Art Calendar

The following excerpt appeared in Art Calendar
The Business Magazine for Visual Artists
July/August 2004 Vol. 18, No. 7

Living the Artist's Life
Recovering from Disaster
by Paul Dorrell

While the Christmas season had been the best I'd yet known, the profits were not sufficient to override the losses of the year. As for January and February, they had been busts. For that matter, most months were still busts. I was hoping things would be better in March though. After everything I'd been through, after all the thousands of doors I'd knocked on and been turned away from (though some had opened), I felt it was time for things to improve. I had owned the gallery for three years now. I felt I was ready for a change. My intuition kept assuring me that March would bring a change. Well, it did.

On the first Sunday of March, I got up at dawn and drove down to the East Side ghetto. There I cruised among the old apartment buildings and projects, the derelict storefronts, the sleeping viciousness of the streets. Only the churchgoers were awake at that hour, where in the Pentecostal churches they had already begun to gather and sing. Otherwise the ghetto seemed vacant, except for the odd prostitute or crack addict, wandering the frigid sidewalks, probably not having yet been to sleep.

I looked at the destitution of the place, and thought of how most of these people had not been born with the opportunities that I had. I thought of how different our lives were, and how minor my struggles compared to theirs. Surely I could rescue my situation if I just worked hard enough, and rose up out of my self-pity. Yeah, things had been tough. Yeah my debt, and the struggles with my writing, and that whole other mess, had taken a toll on me, but still I knew things could get better. I could figure a way out of this. All I had to do was employ greater inspiration, and not lose sight of my vision. If it could be done in any country, it could be done in this one. Well then, I would do it.

I drove around for a couple of hours, getting out a few times to walk the streets, to feel the desperation, and to feel how grateful I was that I hadn't had to start life with all this against me (for reference, read Gordon Parks's autobiography). Next to these people, I had things easy. I had it made.

Feeling somewhat less depressed, and trying to feel elated, I drove on to the gallery to do my morning's writing.

As I worked, I thought how I had to turn this whole thing around, and would turn it around, no matter what. Somehow, I would find a way. I knew now that I could.

Turning Things Around

That night, the hotel manager (my gallery was located in a hotel) called me at home and asked if I was watching the news.

I told him I wasn't.

He told me that was good.

I asked him why?

He said because my gallery was on fire.

I let the words sink in to be sure I understood them, but of course I didn't really understand them, so he said it again. He paused, and as he did I could hear men shouting in the background, the sound of gushing water. Then he said that I should probably come downtown.

I told him I'd be there in thirty minutes. I made it in twenty.

I parked down the street from the hotel, beyond the yellow-taped cordon, and walked up among the fire engines, firemen and cops. Smoke was billowing out the gallery door and water was pouring down the steps. When everyone realized that I was the owner, there was quiet commotion and words of condolence. Then a platinum blonde with thick makeup, a microphone in her hand, and a cameraman at her side walked up. She asked if I wanted to be interviewed. I looked at her tense, career-driven face and told her, no, I did not want to be interviewed. Then I went inside to look at the gallery, or what was left of it.

The fire had started in the storage room behind my space, caused by a carelessly left cigarette. It destroyed the storage room, the room above it, and half of my gallery. Most of the paintings and sculpture, thankfully, had all been moved out by the firemen and hotel staff. Though smoke-damaged, those works had mostly been saved. Everything else-furniture, files, my computer-was ruined. I looked around at the mess as one of the fire captains came up.

He expressed his sympathies. I thanked him, and thanked him also for having moved out so many of the paintings; he acted like it was nothing. Primarily he was concerned about the damage to the gallery; he told me that he sure hoped I had good insurance.

My insurance policy had lapsed three weeks earlier, since I'd opted to pay the phone bill, an overdue advertising bill, and two months of back-rent instead of the policy. I had been planning to catch up on the policy in another week.

I told him, you bet, I had real good insurance.

When I got home my wife asked if everything was okay. She was sitting up in bed looking nervous and worried, certain we'd been ruined. I told her about the damage, and the extent of it.

She asked if the insurance would cover everything.

I told her sure it would: that it would pay off the debt, allow me to open a new gallery, and that everything would be just fine.

She kept watching me, as if trying to make certain that what I said was real. My expression betrayed nothing.

Finally she smiled, and said she was glad that everything was all right. Just watching the relief on her face was worth the price of the lie.

Later she went to sleep and slept very soundly. I got to sleep at maybe four, getting up at six to go downtown and face the mess I'd gotten us into.

 

The damage came to $40,000, more than enough to square my debt and set me up in a new space-had I only been insured. My gut wrenched in triple knots when I thought about it, but there was no point in thinking about it. What was done was done.

I set about cleaning what remained of the gallery, trying to figure a way out once more. While I was cleaning it, most of the other gallery owners in the city called to see if I was okay. I thanked them, and told them I was. Friends called, artists called, then one of my sisters called. A skilled businesswoman, this sister is always boiling with ideas. As we talked, she told me the fire had been necessary.

I asked her to explain.

She said it was simple, that my fate was trying to tell me it was time to move on and start over. She said I wasn't making it where I was, and that the fire would force me to move someplace else, and continue growing-if I interpreted it that way.

I told her I could always grow, but that I needed to be able to feed my family in the process.

She said that was no problem, that all I had to do was have a fire sale: clean all the paintings, discount everything twenty percent, sell the inventory, and move on. She was certain it would be a snap.

It wasn't exactly a snap, but I did take her advice. With the help of some relatives and friends, I cleaned the paintings, and repainted and reopened the gallery. Then I called in the press, including the platinum blonde with the microphone. By the time they all came to interview me I was upbeat again, and gave each of them a story on how you can always rebound, you just have to decide that you want to. I told them that this is America, and that you can do anything here-which to me is true.

They loved it. I got coverage in all the papers and on all the TV stations. The sale was a relative success, and with the $12,000 I netted from it I was able to rent a space in a better location. The new space needed a lot of work, so I spent my days running the old gallery, and my nights renovating the new one. My days had never been longer, but I didn't care. I could sense that my life was turning a corner, and was anxious to continue the journey.

One thing is for certain: March had indeed brought a change.

This article is an excerpt from the book Living the Artist's Life, copyright 2004 by Paul Dorrell. Dorrell is the founder of Leopold Gallery in Kansas City.

A Guide to Growing, Persevering, and Succeeding in the Art World