort to find them out in the Bywater are more likely to be serious about art than the browsing masses that stroll through downtown galleries. The people who come here, come for a reason, he says. They’re willing to cross the railroad tracks to the Bywater. Like the founders of 3 Ring Circus, Warren and D’Amico don’t rely solely on art sales to make a living. Interest in new exposure to art has even turned up in some of the more established venues of the local art scene. The Arts Council of New Orleans runs its outdoor Fresh Art Festival on St. Joseph Street each October and the Contemporary Arts Center curates work displayed for sale at Community Coffee Co.’s shops around town. Another place to emerge as an offbeat venue for local art is the Pickery, an 8,000-square-foot former warehouse on Orange Street between Tchoupitoulas Street and the riverfront. Danny Guillot and Bart Westdrop bought the industrial space two years ago as a home for their furniture restoration business, Noa Restorations; the two business partners also live there. During a house party last year a friend approached them to use the building for an art opening he wanted to throw. One event has led to another, Guillot says, and they have hosted four group art openings, two plays and five charity parties. Guillot says they do not charge rent for their space, but usually require some portion of art sales or cover charged from parties to be donated to charities. 03/12/2001 - Vol. 32 - Issue 37 - Page 1 |