The studio tour: another art buyer’s tool
Just a few postings ago I talked about art buyers missing a big bet by limiting their search parameters to Hudsoniana in the Hudson Valley of New York. The dominant mindset has always been to comb the valley and the nearby Berkshires and Taconics for pastoral art to hang in country homes. But these locales are treasuries of modernist art, often as good or better than what is shown in Manhattan, and invariably at much lower prices.
When I wrote that I was talking about all the feisty little galleries in the many towns and small cities of the tri-state area—my thesis might very well apply to many rural areas of the country—but now I want to mention a much more intimate and direct way of buying art, namely the studio tour.
Towns like Woodstock, Shandaken, Saugerties in Ulster County, Catskill in Greene County and Hudson in Columbia County, and many others, frequently are the venues for guided tours of artists’ studios. These are not art walks, which have institutional sponsors, these are rather opportunities to visit artists where they do their work, to talk to them and to talk to other collectors.
An example is the upcoming Shandaken Arts Festival and Studio Tour on July 18th, 19th and 20th. Information about the tour may be obtained from the artists themselves. You may also e-mail info@shandakenart.com.
Phoenicia is the principal village in sprawling Shandaken, a town considerably more rural than adjacent Woodstock which has been long famous for its artists and musicians. In many ways Phoenicia today resembles the village Woodstock was in earlier times, less visibly commercial, a bit more eccentric, and much more rural.
A studio tour is much more enlightening than a gallery visit. You see how the artist works. You ask questions. Above all, you meet the artist in an unpressured setting. There is no middleman. It’s a great way to build your confidence in your own judgment, to make your own evaluation of the pool of talent upon which the galleries are drawing.
These artists know each other. Some of them are teachers. They often help each other. They are more collegial than competitive, and in the absence of the gallery setting they are less restrained in their resonses to visitors. They’re as interested in your tastes and you are in their work, and this becomes a bond between you.—DM
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