To: Michael S. Miller Editor in Chief of Toledo Free Press
Hi Michael –
I read your op-ed in the Toledo Free Press regarding the Ann Arbor Art Fair. First, let me say, I appreciate your point of view. I can understand your anger as most Americans find their wallets woefully inadequate these days (maybe yours, as well). When you see things in the marketplace which are beyond your means, then it rightfully makes you angry – me, too. Ultimately, as you already know, the marketplace decides the value of things. If things are overpriced – they will not sell. Certainly, you did not purchase at the show. I would hope you might look a bit further into why you are angry, and examine the realities of the marketplace in the United States.
First, the economy is fueled by the middle class – people with good jobs who have a bit extra. Our middle class is evaporating as our jobs go away.
We as artists are struggling in America – we live in poverty, have no access to medical insurance, no retirement in our future - we live on the edge – all the time. Many of us are like the working poor, except that we don’t have a paycheck. We are not taking from the culture, we are adding to it.
Don’t blame the craftsmen and artists..
I cannot speak to the pricing of art in this show, but I CAN speak to what we have to do in order to survive as artists.
· First, the American artist has to get a living wage in order to survive. We have to pay rent, utilities, insurance, raw materials, tools and maintenance as well as transportation, and all the selling and display equipment and supplies.. In other words, it costs us just like it would cost anyone in “manufacturing”.
· Additionally, the way American Craft and Art are marketed has changed. We are competing with imported crafts and art for shelf space even within the fairs like Ann Arbor. Some of us “wholesale” and some of us “retail” and many of us have to have second incomes.
· Our markets (including art fairs) have been inundated with imported items. Our designs are picked up and copied by factories in China which are state run and employ forced labor (soldiers, prisoners, children, young girls). Not only are they working within an artificial monetary system which keep the prices low, they are paying no taxes, non-subsistence or NO wages, AND our large retailers are bringing in these products in direct competition with American made stuff.
As American jobs go away, the American middle class evaporates, the market for American Craft will become increasingly “skewed”. Look at it this way, if no one can afford an (essentially) unknown artist’s work for $100, then why not price it at $5000. So, the “unencumbered” artists you saw at that show, each and every one of them, started with a concept, gathered materials, created, finished, framed, labeled, packed, hauled, unpacked, created a nice display, dressed for selling, put their stuff out there, and manned their booth for a minimum of 10 hours a day.
Maybe your anger is misplaced. I am glad you and your family enjoyed the museum, and sorry that you experienced the rage at the art fair, even to the extent of publicly expressing it. I hope you feel better. But, are you attacking the wrong people? Many of the artists whose work you saw in the museum suffered in their lifetime.
Those paintings in the Toledo Museum are most likely valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and provide a tax write off to the wealthy people and organizations that put them on display for free to the “masses”. Corporations can give large gifts and endowments to fine museums to offset their tax liability. The profits are often at the expense of American jobs.
I might add, on a personal level, that we (craftsmen for over 30 years) are working harder for less than ever in our lives. And we are falling backwards. I am beginning to resent the affluence I see on the television, and second guess the choices in my life. I have become the old woman with knurled painful hands, who must continue to work in order to put bread on the table. I have given up on art shows, because they are most often not, and now sell my work in a “shed” gallery on the side of the road, online on my web site, on ebay, on Amazon, and through a few galleries. You might ask HOW do I supply all those venues? That is not a problem, my few sales on each add up to enough to sustain us… I price my work at the lowest price I can, without LOSING money.
Most sincerely,
Martha Baerreis
Designs by Baerreis
P O Box 397
Tellico Plains, TN 37385.
