Big dreams, small places

It's tricky to combine creativity and commercialism. But for most local artists, it's a necessity.

By Marty Berry
The Fresno Bee

(Updated Sunday, March 21, 2004, 6:29 AM)

Diana Sevilla, left, and Tim Hernandez, center, listen as artist Larry Mills explains his artwork during a reception at Recycom Gallery in the Tower district. Darrell Wong / The Fresno Bee E-mail This Article Printer-Friendly Format   Receive the Daily Bulletin Subscribe to Print Join a Forum

Some are working diligently toward the former, like Fresno artist Marcos Dorado, while others, like Imperatrice, accept that they may always need to promote themselves.

Chris Hays, owner of the Door Art Gallery, gave up her art altogether to concentrate on the business end, which some artists might consider the ultimate sacrifice.

"Thank God for her," says artist Milli Pepper, who volunteers at the gallery and shows her work there. "She does all the things we don't want to do."

Artists have learned over the years that banding together and sharing the work of promoting themselves helps immensely in drawing attention to their work. ArtHop, which takes place the first Thursday of each month in Fresno and offers people a chance to visit the participating galleries for free, has helped organize and promote local artists and galleries even more, with the Fresno Arts Council taking on some of the promotion workload.

The recent Rogue Festival also added art galleries to its roster of events earlier this month, and that increased foot traffic for Tower District galleries to the point where the smaller galleries were bursting at the seams with visitors.

The Door Art Gallery, which is part of ArtHop, started out in various artists' homes and then was in different locations as a co-op, with the original nine member artists sharing the expenses and the work. But the members say they always envisioned a full-fledged working studio. They moved into their current space in a shopping center at Bullard and Marks avenues in 1995, and took their name from the space's previous tenant, the Door Gallery, which, as its name suggests, was a store that sold doors.

They liked the idea of the name because what they hoped to do was open doors for themselves and other artists, and besides, they didn't have the money for a new sign.

The gallery has a regular roster of 12 artists who share in the work, but Hays has taken over the financial end completely. With her work at the gallery, her master gardener work and her job as an interior designer ("the only thing that makes any money," she says), she has no time for painting anymore.

"I just want the gallery to be successful for the artists," Hays says.

The Door Gallery features one of its artists, or a guest artist, each month, along with other artists' works.

Paintings also are available for rental or sale. The gallery also holds workshops featuring nationally known artists, watercolor and drawing classes, and a weekly human figure drawing class featuring a live model 9 a.m.-noon Wednesdays.

Hays procures the models, and says she's gotten "completely brazen about it."

"I'll go up to someone in the bakery," she says, to ask someone to model.

Dorado, who produces a lot of human figure drawings, says he, too, has gotten to where he'll approach anyone to model for him.

"Oh yeah, I'll approach a perfect stranger and ask them to model for me. And they usually say yes."

Dorado, who currently has a show of nude drawings up at his gallery in the Tower District, says he thinks the human figure is returning to a position of importance in the art world.

"I have an affinity for faces, for the figure. It's making a big comeback this century," he says. "These things go in cycles. I think 9/11 is a cornerstone that all of a sudden made us look at the human elements again -- fear, relationships -- that redefine who are are. All of a sudden, a painting of an old woman becomes a little more relevant than blue paint splashed on a canvas."

Dorado has his gallery inside the Tower District location of Recycom Technologies, a laptop-computer business owned by brothers Jack and Marvin Dangoor. Dorado books the art gallery, and the Dangoors get a commission on any sales he makes.

"I want to show where people are, where people naturally go," Dorado says of Recycom's location, at Olive and Echo avenues in the heart of the Tower District. "We get a lot of foot traffic there. People are already out walking around, and it's an arty neighborhood.

"Plus, the business is already established. It's thriving a lot. Marvin is expanding to Visalia in the next couple of months. So I approached him, and it turned out he had been thinking of having other artists in. So it was very synchronistic.

"And it's a mutual thing. People who wouldn't normally go see art, but come for the computers, see the art. And some people who come to see the art might buy the computers."

Dorado just got into art five years ago, after a divorce, and several different careers, from being a paralegal to working in a psychiatric facility to working in martial arts.

His sister, Eva, remembered that he used to like to draw as a kid, and she encouraged him to take it up again.

"I had no clue what you would charge for a drawing, though," he says.

But he learned as he went, and one day, he was sitting in a café, drawing, and a man sitting next to him noticed him working, and asked if he did portraits, which led to a commission to do a portrait of former California State University, Fresno, football star and current NFL player David Carr.

One thing led to another and then another, and he was offered a one-man show. Now his work sells for from $250 to $2,500 per drawing.

Between commissioned portraits, exhibitions and the gallery, he is able to make a go of it as a full-time artist. He even has his own publicist now, who handles his communications with galleries, collectors and media.

And he needs a publicist. Dorado is one busy guy. In addition to Recycom and his commissions, he has other shows coming up in the area, including one in July at the recently opened Creative Cat Gallery, on Figarden Drive in northwest Fresno, as well as shows in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York. His big goal is to get some of his work into the prestigious Whitney Biennial at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art in 2006.

"There are three elements to succeeding in art," he says. "One, you have to develop a good, skilled craft. Two, you need to be equally strong at marketing. And three is networking.

"You have to realize that it is a business. Look at Britney Spears. Does she have the best product out there? No, but she's marketed well."

Imperatrice already had a marketing background, with an advertising degree from Fresno State and media experience working at The Fresno Bee.

"You have to think of yourself as a business," she says. "You can't just sit back and create and go, 'Voila, I'm done.' It's about getting involved with different events. There are lots of different places. I would go to ArtHop and ask them how they got started, and just soak it up like a sponge.

"One of the first things I tell people -- I give them an ArtHop map and tell them to talk to people and take their portfolio and show it to people. I want to encourage others.

"Artists need to become more proactive. You have to get involved with organizations that promote interaction. Otherwise, you don't get to know people in the cultural community. There is a growing awareness that Fresno does have an arts community."

Imperatrice and her husband, Anthony Imperatrice, who restores old pianos in another part of Ashtree Music & Art, talk about the irony of people driving from Fresno to San Francisco to buy art by an artist from Fresno.

"They could've just driven down to the studio in Fresno," Anthony Imperatrice says.

"It's absurd."

Aileen Imperatrice says that while it's every artist's "ultimate goal to do your artwork and have someone else do all the other stuff, until you get to that point, get that reputation, you have to do it yourself."

She advises networking and community involvement. She has worked as program director at the Fresno Arts Council, and she now is involved with the Fresno Council for Arts, Science and Humanities. She also has formed the Arts Network, with four other artists.

"Get involved with arts organizations," Imperatrice says. "That's the best way to survive, by forming groups. It's easier to get a public showing as a group."

She, too, is enamored with the Tower District, where she and her husband bought Ashtree. At their other place, they found that the dust from his piano refinishing work was getting on her art, so they needed a place where they could have separate rooms.

Now she's expanding her portion, the Aileen R. Imperatrice Studio and Ashtree Music & Art, to accommodate other artists. Another synchronistic event occurred when the Rogue Festival asked that her studio be a Rogue's Gallery, one of three galleries included in the festival. Dorado's gallery also was a big part of the Rogue Festival.

Now Imperatrice has a waiting list of artists who want to show their work in her gallery, and formally is accepting submissions of work.

"I love to do it," she says. "I get bored with my own stuff after awhile. It inspires me as well, and it's great for people coming in."

All three artists share one key to making a go of it: Network, network and network.

As Hays says, "There are enough talented artists in Fresno that there should be no reason why an art gallery can't succeed."

And the clear corollary is, there are enough galleries that there is no reason an artist can't succeed in Fresno.

The reporter can be reached at mberry@fresnobee.com or 441-6370.